This is a sponsored video about Ritual.
What even are vitamins, and how do they get them into a vitamin?
That is, multivitamin capsules, like this one from Ritual.
Well, it’s a surprisingly complicated topic, made more so by the fact that lots of multivitamins
that I’ve seen aren’t super clear about what exactly is in there or why. This is what
I like about Ritual.
Ritual tells you what they put in here and where it comes from — they call that “traceability”
— AND they explain their reasoning. Ritual tells you why they choose to put some things
in here and not others, and they back up those choices with science. Save 10% on your first
three months of Ritual supplements with my link and code in the description.
So, itamins are a subcategory of essential nutrients — things we all need to consume.
Some nutrients are not essential — a body can get by without them, or a body can actually
make them inside.
In the case of essential nutrients, the only way to get them is from the outside world,
like from food or in some cases the environment, like how vitamin D can come from the sun.
That’s the distinction between essential and non-essential nutrients. Then there’s
the distinction between macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macros are big things — things we need to eat a lot of, like fats and proteins. It would
be very hard for me to cram my protein needs into a little pill. If I want to supplement
my intake from food, I reach for something physically bigger — a shake, like this one
from Ritual. It’s vegan, even though I’m not, which helps me diversify my protein sources.
And it’s formulated with that same Ritual philosophy of transparency. You can see what’s
in here, where it comes from, and it’s darn tasty. It’s no pill, but it dissolves in
cold liquid or in a smoothie.
That’s an example of a macronutrient. Micronutrients are things we need to consume, but we only
need a tiny little bit of them.
Like, under the microscope here, that is my thumbnail, those are vitamins floating around
in a Ritual capsule. Somebody like me generally gets them from food. I’m lucky enough to
have constant access to a wide variety of fresh foods. And Ritual believes in a “food
first” approach. That means they recommend meeting most nutrient needs through a healthy,
well-varied diet, and then take a supplement to help fill nutrient gaps.
Ritual has researched the typical diets of Americans, identified potential nutrient gaps
we may have, and they’ve designed their supplements to fill those gaps. This Ritual
bottle for men my age contains lots of things I might could use a little more of — including,
but not limited to, vitamins.
And here we finally come to it. Vitamins are the subset of essential micronutrients that
are also organic compounds — “organic” in the chemistry meaning of the word, not
the agricultural meaning of the word.
Though they do try to get their ingredients from non-GMO sources, if that’s important
to you, and they’re vegan-friendly — non-animal. But anyway…
What are all the vitamins? Well, let’s go through them alphabetically, because conveniently
they are labeled with letters.
Vitamin A. Vitamin A is generally used to encompass a group of compounds called retinoids,
and here already things have gotten complicated.
A particular vitamin isn’t necessarily just one compound. There are things called vitamers
— very closely related forms of that vitamin that do the job of that vitamin in the body.
In the case of Vitamin A, the job is to support normal vision and immune function. The particular
Vitamin A vitamer the folks at Ritual have chosen for my bottle is retinyl palmitate,
which is a bioavailable form of Vitamin A that they like — it’s easy for my body
to actually use it.
Vitamin B. This one is even more complicated.
Because what we call “Vitamin B” is actually eight different vitamins, sometimes called
the “Vitamin B complex.” These are not different forms of the same substance that
all do the same job in the body. These are eight distinct compounds, each with its own
unique structure and job to do.
That’s why their alphabetical labels have the little numbers after them — B1, B2,
etc, and why you might even be more familiar with their actual names. In the case of those
two it's thiamin and riboflavin.
Yes, the numbers go up to 12 even though there’s only eight of them. Yes, that’s super confusing.
Yes, we’ll talk about that another day.
Vitamin B is really eight different vitamins. Scientists have grouped them together for
chemical reasons. They're all water-soluble, for example — aka they all dissolve in water.
In contrast, Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and is best absorbed in your body with fat. They
also group the B vitamins together because those eight compounds perform interrelated
roles in normal cellular functioning.
But here’s the thing — a guy my age, living where I live, I probably get most of my B
vitamins just fine from food.
Like, niacin — Vitamin B3 — there’s plenty of it in a typical diet of a person
like me, with or without meat. The only B vitamins Ritual puts in my bottle are folate
and B12.
Folate, aka vitamin B9, is kinda like Vitamin A in the sense that it has multiple forms,
multiple vitamers. And this is where it’s really great that Ritual tells you which form
they use and why.
There are some forms of folate that some people might not be able to use, because of a common
genetic variation. Ritual gets around that by including folate in its active form.
B12 is another interesting one — cobalamin. Me, personally, I probably get plenty of it
because I eat dairy and, on occasion, red meat. But a vegan can have a really hard time
getting B12.
Like, nori and nutritional yeast products are the only two non-animal foods I ever eat
that have lots of B12. So, that’s why B12 is in the bottle.
There’s no Vitamin C in the bottle, because guys like me usually get more than enough
ascorbic acid from food. It’s in citrus fruit and bell peppers, for example, and in
other foods that the manufacturer has fortified with Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid supports normal
immune function.
But not everyone is a guy like me, and so Ritual does put Vitamin C in some of their
other formulations, like this one for postnatal women. These formulations are backed up by
research, which you can read all about on Ritual’s website.
Vitamin D is similar to vitamin A in that it has a few distinct vitamers. Vitamin D
helps your body absorb calcium, and helps support bone health.
Apropos of calcium, let’s do a tangent on minerals. Not all essential micronutrients
are classified as vitamins. Some we call minerals instead.
Why? Well, because they’re not organic compounds. They’re elements — things from the periodic
table. They’re not vitamins, but they are essential micronutrients.
And guys like me might not necessarily get enough of some of them, so they’re in my
multivitamin even though they’re not vitamins.
Also in my multivitamin is Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol, which helps my body to absorb the calcium
I ingest.
Vitamin D can be obtained through sun exposure as well as from food.
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that many Americans
are not getting enough vitamin D from diet. I probably get a lot of Vitamin D from milk
products, which are commonly fortified with Vitamin D. But again, if you don't do milk,
that can be a problem. Ritual sources their Vitamin D from sustainably-sourced lichen,
rather than from animal sources. Whether that matters to you or not, isn’t it nice that
they come out and tell you?
Then there’s Vitamin E, which is a fat-soluble antioxidant. It’s found mostly in nuts and
seed oils but also occurs in some fruits and vegetables. Ritual gets theirs from rapeseed
oil instead of soy, if you’re avoiding soy — or even if you don’t care, isn’t it
nice that they tell you.
The last vitamin is K, which is important for normal blood coagulation (clotting), and
it supports bone health.
The particular form Ritual puts in this bottle is Vitamin K2, menaquinone. Again, that’s
one that vegans may have a hard time getting from food, plus it’s a form that lasts longer
in the body. Again, isn’t it nice that all of this is on the website, down to the factory
in Norway where they make it?
What happened to vitamins G-I? Why does it skip from E to K? That’s a funny and long
story that we’ll tell another day.
But some people do say “Vitamin F” to refer to two essential omega-3 and omega-6
fatty acids, even though the U.S. government does not actually classify them as vitamins.
Fat is considered a macronutrient, not a micronutrient, and therefore not a vitamin.
But one so-called “Vitamin F” that Ritual does put in my mutli is Omega-3 DHA. This
is a fatty acid that supports brain and heart health. And they get it from microalgae, not
fish so it’s vegan.
Remember, Ritual is vegan-friendly, non-GMO, gluten-free, major allergen-free, no artificial
colorants.
And Ritual mails them right to your door so you never fall off the multivitamin wagon.
The packaging is made with 100% recycled materials, because that's the kind of thing that Ritual
thinks about.
Do you and me both a favor: use my link and code in the description and you'll get 10%
off your first three months of Ritual multivitamins. Use my link and code in the description, save
10% on your first three months. Thank you, Ritual.
And you — however you get your vitamins — get your vitamins.