Vitamins

In this section of Seattle Organic Restaurants I’m going to talk about vitamins and their necessity for life. Vitamins are essential part of life. Vitamins regulate metabolism and help our bodies to get energy from food. Our bodies need smaller amount of micronutrients in comparisons to essential nutrients such as water, carbs, protein and fat. It’s important to take vitamin supplements daily to maintain a good health.

In a chemically polluted and stressful world getting enough nutrition from our daily diet has become really difficult. Our daily physical activity has been reduced significantly which means we need more nutrients from less food. Over farming and the modern agriculture methods have exhausted the soil and as a result soil is lacking some essential nutrients such as selenium.

However when you walk to a grocery store you have the delusion that you have many food choices, until you start reading the food labels and fining out that the processed foods in grocery stores are rearrangement of corn. Processed foods have gone through a lot of chemical process and artificial additives that they have no or little nutrition left. Even the whole food products like fruits and vegetables do not have maximum nutrition because they have been picked before being fully ripe or been stored improperly. There are two types of vitamins; oil soluble and water soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins are excreted from our bodies within a day like vitamin B-complex and C, so we should take them on a daily basis. Oil soluble vitamins can be stored longer in our liver and fat tissues such as vitamin A, D, E and K. Our bodies need both types of vitamins to function well.

The vitamins and minerals should have a balance. Taking excessive amount of a vitamin or mineral can result in mineral or vitamin deficiencies. For example taking a lot of zinc can result in zinc deficiency. 100 mg zinc a day can increase the body’s immune system, but taking more than 100 mg can harm the immune system. Taking high dosage of vitamin B also can result in deficiencies of other B vitamins. Some vitamins should be taken with other vitamins to function more effectively. For example bioflavonoids can significantly reduce the chances many diseases such as cancer, but bioflavonoids function better when they are taken with vitamin C.

Some substances also might have a reverse effect. For example while taking antibiotics; the absorption of vitamin C is greatly reduced, so higher dosage of vitamin C in needed. It’s important to take daily vitamin supplements to maintain a good health. There are two types of vitamins, natural and synthetic. Natural vitamins are extracted from food sources; synthetic vitamins are produced in laboratories from chemicals. There is not a difference between taking a natural or synthetic vitamin, however a synthetic vitamin only contains an isolated vitamin, but natural vitamins may also contain other nutrients. Always read the label of supplements and be aware that some supplements might have starch, artificial ingredients, sugar and preservatives.