I have a hard time ingesting adult vitamins without getting nauseous. I have to bracket a pill-taking between eating two hours beforehand and not exercising two hours afterwards. I don’t plan ahead very well, so this meant I skipped taking a vitamin more often than not. I found that I can chomp down a child’s chewable vitamin without incident, and wrote about Costco’s chewable vitamins about eighteen months ago.

The short version: nasty.

However, I was desperate to develop a tolerance to the taste in order to get my essential vitamins and minerals. I Pac-Manned my way through two bottles, and shared more than a few with my dogs. When it was time for round three, I was disappointed to see that Costco didn’t carry them any more, or at least didn’t have them in stock. They were replaced by the sugar-free version. I was both skeptical and optimistic. I was hopeful that they tasted better than the sugar-rich ones, but I’d developed a sort of chewable vitamin Stockholm Syndrome.

The short version: less nasty, but I hope you have strong teeth.

I almost busted my toof apart the first time I ate one. I heard a loud CRACK! and something shattered in my mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was my molar or the vitamin. Some cautious munching revealed that I had broken the vitamin in two. In the two weeks following, I have yet to comfortable eat one of these fuckers. It is at the point where I steel myself and squint my eyes before chewing.

They are so tough that my dog Pearl has a hard time with them. This is the dog that has eaten two DVDs, a hardback book, two mobile phones, and who knows what else.

However, they don’t taste bad, or as bad as the originals, so that’s good for something. The price also stayed the same … I hate it when I get penalized for buying the healthier version of something.

If you find it difficult or uncomfortable to process swallowed vitamins and want to get 33% more vitamins than an equivalently-priced bottle of Flintstone’s, give the Kirkland sugar-free child chewable a try from Costco. Just make sure your teeth are in good order, and you have your dentist on speed-dial.

I used to (somewhat regularly) take a multivitamin, especially when I was losing fat thanks to my personal trainer. The problem with swallowing vitamins is that I normally had a stomach ache afterwards. If I ate beforehand, I just felt a little queasy. If I didn’t eat breakfast, I would be nauseous all day to the point of vomitola khomeni. I laid off vitamins for almost a year until Lady Jaye and I were strolling around Costco. We saw a ginormous bottle of Flintstone chewable vitamins. A 25w bulb lit dimly above my head. If I chewed the vitamin, would it still make my stomach upset? I was willing to try — but I didn’t want to buy a $20 bottle of Flintstone vitamins to find out. Being the cheap fucker that I am, I looked for the Costco “Kirkland” house brand equivalent. Sure enough, Kirkland carried a knockoff at about half the cost of the Flinstones.
Read the rest of this entry »