Vitamins and Supplements: What we take and how we approach them

 I get asked often if we take any vitamins or supplements. What I take, who takes what in our house, and what am I taking while I'm pregnant. Now that i have a bit of time, I wanted to answer these!

 I'm sorry if you can't watch videos, or if they aren't your cup of tea, but I really like them because they are easier for me. You can expect posts like these to have both video and written parts to them. I'll keep them simple and to the point though.

So to start, yes we do take vitamins in our house. A lot of thought and research goes into our health decisions, and we are always learning new things, so sometimes new items get added or taken away. I'm going to explain more in the video below of what I take/took at different stages of the year and situations for our whole family and why, but here, I will give you a brief list of what we are all currently taking.

For Myself: I take a prenatal vitamin called baby and me herb free by mega food. It's completely natural, gluten free, vegetarian,testing free,soy free, dairy free, farm fresh, and GMO free. I also take vitamin D3,  a 7 billion c.f.u probiotic and a natural vitamin C vitamin.

For Mackynzie: She takes an organic children's multi vitamin called yummy bears organics. They are gluten, dairy, gelatin, and GMO free. (She gets one per day unless fighting a cold or something.). She also takes a childrens natural vitamin D3, and a children's 3 million c.f.u probiotic.

For Cody: He takes the same vitamin C supplement as me, and sometimes a natural multi vitamin, but not often.

For maintaining overall health though, we all make sure to incorporate certain foods daily though, so I would consider it just as important and in the same category as vitamins and supplements. We fully believe you should try your very best to get all your nutrients and vitamins from real food sources (I'll explain why we choose to take vitamins on top of it, in the video below.). We incorporate the following into our diet daily (and we do our best to keep it up as a daily routine!) :

1) dark leafy greens, almost always lightly cooked and paired with a healthy fat (why do we do this?). We consume these in smoothie form- or sometimes. I pre cook leafy greens and blend them all in a huge batch with a healthy fat such as coconut oil or ghee, then place them in ice cube trays. Once frozen I place the cubes in a baggy. We pop 2-3 cubes in either a smoothie or a natural juice like mango or orange for quick greens. (turns into green orange juice, taste is not altered.) Some vegetable heavy days we may skip the green cubes, but most of the time we are busy and need them. Remember how important it is to rotate your greens and not eat too much of the same for a period of time.

2) Home made bone broth. Packed full of nutrients and is just such a super food in itself. We try to consume every day. Either hot with salt and pepper like tea, or incorporated into cooking.

3) healthy fats like coconut oil or avocados. both simple to add and super important for me while I'm pregnant. (I will even mix a spoon full of coconut oil into my hot tea or hot cocoa treat. I'll either snack on an avocado half or add half to my green juice.)

4) *personal preference* We like to have plain Greek yogurt daily for calcium, probiotics and protein. I mix our probiotic into our yogurt.

**Look out for the hilarious photo bomber. Seriously This guy constantly makes me laugh! **


 So that's the basic run down of what we do with vitamins and supplements. Hope it was informative !