Vitamins: An Introduction

Vitamins and minerals are part of our daily lives. But how much do we really know about them? This article will give you a brief introduction to some, a re-acquaintance to others. It is best to obtain your vitamins and minerals, aka micronutrients, from whole, organic foods. This may not give us all that we need though, and supplementation is often required. Vitamins are referred to as either fat or water soluble.

The difference in them is dependent on what solution they dissolve in, i.e. fats/oils, or water. Fat soluble vitamins are stored in the body, so build up and therefore toxicity can occur.

These are vitamins A, D, E, F, & K. The B-group, C, & P vitamins are all the water soluble ones.

These vitamins are lost through perspiration & urination and are not stored in the body. Deficiencies in these can occur if they are not replenished daily. In the 1940's a system helping us to meet our minimum daily requirements was instituted. This system, however, is based on estimations, assumes we know all of the micronutrients there are, and differs from country to country. You may recognize it: our Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA. New standards have been proposed to update the RDA, this was back in 1993. This breaks vitamin requirements into different calculations, as follows: The RDA is still in there, but as Recommended DIETARY Intake, there's also the Adequate Intake Levels (AI), the Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), and the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (UI). To learn about these in further detail, please follow the link!