Vitamins and minerals can taste bitter on their own, so vitamins in gummy form are often sweetened with sugar or corn syrup to make them more palatable. Some also contain natural or artificial flavorings. As practical as they are, gummy vitamins have several disadvantages. They owe their taste to sugar, erythritol, mannitol, isomalt and other sweeteners.
Some manufacturers market their vitamin gummies without sugar, and have replaced this sweetener with citric acid. But in most cases, the citric acid in gummies is just as harmful because it wears away the enamel that protects your teeth. The vitamins in gummies taste good because they're sweetened. A typical gummy vitamin can have up to 8 grams of sugar.
For an adult woman, that's one-third of the limit recommended by the American Heart Association. For children, the limit is lower. The sugar in gummies also sticks to the teeth, which can cause tooth decay, especially in children. The vitamins in gummies can be made with sugar substitutes, such as sugar alcohol, but these sweeteners can cause problems for people who are sensitive to them, such as stomach upset and diarrhea.
Gummy vitamins are chewable vitamins that have a texture and taste similar to gummy candies and come in a variety of flavors, colors and shapes. Because of all the additional ingredients a gummy vitamin contains, it's difficult to get enough of the actual vitamin in gummy.
