It's easy to confuse minerals and vitamins when it comes to nutrition. Adding to the confusion, "multi-vitamin" pills often contain both vitamins and minerals. In fact, vitamins and minerals -- while both necessary to maintain health -- are completely separate and distinct from one another.
Minerals
Minerals are ions, charged chemical particles, that you require for a variety of purposes, explain Drs. Mary Campbell and Shawn Farrell in their book "Biochemistry." There are many different minerals, some of which are metals like sodium and zinc, and others of which are non-metals, including chloride and iodide. You can obtain minerals from food sources, seafood is a rich source of zinc, and table salt contains both sodium and chloride, or you can get them by supplementing your diet with pills.
Vitamins
Vitamins are larger chemicals than minerals. In general, they're carbon-based molecules that assist in body reactions in one of several ways. Some vitamins help enzymes to function, where an enzyme is a chemical that assists in and regulates other chemical reactions, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry." Other vitamins assist in regulating processes like blood clotting, have immune system function, and are essential to vision. As with minerals, you can obtain vitamins from food or supplements.
Foods
Most foods contain a mixture of many different vitamins and minerals. For instance, shellfish are rich sources of several minerals, including zinc, and several vitamins as well -- B-12 among them. Generally speaking, the less processed a food is, the more likely it is to contain a mixture of many different vitamins and minerals. Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of both vitamins and minerals, and the most brightly colored of the fruits and vegetables are among the most vitamin- and mineral-rich.
Supplements
While it's not correct to say that minerals contain vitamins -- by definition, minerals are one thing and vitamins are quite another -- in common parlance, it may be reasonable to say that multivitamins contain minerals. Many brands of multivitamin supplement pills, including men's and women's daily multivitamins and prenatal vitamins, contain minerals as well as vitamins. On their own, however, vitamins don't contain minerals. A vitamin D supplement, for instance, is just that -- vitamin D.
References
- "Biochemistry"; Mary Campbell, Ph.D. and Shawn Farrell, Ph.D.; 2005
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
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