The best way to get the vitamins and minerals your body needs is from the food you eat. But, with our hectic schedules, our toxic environment and the deterioration in the quality of our foods, it can be difficult to meet our nutritional requirements. Many people supplement their diets with vitamins and minerals. Visit a health food store and you’ll soon realize it can be a confusing ride through the myriad of products, studies, anecdotes
and hearsay.
Knowing More About Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamins are organic nutrients generally found in our diet that are incredibly important to sustaining life. Organic simply means that these substances contain carbon from living plants or animals. Vitamins in the right amount are needed for a variety of biologic processes including growth, digestion, mental alertness and resistance to infection. They also enable your body to use carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and they act as catalysts — initiating or speeding up chemical reactions.
Minerals are derived from the earth or water. Minerals are necessary for three main reasons: building strong bones and teeth, controlling body fluids inside and outside cells and turning the food we eat into energy.
The ABCs of Vitamins
Vitamins can be either fat-soluble or water-soluble. Vitamin C, biotin and the seven B vitamins – thiamin (B-1), riboflavin (B-2), niacin (B-3), pantothenic acid (B-5), pyridoxine (B-6), folic acid (B-9) and cobalamin (B-12) – are water-soluble vitamins and are not stored in your body in any appreciable amounts. Surplus water-soluble vitamins are washed away in your urine. Fat-soluble vitamins – vitamins A, D, E and K – are stored in your body, usually around fatty tissue.
How much do we need?
Information about vitamins and minerals is listed by Health Canada as an important element of one’s diet.
Vitamin requirements vary with our gender, our age, diseases, stress, prescription drugs and physical activity. For example, someone who smokes or has a chronic illness will have greater vitamin (and mineral) requirements than a non-smoker or someone who is healthy.
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