Hi, I asked them about this and this is their response: Thanks for reaching out! The Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) for folate in pregnancy is 600 mcg DFE. The RDI is the daily intake level of a nutrient that is considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 97–98% of healthy individuals in the United States. The US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends a daily supplement of 400–800 mcg folic acid for all women who are planning or capable of pregnancy.” (400-800 mcg of folic acid is the equivalent of about 667 to 1333 mcg DFE—making our dose of 1000 mcg DFE right in the middle.) Our previous dosage of folate is considered safe, but we reduced it because new research suggests higher dosages does not necessarily provide additional benefits.

Do you recommend any multivitamins brands for children? As the kids are picky eaters sometimes I’m worried if they’re getting all the vitamins

I received my ritual Prenatal and been taking it. Then I realized that FOLATE in my bottle is 1700 MCG DFE (1000 mcg). Is that too high? They recently changed it to 1000 MCG DFE which is lower dose than in their Essential for Women that has 1020 MCG DFE (600 mcg). That means their Folate in new formulation is only a little over 400 mcg, which I worry if too small a dose for pregnant women. Most prenatal vitamins contain 600 mcg of Folate/folic acid. Also frustrating is that they are subscription based, and delivery sucks. I miss days of taking prenatal because the delivery is not on time. What makes it worse is that they are out of stock now.

I bought MegaFood after reading your Prenatal reviews. I bought Mega Baby & Me 2. I thought MegaFood is the best that would fit my Pregnancy prenatal needs. However, I came across this on Amazon. One reviewer said that “S. cerevisiae is beer/bread yeast and It does NOT make D3 (cholecalciferol) naturally. It makes D2 (ergocalciferol), which is similar, but definitely not the same. In theory, it is possible to engineer yeast to make D3, but definitely not without the final organism being GM.”

What do you think about it? Just want to know your thoughts because MegaFood says they are organic and non-GMO. And I also do not now if I should worry about it being D2 though final product is D3.

Is this not true for Ritual??

Thanks!!

This site’s testing has me nervous about many of the major vitamins.
https://www.puremarket.com/search/?refinementList%5Btaxonomies_hierarchical.product_cat.lvl1%5D%5B0%5D=Health%20%26%20Fitness%20%3E%20Prenatal%20Vitamins

How do you feel about Klaire Labs Prenatal vitamins?

Thanks for finally replying. I did read that part of your post and appreciate you mentioning it. That line needs to be developed more because it is a critical piece of your guide and transparency in this space for your readers. GOL or anyone else is not producing a “raw” prenatal. That is impossible unless someone is taking a truly whole food prenatal that contains raw natural ingredients and even then the term “raw” isn’t regulated unless one looks to the RAW and CLEAN standards (https://cleanfoodcertified.org). The issue of country of origin of the vitamins should also weigh heavily in your rankings of a brand. All Chinese vitamins should be a mark down for a brand. Consumers looking to support a natural brand like the ones mentioned would likely want to know if that brand is secretly support Chinese vitamin companies that are polluting the environment. It was so bad the Chinese government finally did something about it recently and prices for all vitamins shot up.

Hi Chase-Thanks for taking the time to write in, and I’m sorry that we’ve not had time to respond to your emails personally (we don’t have the capacity to respond to individual emails anymore, unfortunately). You’ll notice that we did actually explain the following in the post: “One particularly sneaky move involves culturing cheap synthetic vitamins in yeast and then using the yeast culture as if it’s a “food-based” form.

It’s unclear if these yeast cultured vitamins are less effective than truly food-based ones, but either way, it’s not the type of transparency we like to see in our Good Stuff Brands! (Garden of Life does this, but we give them a nod as the only raw organic prenatal vitamin we could find.)”

I will definitely reach out to Josh to learn more.

Thanks again!
-Maia

Hi there-Thanks for putting Nutrigold on our radar! We will definitely look into this brand when we update the guide. As for the stearates, we did look into those and I know they are controversial. Ultimately, we sided with Dr. Ax on this (I’m a big fan of his), who says;
“The bottom line is this: Like most fillers and bulk additives…stearate isn’t healthy in high doses, but it’s definitely not as harmful to consume as some make it out to be because it’s typically only available in minuscule doses.”

For anyone that needs some real guidance on pregnancy nutrition then reach out to Josh Boughton. He has more knowledge than anyone I know in the industry. He is an herbalist, industry consultant for 15+ years, honest, smart and funny. He truly cares about the industry and being honest about what he recommends and sells. The quality checks that he goes through to ensure what he sells is truly a quality product is second to none.
https://www.joshboughton.com/pregnancy

Again, I have no financial relationship with Josh or Neal. They are some of the few telling the truth and it is enlightening, frustrating and refreshing to learn the truth. I’m simply tired of blog posts such as this getting it so wrong, not editing the content based on feedback and then inadvertently misleading their readers. I’m a fan of what Maia is doing and use and respect her guides but not her supplement guides. -Chase

Can you please confirm where you received info regarding stearates in GOL Raw vitamin line? Our whole family uses the Raw line (men’s, women’s, family/kids, and prenatal). I personally called to check up on this and the response that I received is that it’s a chelated form derived from whole food sources and not classified as a citrate or malate form of magnesium. I tend to believe this as they do contain the correct forms/sources of other vitamins/minerals to include Folate, D3, B12, Iodine etc. We’ve been very happy with the RAW vitamins line for several years now, however, I do like to stay informed. If you can please provide any concrete info regarding your claims I’d greatly appreciate it, thanks!

Yes, I love this one!

Ha, sure! We haven’t done a full guide, but we did a post here: https://gimmethegoodstuff.org/best-multivitamins/

Yes, Ritual uses some synthesized nutrients, but they’ve done careful research about which might actually be better in their synthesized form.

Hi Natalie-
I haven’t had time to look into this deeply, but at quick glance this one looks like a great choice for someone who can’t have iron:
https://amzn.to/2Vl7LSc

UPDATE: After several phone calls and them telling me that it would arrive on time (it didn’t) they sent me a free bottle so that this would not be an issue again. I appreciate them sending me another bottle as a buffer for sure.

I am trying to get a handle on the different certifications out there. What do you know about the C.L.E.A.N. certification? I have come across that one on a supplement as well, but many don’t have it. Thanks!

Do you also recommend “Essential for Women” as a multivitamin, for those of us who are not pregnant, (https://ritual.com/products/essential-for-women-multivitamin) based on your prenatal guide: https://gimmethegoodstuff.org/safe-product-guides/organic-prenatal-vitamins/?

Let us know and thank you for all your good work. It’s appreciated.

I take this one as well and didn’t see it on the list and was curious
if they researched it. ???