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Depending on who you ask multivitamins are:

A) Fundamentally indigestible placebos
B) Way too expensive.
and/or
C) an efficient delivery system for, uh, vitamins.

Opinions? I would like to make sure I have enough vitamin A so that next time I go to the optometrist he doesn't question whether I have ever eaten a fruit and or vegetable. (a couple of years ago)

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First suggestion would be...eat some fruit and vegetables. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Yes, you can obtain usable vitamins via pills. Some vitamins have more easily digested by humans in one form rather than another.

A reasonable, but boring way to figure out whether or not you have any dietary deficiencies is to record your intake and then make some calculations. A dietician can certainly help with this. One thing to remember is that vitamin deficiencies frequently don't happen in isolation. A diet with a vitamin deficiency may well be low in fiber as well...which you aren't going to get in the pill. If you want to do this, I can help. I suspect that you don't want to do this. I tried it myself less than a year ago, and it's a pain in the ass.

Provided that you do not have a malabsorptive disease (or a bowel resection), you should be able to obtain recommended nutrients fairly easily. (Unless you are strict vegetarian/vegan, in which case you will have to take special care to make sure you get B12.) You are not female, so there isn't special need to talk about iron, folate, and calcium.

There is probably no reason for you to be taking a multivitamin which contains more than 100% RDA for anything. Evidence is lacking for benefits from large doses of vitamins except to correct deficiency states. Large doses of vitamins are potentially harmful as well. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble.

If you are worried about vitamin A in particular, and aren't going to be adding fruits and vegetables to your diet, then eat some turkey (which also has a reasonably high amount of vitamin A).

In the US, unfortunately, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (1994) is the law of the land. There is no significant regulation of vitamins. You have no good way of knowing whether or not what you read on the label is what you are getting in the package.

A multivitamin should be relatively cheap, however. Buy one that has no more than 100% of any nutrient. Take it every other day. It should cost you less than a buck a month.