Vega Everyday-D: 400IU Vitamin D3 Chewable Tablets

RRP: from £5.95 for 100

--What does the promo say?--
"Suitable for the whole family, Vega EveryDay-D 400IU vitamin D3 chewable tablets have been designed for use by both adults and children from age 4 onwards. They are small, delicious blackcurrant-flavoured chewable tablets, designed to provide 10μg of vitamin D per tablet, as recommended by the UK government.

The 500 tablet bottle will provide vitamin D for a family of four every day for more than three months - so you only need 2 bottles to supplement your whole family every day throughout the whole of autumn and winter.

*Scientific Advisory Council for Nutrition
** Public Health England

1 Vitamin D3 contributes to the normal function of the immune system
2 Vitamin D3 contributes to the maintenance of normal bones and teeth
3 Vitamin D3 contributes to the maintenance of normal muscle function"

--Packaging--

The dark brown glass bottle is brightened up by the white and yellow label, as well as the golden screw-top. This evokes a strong idea of sunshine, which is how most of us naturally get vitamin D - and which we don't get enough of in the UK during the winter months.(Vegans can also find it difficult to get enough vitamin D as its primary sources are fish and dairy products.) The lid closes securely, but opens easily when needed.

--Directions for use--

Adults, and children from the age of 4, should chew one tablet per day. An advantage for those who find it difficult to swallow pills.

--Appearance--

The tablets are indeed small (smaller than your little fingernail) and a slight off-purple colour (reflecting their blackcurrant flavour).

--Taste and scent--

The tablets taste and smell of blackcurrant and are not overly sweet.

--Texture and consistency--

The tablets are slightly crunchy, but you do not have to bite too hard to chew them and they dissolve quickly in the mouth.

--Effects--

Vitamin D is not only good for building up the immune system, but also carries a whole host of other beauty and wellbeing benefits that help us out at this cold time of year: it can help weight loss (perfect for helping with those New Year's Resolutions!) and even prevent depression. But the benefits aren't just specific to winter: vitamin D is vital for cell growth and repair, meaning it stimulates collagen to fight the ageing process of the skin. It can also improve acne and eczema and I have certainly noticed my normally acneic skin looking calmer of late.

--Value for money--

£5.95 for 100 tablets comes to under 6p per day. A bottle of 500 tablets (which I was sent for free by Vega's PR) costs £26.95, which equals just over 5p per day - so a small saving. This competes well with other market offerings and as it is so pleasant to take - and the health benefits so numerous - I would recommend.

perfect partners

Calcium + Vitamin D, £5.35

Everyday-D: 400IU Vitamin D3 Spray, £5.95

Fit For School Stick Packs, £7.75

Infant-D: 400IU Vitamin D3 Drops, £6.95

Urgent-D: 2000IU Vitamin D3 Chewable Tablets, £7.95

Urgent-D: 2000IU Vitamin D3 Spray, £7.95

Beauty Website Review: Instant Body Upgrade

With Christmas fading into a distant memory and summer holidays on the approach, thoughts often turn in January to the spare tyre sitting around our waists. How to shift it?! The problem with many diets or gyms is that we don't receive enough guidance and can easily fall off the bandwagon.

Donna Richards and Tora Cullip, health coaches, aim to provide an alternative through the Instant Body Upgrade programme, which is available for a one-off payment of £97. This payment gives access to the Instant Body Upgrade website, which supplies a host of resources and support from Donna and Tora themselves to help you get the body and confidence that you want. 

So what do you get for your £97? The three-pronged approach dealing with your mindset, metabolism and motivation is dealt with mainly through videos where Donna and Tora can talk directly to you and share their expertise. This allows you to see that their bodies really do look like the photos (!) and allows them to reassure you in a largely non-patronising way through their friendly hints, advice and tips. Inspiring fact sheets are also available for download, as are recipes to get your eating on track, and progress sheets to track your fitness and inch loss. Exercise videos, and Donna and Tora's responses to user comments, are equally valuable.

The nicest part about this programme is that it's got no gimmicks or fads attached. This is good simple healthy eating and exercise, packaged in a way that suits busy women and supported by Donna and Tora themselves. The diversity of resources available, presented using clear straightforward language, is another plus.

This is not to say that there are no possibilities for improvement. Firstly, as this is supposed to be a long-term lifestyle change, there need to be far more recipes available (rather than only a short ebook's worth). This could be easily achieved through having a recipe space available for users to upload their healthy finds and discuss recipes after trying them. Speaking of this kind of collaborative space, a forum page would be equally useful, allowing users to not only comment on individual pages but also interact with each other much more closely. However, as the Instant Body Upgrade site is merely a glorified Wordpress page, Donna and Tora would need to upgrade their website significantly to make this possible. Equally, a 'MyPlate' facility similar to that on LiveStrong would enable users to track their food intake in more detail, which is also important to a programme of this type.

Nevertheless, despite these suggested improvements and the fact that a 'body upgrade' can never be 'instant', access to this website is still worth the £97 price tag. It costs little more than a 3-month gym membership and has the added bonuses of free recipes and motivational support from professional coaches. The modifications mentioned above would make it even better value - but even as it is, it will see you well on your way to having something closer to the body you want by the time you have to hit the beach.

*Bianca's Beauty Blog was offered free website access by Donna and Tora.

On a Quorn-style quest for a higher-quality life

We're always being told that we are what we eat. On the one hand I am naturally sceptical of this: having suffered with acne for nigh on 15 years, and having found that no change in diet seems to have helped the spots at all, I have no real reason to believe in it. On the other hand, I spent a little over a year as a vegetarian, giving up only when I got myself a French boyfriend (now husband) and realised a move to France (the land of the carnivore) was a real possibility. During that time, not only did my food bill go down, but I was also slimmer and had more energy. Even now that I eat meat again, I am still a vegetarian sympathiser and don't see the need to eat meat or fish every day at all.

There are plenty of beauty-related reasons to go veggie - as stated above, even without any meat substitute, my energy levels were through the roof and I enjoyed a slim yet pear-shaped figure (just "slim-ish" these days!). But what about those days when you just really, really miss sausages? Meat replacement products like Quorn can be helpful in this situation (although not in France, where I now live: even though the situation is improving, I have in the past picked up "meat replacement" products here to find chicken in the ingredients list). For those of you who aren't aware, products like Quorn are made up of mycoprotein, which is a protein that chiefly comes from a fungus named fusatium venenatum. And this protein/fungus has a lot of beauty benefits - basically, it is a superfood.

• It's got all 9 essential amino acids, which are classed as 'essential' because the body doesn't make them - so we have to put them in. These not only contain anti-oxidants but also help to keep your hair, bones and nails in good condition. 
• It's low in fat, which can be good for slimming if you're trying to achieve beauty through thinness. 
• It's an alkaline product (other alkaline products include herbal teas, carob, and whole grains). This is good for your overall health: our diets should be 70% alkaline as our bodies find it harder to digest acids.
• It contains minerals, including selenium (which protects cells from damage), zinc (helps keep hair and nail cells healthy, and helps with detox), iron (which is important for collagen synthesis, and thus anti-ageing), magnesium (for healthy bones and teeth), and calcium (which is good for strong bones, hair, teeth and nails - which is great news if, like me, you don't consume much dairy).
• Quorn also contains plenty of B vitamins, which help with eye health, are anti-oxidants, help treat skin complaints such as acne, are anti-ageing and anti-stress, help with wound healing, and help to regulate mood.

Shepherd's pie - made with Quorn. Yes, really.

All of this (especially the bit about it helping with acne) made me wonder why I hadn't tried it (or at the very least, hadn't tried it for a very long time; I genuinely cannot remember if I ever sampled it during my vegetarian days, as I cooked a lot from scratch). I therefore set about trying to find some in France, which is as good as impossible. A shame, as I had (in a funny sort of way) been quite looking forward to sampling it. But it's certainly affordable (£2.09 for 2 quarter pounders, for instance), and could be a good, healthy way of satisfying a meat craving without actually eating meat. All other ingredients in your recipe stay the same, so it's hassle-free too. And if it helps your skin, your mood, your weight, your energy levels, your hair or your nails, so much the better, surely!

To set off on the road to a more beautiful and varied life couldn't be easier; there are plenty of recipes to get you going on the Quorn website and elsewhere. And let others know how you get on, be it here (should you have any beauty-related benefits to share) or on my other site, Ferret Food and Wines: make dishes! Upload pictures and recipes! Share your tips and experiences! You can also do the same on Quorn's Facebook page.

It looks as if I'll need to try Quorn in England if I'm ever going to (somehow I don't think I'll be able to convince my carnivorous French husband to become some sort of elaborate Quorn rustler on his trips to Belgium - where it is sold). But hopefully with the majority of my readers being in the US and UK you'll find it easier to come by - and will be able to report back on its effects on your skin, your health, your mood, and your life.