By Lauren Duffy

As I was walking up and down the Vitamin aisle of a CVS yesterday with my stepmother, I was searching for some kind of calcium supplement to strengthen my bones and teeth in the long-run. When I finally found a bottle of fancy calcium pills among the hundreds of crazy-named vitamins, I was absolutely shocked. $30 for a tiny bottle?! I don’t think so… that’s not a price that cooperates with my college budget.

But right as I was about to give up on my search, my stepmother came over to me and told me she’d found the calcium that I needed, and she handed me a huge bottle of… Tums?

Wait.. What?

My stepmother is a nurse and she always seems to know interesting drug facts about products, so I asked her to explain. She informed me that the antacid tablet, Tums, is actually just pure calcium. While it is a miracle worker when it comes to settling an upset stomach, it can also be an excellent source of your daily calcium intake. The one active ingredient is Calcium Carbonate, which is exactly what you’ll find in any expensive calcium supplement. And the greatest part: the huge bottle of Tums was $8, and the generic brand was only $7. Over $20 less for the exact same thing?! I’ll take that deal.

Maybe it’s a common fact, but I for one had no idea that these two bottles with drastically different price tags had the same tablet inside. So if you’re looking to increase your daily calcium intake, be sure to keep this in mind!

These pictures are of the CVS brand product I bought, and they clearly display that this could double as a calcium supplement. Bottles of Tums only say it in very fine print.