On most days, you will find me trying desperately to eat the country’s best hamburgers—and when I think of it, trying to live healthier. I’ve recently made a point to mix vitamins and supplements into my daily routine, with mild success. On my doctor’s recommendation, I’ve paid out for Vitamin D, Vitamin B-something, fish oil, baby aspirin (not a vitamin), and quite a few others. Do they do anything? It’s hard to say.
Care/of, a personalized vitamin pack service, attempts to take the mystery out of daily vitamin supplements. In April, I was invited to “build a personalized daily vitamin pack with honest guidance and better ingredients,” and, with great enthusiasm, I did just that. After a month’s worth of customized vitamins, taken daily before breakfast, I can say that I really enjoyed it. I might even re-up.
The idea behind Care/of is simple: You should put only good things in your body, and each person’s body is different. Vitamins should come from trusted sources and should be customized to suit the physiology they’re meant to assist. With this in mind, Care/of makes clear its intentions to be honest about its sources and to provide quality supplements (like fish oil “made from wild Alaskan salmon sustainably harvested from the pristine waters of the North Pacific”). It should go without saying that website language is not to be trusted inherently, but this really is the Care/of mission. For more information (which is always a good idea when matters of health are concerned), you’re invited to ask your own vitamin-related questions (1-877-227-3631, hello@takecareof.com and @careofvitamins) as you like.
Here’s how it works:
- You take a short survey (before you sign up for anything; you can take it in two minutes) in which you declare your name, your familiarity with the vitamin world, what your health is like, what you’d like to improve in yourself (memory, heart, etc.), and more
- The website spits out a list of supplements that you might find beneficial and the reasons why (again, you can see your results without commitment)
- You decide what you’d like to order/not order
- Your pre-packaged daily “vitamin packs” arrive in the mail, in a cardboard tower that’s ready to be propped up
- You take vitamins personalized to you, for as long as you like
In my packs (stacked in the tower above) were:
- Ashwagandha
- Bacopa
- Fish Oil
- Rhodiola
- Vitamin D
For a month, I started each day by washing these things down with two cups of cold water. I took notice as my vitamin tower got lighter and lighter, and when I ran out of packs, I might say that I was even a little sad. It remains hard to identify what good my Care/of experiment has done my body, but I feel like I feel better. I also feel that I have tread thoughtfully in the world of vitamins and supplemental health, and as someone interested in avenues to better living, I feel mightily happy with the month Care/of allowed me.
Take your health seriously, and in that vain, you may wish to talk to a doctor before embarking on your own vitamin quest. I recommend doing research. But all that said, Care/of is worth a look.
Have you tried Care/of? What did you think?