Yes, mega dose pharmaceutical grade vitamins aren't the best choice to supplement your diet with. For more info about this read Lorrie Medford's book, Why Do I Need Whole Food Vitamains. Vitamin supplements are important for a variety of reasons. 1. The food that is sold at commercial grocery stores have a much lower nutritional content than they did several decades ago. For example, You have to eat 40 cups of spinach now, just to get the same amount of nutrition from one cup of spinach that you could get in the 1940's. Same with all other commercially grown foods. 2. The chlorine in our drinking water, shower/bath water, etc, along with white vinegar that is in just about every condiment, salsa, or anything pickled, kills the natural, healthful bacteria in our intestinal tract. Not much is fermented anymore, which is a very healthy process. Braggs apple cider vinegar, or a good organic beer/wine are great choices. A good probiotic helps to balance out the good bacteria, which helps keep the bad bacteria, and yeast overgrowth, at bay. 3. Anymore, most people have a very screwed up ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 essential fatty acids. Basically, the oil found in fish, green leafy veggies, and grass fed meats(omega 3's) vs the oil from grains(omega 6's). Both of these are very important for a healthy body, but we need much less omega 6's and a lot more of the omega 3's. And if you only need one reason to start taking a fish oil supplement, here it is, Omega 3's are really good at helping people lose weight, naturally. 4. Iodine is a very important trace mineral, for a lot of reasons besides having a healthy thyroid. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get even the minimum daily requirement from eating absolutely perfect anymore. A supplement of this mineral is a must. That's why we have iodized salt. The only problem with that is most people stopped using this because of how it affected their blood pressure. Try Real Salt instead, or take a good iodine supplement. The order of vitamin importance is as follows, The Omega 3 is the most important, followed by a good probiotic supplement, then a good multivitamin and iodine supplement comes in third. Standard Process is a great line of vitamins, one of the best. Most Chiropractors carry this line. Garden of Life is another great line of vitamins. Barlean's flax seed oil or Carlson's fish oil are good sources of omega 3's. Hope this helps, and yes, getting all of your nutrients from what you eat is the optimal way of doing things. Unfortunately, commercially grown food makes that an impossiblity anymore. Go organic, shop at farmer's markets(ask questions though), and watch out for dis-information, there's a lot of that going around.