The results of my health assessment came back right before I left for my trip to Georgia. The results were mostly encouraging. My blood pressure was higher than I am used to (hello stressful life), but my glucose and other things I really care about were in acceptable ranges. There was one major problem: my HDL cholesterol was low. Like, really low. Dangerously low according to my results summary. So I made an appointment to see my doctor for a second opinion and test, and started researching ways to raise my “good” cholesterol.

There were a few things mentioned to increase HDL levels, but I was already doing most of them. Exercise, maintain a low weight, don’t smoke or drink, etc. One thing I wasn’t doing, however, was eating more vegetables. Green, leafy, non-meat product vegetables.

See, I like spinach and broccoli and Brussels sprouts and lettuce. The problem is I don’t like taking the time to eat them, especially when I could be eating something else, like a hamburger. I resolved to eat more salad, and started thinking about ways to increase my daily green leafy vegetable intake.

I remembered (fondly, actually) drinking wheat grass juice when I lived in Oregon. I would walk from work to one of the local grocery stores and they’d cut some grass out of a little tray and run it through a big ass juicing machine. It tasted how a freshly-cut lawn smells. Unfortunately there isn’t anything close like that to me, so I started poking around for an in-home alternative.

The concept of cultivating and producing wheat grass juice seemed like a big mess to me, so that led me to pre-juiced bottled product or powders. The bottled stuff was expensive and the potency questionable, so I asked about and heard good things about Vitamineral Green by Healthforce Nutritionals. Luckily, it was available via Amazon Prime and I was able to get it delivered for $45.50 second day air.
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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.
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