For Vegetables

What is the point in eating fruits and vegetables if vitamin tablets give you everything you need?

If vitamin tablets give you the same amount of vitamins and mineral, if they give you everything your system needs, what's the point of eating fruits and vegetables if it makes no difference? PS. Answers preferably from anyone qualified in the area of nutrition, doctors, nurses etc. Thank you

Public Comments

1. you damage your liver and kidneys.
2. The Doctor Obvious in me says,'The vitamin pills just don't taste as good as old-fashioned food.' Also they don't provide the needed calories.
3. There is no fiber in a vitamin and nothing man made is equivalent to that which nature provides. www.diet-and-exercise-for-health.com
4. Umm fruit and vegetables are healthy and give you more than just vitamins that your body need plus in the long run vitamin tablets aren't as good for you.
5. fruits and veggies not only provide micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) but many anti-oxidants which protect the body in numerous ways. they also help to balance the ph of the body which is needed for optimum health. with out a diet based on whole foods vitamins are near worthless. you don't really expect to maintain the health from a pill do you?
6. no vitamin advertises that it provides everything you need. It's a supplement for some items that might be left out due to diet, but a pill is in no way as absorbant or effective as eating/drinking the real thing. But there are also needed components that you just can't get enough of that particular mineral/vitamin from the food you eat without overdoing something else, which is also where the supplement comes in (i.e. if you ate enough calcium for your health/diet, it might contain more fat than cutting a portion of a meal and supplementing a 'pill' for)