A Quest To Discover The Greatest Multivitamin On The Face Of The Planet.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I gotta admit, it's pretty rare that I actually release a podcast on a Monday morning. But the reason that I want to talk to you today is an important one. I've been on a quest for the past two years to discover the greatest multivitamin on the face of the planet. And this all began with my own frustration. See, two years ago, I decided I was fed up with supplements. Just fricking tired of all the tablets and capsules and pills and powders and oils and definitely bottles. Lots and lots of plastic bottles scattered everywhere. And I distinctly remember the day I finally decided that something needed to change. It was when I swung open the door of my refrigerator to dive into my daily regimen of vitamins, antioxidants, nutrients, micronutrients, fish oils. And I realized it was getting exhausting and overwhelming. I mean, sure, it was better living through science, but it was anything but simple. Now, I'm sure you've experienced the same thing. You open what seems like nearly a dozen different bottles to launch into some morning or evening supplement regimen. Or you pack your suitcase to travel and you struggle to prioritize which bottles to shove into your limited suitcase space and which ones to leave home. Or you spend an inordinate amount of time, your precious time, tracking and ordering and restocking your vitamin D or your fish oil or your greens or your multivitamins or your minerals or your antioxidants or your amino acids. You get the idea. Supplement clutter and supplement confusion and an utter lack of supplement simplicity. So don't get me wrong, I don't think supplements are an inconvenient and unnecessary curse that should simply all be tossed out. The there's certainly evidence that consuming nutrients from a healthy diet can be more beneficial than relying strictly upon supplements. But even if you're eating a healthy diet, studies have shown that it's nearly impossible in our modern era to get all our nutrients, vitamins and minerals only from food. For example, a recent paper by scientists from the Council for Responsible Nutrition reported that, and I quote, large portions of the population had total usual intakes below the estimated average requirement for vitamin A, C, D and E, as well as calcium and magnesium. And only 0% of the population had adequate intake of potassium, 8% adequate intake of choline, and only 33% adequate intake of vitamin K. The percentage of the population with total intakes greater than than the tolerable upper intake level was very low for all nutrients. And I gotta add, they were studying a population who was taking both food and multivitamins. So their conclusion was this. In large portions of the population, micronutrients efficiency is currently not being achieved through food solutions for several essential vitamins and minerals. Use of age and gender specific multivitamin supplements may serve as a practical means to increase the micronutrient status in subpopulations of, in this case, Americans, while not increasing intakes above the upper intake level. So, in a nutshell, I know that was a mouthful. That seems kind of strange. I mean, is the planet broken or something? That we couldn't actually get the nutrients that we need from food? And there's actually nine reasons for the failure of modern diets to supply our body with all the nutrients that we need. So first, modern commercial farming practices strip our precious soil of nutrients. And when plants are repeatedly grown on the same land for year after year, year, which is actually a relatively new phenomenon in agriculture that beats up our land but gives us lots and lots of calories. Of course, the overused soil loses its nutrients faster than they can be replaced. So over time, the plants have fewer nutrients to grow, so the farmers are forced to fertilize. Fertilizer, though, does indeed contain enough nutrition for a plant to survive until harvesting, but not enough nutrients to support your body's nutrient needs. Now, there's a book called not on the what really Goes into the Food on youn Plate. And it shows that plants now contain up to 75% fewer micronutrients. And this problem is compounded by the fact that most plants are not harvested fresh and the nutrients degrade as they sit on airplanes, trucks, shelves, and counters, sometimes for weeks before they arrive on your plate. So that's reason number one. Reason number two is that most modern fruits and vegetables are grown for maximum sugar calories and not maximum nutrients. And because of this, much of your fresh produce that us humans would have historically relied upon for nutrients are instead artificially high in calories, fructose and other sugar, while being relatively low in nutrients. Now, this is all passed on to animals, including you, that are eating the plants. And this is why one study in the Journal of Nutrition and Health found copper levels have dropped by 90% in dairy, 55% in meat, and 76% in vegetables. Now, third, pesticides are making this problem even worse because there's something called polyphenols in plants, which are produced as a defense against bugs and pathogens. Plants exposed to pesticides are lower in polyphenols and antioxidants compared to organic plants. Now, to make matters even more Frustrating. Even if you buy organic plants, there's no guarantee that they haven't been exposed to pesticides. So unless you're going out of your way to grow your own fresh fruits and vegetables in a pristine backyard garden which contains soil that you've treated with added minerals, you're at a huge risk for malnourishment and nutrient deficiency that adversely affects things like performance and fluoride, fat loss, recovery, digestion, brain sleep, hormone balance, and so much more. Now, fourth, it's not just nutrient poor plants that are affecting the nutrient status of the actual animals that we rely upon per food. It's also what those animals are being fed, especially in this case, grains. So compared to grass fed meat, grain fed meat is lower in antioxidants, lower in micronutrients, lower in fatty acids, lower in minerals, and lower in vitamins. But unfortunately, eating high quality organic grass fed and grass finished meat, pastured pork and naturally raised poultry is not a reality for many people living in urban environments or folks like me when I'm frequently traveling now. Fifth, the nutrients in your food aren't the only thing that are disappearing. Your liquids are being affected too. Unless you're drinking from your own well, or relying upon fancy mineralized water like Pellegrino or Perrier or Gerolsteiner, your bottled water, filtered water and tap water is often stripped of precious mineral. And if it does indeed contain adequate minerals, these are typically accompanied by enormous levels of fluoride and chlorine. So this means that unless you want to spend lots and lots of money on fancy water, you're pretty much stuck in a situation where you have to filter your water to get rid of the dangerous stuff. Then figure out other methods like supplementation to get the minerals that you'd normally be getting from water. And unfortunately, milk isn't much better than water. The majority of nutrients in milk are found in the fat. So while organic, raw, unpasteurized, full fat dairy is high in nutrients, most of us don't have ready access to that, especially at the typical grocery store. In addition, pasteurization can destroy many of the nutrients in both skim and full fat milk. Modern conventional milk and other dairy products from grain fed cattle has also been shown to be higher in aflatoxins and other mycotoxins. And that increases your nutrient needs even more, creating a vicious cycle. So whether it's due to nutrient poor plants, nutrient poor animals, nutrient poor milk, or nutrient poor water, most diets are now so micronutrient deficient that they require on average and there was a study done on this. Over 27,000 calories to actually supply all the essential nutrients that you need. In other words, in our modern era, you would need to be stuffing your face all day long to actually get what your body needs. And this does not even take into account the fact that if you're trying to lose weight by restricting calories, or if you're a physically active person, like a triathlete, or a marathon or crossfitter or weightlifter or any other exercise enthusiast, then your risk of nutrient deficiency is gonna be even higher. In other words, if you are A trying to lose weight by not stuffing your body full of excessive calories, as in 27,000 plus calories a day, or B you're an athlete or a physically active person, then you're pretty much guaranteed to be in a constantly malnourished nutrient deficit unless you figure out a way to squeeze some added nutrients in. The older you get, the fewer nutrients you absorb. So as you age, the worse things become. And that's reasons 6, 7 and 8 that you may need a little help over and above what you get from food, weight loss, exercise and age. Okay, so let's say that you dig your own well, you grow your own produce, you milk your own goats, you eat strictly grass fed meat and wild caught fish, you're relatively young and you avoid excessive physical activity or calorie restriction for weight loss. Then you're safe, right? No added nutrients necessary. Well, the unfortunate ninth fact is that unless you live on a pristine mountaintop in the Himalayas, you're exposed every single day to airborne pollutants, xenoestrogens from plastics and bpa, environmental toxins, mold, industrial solvents, electromagnetic fields, heavy metals, fluorescent lighting, constant stress, sleep disruption, and a host of other modern day assailants upon your biology. Your body simply wasn't meant to deal with these physiological stressors, all of which vastly increase your need for nutrients to help you fight the daily battle. So, for the nine reasons I just stated, depleted soil, nutrient poor produce, pesticides, conventional meats, subpar water and milk, weight loss, physical activity, age, and our modern post industrial living environment, you definitely shouldn't throw out all your supplements. So this was the conundrum I found myself in two years ago as I stood in front of my refrigerator door and sighed in frustration at the dizzying array of supplements and bottles. Now I knew that because of my extremely active lifestyle and the other reasons that I just listed, that I couldn't and shouldn't just throw out all my supplements. I knew that I needed to keep my precious nutrients topped off for better performance, faster recovery, optimized fat burning, clean digestion, superior mental focus, better sleep hormone balance. The list goes on. But I also knew that I was sick and tired of having to lug around a bunch of bottles, painstakingly use a weekly pillbox, literally, to keep track of my supplements like an old man tracks his medication, and then constantly be headed over to Amazon or some other website to reorder something that I was running low in. And then there was this gnawing worry at the back of my mind that any of these supplements I was ingesting could potentially be laced with something like chemicals or toxins or metals or some other illegal performance enhancing drug that could potentially damage my body, put pie in my face, and get me banned from competing in a sanctioned sport like triathlon. So I wanted better living through science. But I also desperately needed more simplicity. And I knew that somewhere, somehow, there must be a way to have both this ultimate combination of science and simplicity. So at that point, I embarked upon a quest to discover the greatest multivitamin on the face of the planet. Something that could cover all my bases from a nutrient standpoint without requiring this dizzying and inconsistent, inconvenient and exhausting array of pills and bottles and packets. After all, that's kind of the definition of a multivitamin, right? It should cover a multiple array of needs. Now, as a nutritionist, personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and strength and conditioning coach with pretty strict standards about what I find acceptable for myself or my clients to ingest, I also had a pretty distinct set of criteria that I knew a multivitamin must have. And there was actually seven criteria to be precise. So let me walk you through them. My first criteria was that a multivitamin needed to be made up of capsules and not tablets. Now, before completely shoving tablets under the bus, I'll acknowledge the two benefits that tablets possess. First, they're pressed together so hard that more nutrients can fill the same amount of space than you can put into a capsule. And second, it's cheaper to make tablets than capsules. But there are several drawbacks to using tablets. First, they're harder to digest because they're packed together so tightly and need far more binders and diluents to keep them together. It takes much longer for them to break down in your digestive system. Now, a capsule, on the other hand, breaks down within just minutes of hitting your digestive tract. And that's pretty important because of this little known fact that most of the nutrients in a multivitamin actually need to be absorbed in your stomach. So when these tablets take so long to break down and they pass into your intestinal tract, their content will be far less broken down and absorbed. And that means pretty expensive pee. Now, tablets also need lots of extra nasty ingredients like binders and lubricants and coatings and disintegrates and other excipients. And these ingredients must be added to make the tablet stay together, to make the tablet shiny and to make it break apart. So tablet press machines compact these powdered nutrients together that have already been mixed with the binders and the lubricants with a huge amount of force. And then to make them shiny and easy to swallow, the tablets get sprayed with coatings like shellac, which is just like the shellac you find on furniture, but instead it's labeled pharmaceutical glaze, or it's coated with vegetable protein, which is basically a protein derived from GMO corn. So I would definitely prefer a capsule to a tablet. Now, second, I wanted a multivitamin to have one morning and one evening dose, and that's it. So your body needs nutrients throughout the course of the day and not just one huge shotgun dose when, say, you get out of bed in the morning or before you go to bed at night. So I needed to find a multivitamin that was designed in such a way that it delivered important nutrients for daily metabolism in the morning and activity in the morning and throughout the day, but then important nutrients for recovery and rest and sleep in the evening dose, but do this without a dizzying array of capsules. So I'll admit it does take slightly more discipline to take a multivitamin twice in a day versus one time when you get up in the morning. But it's a much better way to deliver the optimal nutrients at the optimal times throughout the day. And after all, you'd rarely eat only breakfast or only dinner, right? So I figure if I can handle at least two meals, I can handle two supplement doses, as long as it's not a dozen different bottles of stuff. So my multivitamin criteria number three is that it has to be, on a related note, a low number of capsules. One extremely inconvenient factor in most multivitamin formulas out there is the number of capsules necessary for daily use if it truly is gonna give you the number of nutrients that you need. So I think that taking three capsules in the morning and three capsules in the evening is practical and doable. For me, anything less than six capsules per day can significantly reduce the efficacy of a multivitamin formula. And I couldn't find any that would allow you to still get the nutrients you need and be at less than six capsules per day. But then once you get over six capsules, it becomes this big pain to manage and difficult to swallow and a hassle to travel with. So a low number of capsules and somewhere in the range of three in the morning and, and three in the evening is what I wanted to shoot for. Okay, so multivitamin criteria number four is that I needed to have vegan and vegetarian friendly capsules. See, most capsule based multivitamins use capsules made from bovine gelatin. That's cows. And although I don't personally eat a plant based diet, I have many clients who are either vegan or vegetarian. So I wanted the actual capsule material to be made from the best alternative to cattle based bovine gelatin. And the answer would be a capsule, ideally made of something like cellulose, which is a natural vegetable based material. And it's just pure plant fiber, usually from a pine tree. So, in other words, I know it's important to many of my clients and my friends that no animals be harmed in the formulation of a good multivitamin. Multivitamin criteria number five is that it can't have any magnesium stearate or other nasty fillers. Now, magnesium stearate is probably the most common flowing agent you'll find in the other ingredients section on the supplements facts box on any multivitamin label. Magnesium stearate is a lubricant that's used to manufacture nutritional supplements to help powders flow through the equipment faster. It allows more tablets to be manufactured per hour, and it's a cost savings choice for a manufacturer. But studies show that magnesium stearate can reduce the absorption rate of some nutrients because it literally wraps around the nutrients and keeps them from being absorbed in your digestive tract. So although magnesium steara isn't necessarily harmful, it can vastly reduce the effectiveness of the nutritional supplements that you might be taking. So instead, I'd rather see a multivitamin use something like calcium laid, which helps powders flow through the manufacturing equipment, but it's a completely naturally occurring material or mineral that doesn't inhibit absorption. So calcium laurate is not as effective of a flowing agent as magnesium stearate is, and that means products can't be manufactured as fast. But calcium laurate can certainly get the job done without the need to use the magnesium stearate, which inhibits the nutrients. So basically, when it's necessary to add anything extra to a multivitamin other than like a nutrient or a botanical. I'd rather see all pure natural elements added because it allows you to take a multivitamin without worrying about unnatural or harmful ingredients you might be ingesting or the inhibition of nutrient absorption. Now my criteria number six was that a multivitamin should have no GMOs. And that's for personal health and longevity reasons and for consideration of the earth's environment. I just avoid like the plague any product that contains genetically modified organisms or GMOs. Now unfortunately, most multivitamins contain GMO laden ingredients like corn and gluten and some of the other nasty fillers I mentioned earlier. This requires that any multivitamin I would ever use would need to be closely analyzed by the manufacturer and it would need to be guaranteed to be absolutely certain that none of the ingredients are derived from GMO sources or that GMOs are used in their production. Now, a big one here is my criteria number seven and that's that any multivitamin I take or I recommend would have to be certified to have no, that's zero banned ingredients. Now like I mentioned, it's really important to me that any supplement I take is not only CGMP certified or manufactured in a certified good Manufacturing Practices facility to ensure purity, but it also needs to be guaranteed free of any ingredients that would get me banned from competing in triathlons or taint my body with unnatural steroids or hormones. So for years I've been under the impression that something called an NSF for Sport certification was the strictest third party verification standard by which to judge whether a supplement contains these potentially illegal or banned ingredients. But it turns out I was wrong. There's something even more strict than nsf and that is something called Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration or tga, which is the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency of Australia. It's considered the toughest regulatory agency in the world. And the TGA inspection and certification is conducted at a federal pharmaceutical level standard. So that means that supplements certified by the TGA are verified to be as pure as an actual pharmaceutical drug, which is a pretty high standard. So for me to hold a multivitamin to as strict a standard as a TGA certification would be pretty tough. Only a handful of companies in the US are able to achieve the status of holding a TGA certification. And there's only really one dietary supplement company that I know of in the US that ever has completed all three of the strict levels of a TGA certification since the requires not only a review of those good manufacturing practices every two years, but also an on site inspection of every single aspect of a multivitamin's quality control, lab procedures, pharmaceutical good manufacturing practices and standard operating procedures. But that's not all. I'd also prefer for a multivitamin be certified by what's called informed choice. Now informed choice requires five samples from three different production runs of a product to be tested, which would further guarantee, because of extremely rigid raw material and finished product testing and production procedures, absolutely no ingredient banned by any professional or amateur organization. In other words, I want rock solid bulletproof confidence that I can hand any multivitamin that I endorse or personally use to the best athlete on the face of the planet with zero reservations about whether or not the multivitamin is pure or it might get them banned. So call me strict, but those are my criteria. Now I also know that there are notoriously neglected ingredients in most multivitamin complexes that make them barely scratch the surface of your true nutrient needs. Especially if you're a hard charging athlete, exercise enthusiast, an aging person, a busy professional living a CEO esque lifestyle, or anyone else with advanced nutrient needs. So take vitamin D for example. The 200 to 400 international units of vitamin D you're going to find in most popular multivitamins is basically enough to keep a child from getting rickets and that's it. This isn't even close enough to support optimal hormone balance and physical or mental performance. And the problem is the multivitamins that actually do have the 2000 IU per day of vitamin D that I'd like to see do not include optimal amounts of vitamin A or vitamin K to allow for the actual ideal absorption of the vitamin D and the reduced risk of vitamin D toxicity. Or take vitamin K, a crucial fat soluble vitamin usually found in complete zero amounts. In a multivitamin, the body actually needs nearly 400 micrograms per day of the different types of vitamin K to support bone health, calcium and magnesium balance, and vitamin D absorption among a host of metabolic and immune boosting functions. Yet strangely enough, it's not even included at all in most multis. So what else is neglected that I search for on my quest to find the greatest multivitamin on the face of the planet? Well, first of all, most multivitamins don't have vitamin B6, B12 and B2 in their correct form. So the bioactive form of vitamin B6, for example, is pyridoxal 5 phosphate. But the most common form found in most multivitamins is pyridoxine HCl, which is not the active form of vitamin B6. So the pyridoxal 5 phosphate form is a must have. In my opinion. The most common form of vitamin B12 that's usually used is cyanocobalamin. And cyanocobalamin is absorbed at a much lower rate than methylcobalamin, which is the form of vitamin B12 that a multivitamin should actually have or take. Vitamin B2, riboflavin 5 phosphate is the bioactive form of vitamin B2. But unfortunately, riboflavin HCL is the form commonly used in multivitamin. And that form needs to be converted in an extra step in your liver to its active form. Now, why do most multivitamins cut corners on these forms of vitamin B? Well, they're either uninformed or they're just going for the cheap alternative. So a second thing that a lot of multivitamins simply neglect is folate in the correct form. So, folic acid is the most common form of folate used in nutrition supplements and fortified foods. But a significant percentage of the population has trouble converting folic acid to folate, which is the natural form found in foods and in your body. So a good multivitamin should use a form of folate called L5 methyltetrahydrofolate to ensure folate is actually absorbed. This does cost considerably more than folic acid when you're making a multivitamin. But again, I only want to multit with ingredients that work, not that just look pretty on a label and then give me expensive pee. So next, a multivitamin needs to have minerals that are actually absorbable. Minerals by themselves are poorly absorbed, but when you bind them to an amino acid, which is also called a mineral, chelate, they're absorbed much better. Now, technically, the most absorbable form of a mineral is called the bis glycinate chelate form. And to avoid the minerals in a multivitamin, simply creating again, expensive pee, I would like to see all the minerals like calcium and magnesium, copper, zinc, manganese, chromium, etc. Not just present, but in a chelated form. Now, the next one is a biggie, curcumin that's actually absorbable. Now, curcumin is one of my favorite supplements and it's received a lot of attention recently as a potent natural anti inflammatory nutrient that can control brain and muscle inflammation, positively affect muscle health, joint structure and function, and antioxidant activity in your gut, your liver, and even your heart. But the trouble with most curcumin ingredients is that they're extremely poorly absorbed. Now, there's one form of curcumin called the first phytosome form and it was recently developed by researchers in Milan, Italy. It's been shown to be absorbed 29 times better than a standard curcumin extract. And it's the only form of curcumin that I'd ideally like to see in a multivitamin if I wasn't going to go off and take a curcumin supplement separately. Again, this is about simplicity. Now, number five, a green tea extract that's actually absorbable would be enormously effective as well, because green tea is another powerful antioxidant that has been shown to have a mild effect on doing things like raising metabolic rate and improving fat oxidation without sending your central nervous system through the roof. But like standard curcumin extracts, standard green tea extracts are not well absorbed either. The same researchers who discovered the curcumin phytosome have also developed the green tea phytosome, which provides a much better absorbed phytoplankton form of green tea extract and would also ideally be in a good multivitamin. Now, finally, I'd like to see adaptogens because stress fighting adaptogens are another notoriously missing component of most multis. But in our hectic era they're a must have for sleep and de stressing and hormone balance. I've talked about them many times before on my podcast. Now, one of the most potent adaptogenic compounds that I discovered in my multivitamin research to both lower cortisol levels and raise testosterone levels and is called Relora and it's a blend of magnolia and philodendron. If added to a multivitamin, it could also help to curb cravings and stress related eating and help calm your mind and support rest and relaxation prior to bedtime. So as a high intensity guy, this addition would also be very important to me as a necessary multivitamin ingredient. So remember again, this all comes down to simplicity. This means that if you or me cannot get our hands on a capsule based, pure and safe, minimalist and simple multivitamin that provides everything that I just described, then it means we're instead forced to buy 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 different supplements and bottles to supply our daily nutrient needs and fill in all the holes that the multivitamin isn't giving. So that's what I've been doing for the past two years. I've been taking this deep, deep dive into educating myself on the wide world of nutrient supplements, ingredients, fillers, formulations and capsulation technology, and every aspect that would go into creating a multivitamin. And I've literally been pulling my hair out and hitting dead end after dead end as I've been trying to hunt down something that meets my strict quality criteria for a multivitamin. Now, of course, I've also found it incredibly frustrating when my clients or readers or podcast listeners or me simply have to keep on taking this crazy number of supplements or buying an unbelievable number of bottles and spending inordinate amounts of time when it's so straightforward to see what a multivitamin meets all our daily nutrient need should really have and not have in it. I've even gone so far as to consider simply hunting down the raw ingredients and formulating my own multivitamin. But frankly, I'm an author, an athlete, and a teacher, and I just don't fancy myself as a supplement manufacturer. I just don't have a desire to get into that business. I simply want a multivitamin that I can take with a clear conscience and recommend to you. I don't think that's asking too much. So then it happened. During one of the dozens and dozens of phone calls I made and countless hours attempting to hunt down the perfect multivitamin formulation, a raw ingredient manufacturer who I was talking to on the phone informed me of the existence of a new multivitamin formulation created by a company called Thorne Research in of all places, Dover, Idaho. That's right. Just 60 miles from the front door of my house in the tiny town of Dover, Idaho, are the Thorne Research facilities. After months and months of searching, it turned out the solution could possibly be right in my own backyard. And I thought that was pretty cool. So for over 30 years, this company, Thorne Research, has set the standard for exceptional formulations and quality and purity in the dietary supplement industry. And it's considered the most respected nutritional supplements brand in the healthcare practitioner space. That's right. This is the stuff physicians use with their patients. And I'd actually heard of Thorne before, but I always knew it was just for the fancy doctors and clinicians, so I really couldn't access it or use it. It was kind of behind the glass, so to speak. So until recently, none of these coveted Thorne Research products were available from me or any other personal trainer for that matter, to actually recommend to our clients or readers or listeners. Instead, these high quality private formulations were only available for physicians or registered dieticians to use with their patients, or only certified healthcare providers to use with their clients. But then this January, Thorne Research created a new branch called ThorneFX, and they designed it specifically to address the growing demand of fitness experts like me, who were seeking a solution for our clients, but don't have the privileged access to the fancy formulations that normally only a doctor or clinician would be able to prescribe or order, order, order, order. So I thought it was pretty interesting science that I now had access to some of the highest quality formulations on the face of the planet, produced in a facility literally an hour's drive from my home. But it turned out there was even more good news. I also discovered that when Thorne Research created their Thorne FX branch, they had not just created a multivitamin formulation, but they had specifically left no stone unturned to launch the most powerful absorbable multivitamin. On the face of this was a multivitamin that possibly met all of my strict criteria, but that previously had never been available to the general population unless their doctor or dietitian knew about it. It's called the Multi Ampm Complex and I immediately got my hands on it when I found out about it. Upon closer inspection and using it for 30 days, I knew right away that it was not a typical multivitamin formulated with these superior forms of vitamins and minerals. It's actually two unique formulations. It's got an AM formula designed to support daytime energy and then a PM formula designed to support rest and sleep and recovery in the evening. Now it had vitamin K1 and K2, and again, most multivitamins have no K1 and no K2 at all. It's got natural folate instead of the folic acid that I talked about earlier. It's got all the right forms of vitamin B2, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. It's got the chelated minerals. It has actually higher doses of magnesium as well than I've ever found in a multivitamin. It has the curcumin phytosome version, it has the green tea phytosome version, and it has Relora, that blend of adaptogenic plant extracts that help with relaxation and help to curb carb cravings and late night cravings and balance cortisol and testosterone and DHEA levels. So literally, this Multi ampm complex satisfied every criteria I require in a multivitamin. All the notoriously neglected ingredients. Not only that, but also a TGA and informed choice certification, no GMOs, no nasty fillers and ingredients, and a capsule instead of a tablet. Literally everything was in it. So I couldn't Believe it. When I first found out about the new formulation, it was three easy capsules in the morning and three in the evening. That was it. It was simple science. My quest was over. Mission accomplished. And you can see the label and the form full ingredients and I'll put them over in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com multi but again, it's just three capsules in the morning, three capsules in the evening. And it is the most comprehensive multivitamin I have ever used and ever seen. But it's also totally guilt free and literally satisfies all of my important criteria. And it's just so refreshingly simple. And when I pack to travel and I literally have one morning bottle and one evening bottle to toss in my suitcase and I have a heck of a lot of extra space in my refrigerator, I'm a happy guy. And better yet, if you need some icing on the cake, like anything extra added in, like some added fish oil or amino acids or an extra shot of vitamin D or extra iron, or even a tasty fish oil for your kids or a vegan protein powder or a whey protein powder, this new branch of Thorne Thorn FX has all that too, with the same unparalleled huge amount of quality that I've never been able to find before. It's like a one stop shop for everything I've ever looked for or wanted in a nutrition supplements line. And most importantly, it has that multivitamin that I've been trying to find for what seems like forever. So that's it. Pure and simple. I've never before been able to recommend a complete multivitamin that satisfies all my criteria. And I have always had a refrigerator full of a bunch of bottles. But now the problem is solved. And yes, this does mean that the Thorn FX Multi Ampm Complex is now my recommended go to source for the ultimate combination of science and simplicity. And furthermore, this entire Thorn FX line is now something that I'm personally backing, endorsing, vouching for. And I'm using it now in my own personal daily routine. And I'm loving it. And the best thing yet, and I know you probably want to know about this, an entire month of this multi AM PM complex is a little less than the average of 200 to $300 that most people are spending on supplements these days. Every month it's 60 bucks. 60 bucks for a whole month. And that includes both the AM and the PM complex. So rather than forking over hundreds of dollars for bottle after bottle of fancy supplements and powders and tablets and pills and oils. You get one multivitamin that hits all your needs for a fraction of the price. So you can just spend the extra money you're blowing on 10 different supplements on some fancy steak dinners, or chalk it away for your kids college or your next car. Now, if you're familiar with me or my podcast or the articles I've written in the past, then you're probably wondering what about all the other stuff that I've previously recommended, like what about TNT and what about Super Greens and what about my gut fixing pack or my endurance pack or the fat burning pack? And the good news is, all of these are still available. They still consist of specific ingredients that I may use with certain clients or I may recommend in certain situations, or use myself in certain situations when the need arises. I mean, everything I've ever recommended in the past is all excellent, extremely high quality stuff. And if you're happy with what you're currently using, then that's fine. But for science, simplicity, peace of mind, and some extra room in my refrigerator and my suitcase, I'm moving in the direction of shifting pretty much my entire personal supplement protocol to Thorn FX and specifically what I've discovered to be the greatest multivitamin on the face of the planet. This multi am PM complex. So you can check it out and read the ingredient label and kind of dig into it for yourself over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and you can also leave your questions over in the comments section where this particular podcast appears at BenGreenfieldFitness.com or you can email supportngreenfieldfitness.com if you have questions about how to use or implement any of the Thorn Effect supplements into your current protocol, or to ask your questions about multivitamins, or ask me questions about substitutions or replacements for other supplements you're currently taking. I know this stuff can sometimes be a little bit confusing, but I promise to personally respond and help to walk you through everything. And I hope you enjoy the new simplicity in your life. If you do decide to head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com multi and try this AM PM complex. It's literally satisfied My quest to discover the greatest multivitamin on the face of the planet. You're going to love it. You're going to save tons of money. And thanks for listening to this special podcast edition. I'm Ben Greenfield, over and out.