I am starting a new series of blogs covering all of the vitamins and minerals. It is finally time we get a clear understanding of what we need, why we need it and working out whether all those thousands of supplements really worth it!?
So to kick us off where best to start than the beginning of the alphabet……Introducing Vitamin A
Vitamin A plays an integral role in our diet in many ways:
Improves and helps our vision (beta-carotene), particularly in dim light
Helps us with the uptake of iron
Helps the body’s natural defence against illness and infection
Helps our keep skin and lining of some parts of the body, such as the interior of the nose
So where do we get Vitamin A from? Vitamin A is actually found in many natural food products such as sweet potato, carrots, spinach, red peppers and yellow fruits such as mango and apricots. Vitamin A can also be found in foods normally associated with protein like cheese, egg, oily fish or milk.
The amount of recommended Vitamin A for adults aged 19-64 is:
0.7mg a day for men
0.6mg a day for women
It is worth noting that it is not recommended to consume more than 1.5mg a day of vitamin A. If you have more than enough vitamin A your body, you are able to store this and it can be used for future use, therefore we don’t need to and shouldn’t be eating it every day. Multi-vitamins and fish liver oils can be high in vitamin A be sure to check the amount doesn’t exceed daily recommended dose. It is very likely you are already getting enough from your from food.
As you can see and have read, we don’t really need to consume more or supplement our diet to get enough Vitamin A in our diets. So before reaching for those supplements check how you can make simple but effective changes to your daily diet to make sure you are getting the vitamins you need and all the while maintaining a healthy diet.
By cooking 100g (RI%) of each of these food you will get this percentage of your recommended intake of Vitamin A:
Sweet potato - 107% (885ug)
Egg - 15% (885ug)
Mackerel - 8% (61ug)
Mango - 15% (116ug)
Spinach - 80% (640ug)
If you wanted to change you diet for the better - get in touch and see how I can help