Content contributed by: Jane Ong
I never had the discipline to take vitamins. I never had the taste for the gigantic vitamin pills either. I don't think I know how to swallow them without choking. Although I firmly believe in the benefits of vitamins, I'm not sure if the vitamin pills in the market really contain the vitamins their bottle labels say they have. After all, the label always have this warning that negates every benefit the label claims, "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."
So I never bothered to take vitamins. I rarely got sick anyway because I'm disciplined in always washing my hands and not touching door knobs and elevator buttons with my bare hands. I always carry a pack of kleenex to open doors and operate the elevators.
But last week, I had my first cold for years. It'd been so long that I didn't even remember how it was like to have a cold. The sore throat in the middle of the night woke me and reminded me how bad a cold felt. I think I got it because my colleagues at work were sick and they were coughing at my face literally. This is why I really appreciate the Japanese culture. Japanese who have a cold or flu often wear masks because they don't want to cough up into the air and infect others. But in other countries and America, sick people go to work, proudly cough up into the air as if it's their God given right. So, that's how I got my cold. I think my immune system had been pretty good all those years but finally there was this strand of cold that got me down.
Out of desperation for cold relief, I went to the drugstore to look for Vitamin C. I tried to look for a brand that claims to use all natural ingredients only, and a brand that is well established. My feeling was, if I were to take some magical supplements based on faith only, I should take one that is least likely to do harm to my body. That's when I discovered the above vitamin C gummies ($7.99 for a bottle of 80 gummies). I love candies anyway, so why not? I took two gummies for each of the 3 days I was suffering from my cold symptoms and I have been taking them everyday even after my cold symptoms were gone on day 4. It's because I enjoy candies and I want to finish up the whole bottle. These vitamin C gummies have good orange candy flavor with no after-taste at all. They taste pretty good to me for candies' sake. And if these candies actually have all the Vitamin C the label claims they have, minus all the artificial ingredients, then these are worth my jump of faith.
These vitamin C gummies are made in Columbia, not in the USA, so do I trust the manufacturing process in Columbia? And do I ever wonder why they can't be made in the USA but only in Columbia? Yes I do wonder and yes, my speculative answers in my mind for these questions cast certain doubts about the quality of these vitamin gummies. But I don't care, because to me, great tasting candies are always worth the risks of the lack of FDA evaluation and health benefits. Whether my recovery from my cold in 3 days was due to my own strong immune system or the help of the extra vitamin C I took from these delicious gummies, this vitamin is worth taking during the cold season. Life is a gamble and taking this vitamin C during my cold is a gamble I'm willing to take, even if it's only for the taste of it. But will I buy another bottle when I finish this one? No, not until I have another cold again. It's because I don't want to limit my consumption of snacks to just the candies manufactured in Columbia.
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