Is there a multivitamin that contains only the recommended daily vitamins and minerals? Most that I have looked at contain more.

Answer:

You probably won't find a multivitamin that contains only the recommended daily vitamins and minerals, i.e., 100% of the recommended daily intakes. If you did, you probably shouldn't take it anyway, because you shouldn't get 100% of certain nutrients (notably magnesium and calcium) from a supplement. Some, if not all, of the daily requirements should come from your diet. You can skip vitamins entirely if you eat a very well-balanced diet and don't have trouble absorbing any nutrients (such as vitamin B12, which many seniors have trouble absorbing from food).

For those of us who don't eat quite as well as we should, there are definitely multis that provide each essential vitamin and mineral in amounts that should safely get you where you need to be. Our Top Picks among multivitamins tend to be these "conservative" products, as opposed to "megadose" multis. To be a ConsumerLab Top Pick, each of these has also had to pass our rigorous laboratory testing and label review -- which about 30% of multivitamins don't pass -- and be reasonably priced. We identify the Top Picks in our Multivitamin Review by category, including general adult, women, women 50+, men,  50+ general (seniors), and children. You can also use the Ingredients tables in the Multivitamin Review to compared the amounts of vitamins and minerals in these multis.

Keep in mind that gummy multivitamins, although tasty and popular, typically won't provide iron — and this should be of particular concern for children, adolescent girls, and younger women. We also tend to find more problems (like too much folic acid) with the quality of gummy vitamins than with tablets. 

If you are unsure of your daily requirements for vitamins and minerals, which vary by age, gender, and with pregnancy and lactation, you can check the latest nutrient requirements — as well as the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels.