I'm currently grappling with this same topic. My question however, isn't so much whether or not multi's are needed, but whether to use isolated or whole food supplements. No one can tell me, without qualified soil tests and full-spectrum tests on produce, that the foods that are generated today are not deficient in nutrients. Even organics. If we consider agricultural practices over the past 50 years or so, we learn of how the systematic abuse of the fields has depleted the soils. Even the organic fields are largely converted conventional fields of yesterday. I know that the soils can be replenished, but how much, and with what results in food quality. Not to mention the time from harvest to market, the mode of transportation, the time from market to home, and then consumption, and let's not forget the method of preparation. All of these issues play a part in the available nutrients of each food.

Now if you grow your own food in organic farms of 50+ years, and you don't drink chlorinated or fluoridated water, and you have kept to a whole food diet throughout your life, you probably do not need to supplement. As for me, pass the vitamins.

My guess is the soil is depleted and we do not get enough vitamins and minerals in even organics. And probably isolated vitamins are not good for us.

So here's my solution. In addition to eating whole, healthy foods, every day have 1 glass of fresh, mixed vegetable juice plus put a big spoonfull of some kind of superfood/green drink in the juice. Pumps those good vitamins and minerals right in to the blood stream.