Vitamin A, What It Does, and How to Get It.

So next I will be discussing the vitamins and minerals in detail.  Starting with vitamin A.

First of all this is a fat-soluble vitamin, and can only be absorbed with the help of fat.  This is important to remember, because you will want to add a little fat to help you absorb it.

Vitamin A comes in a few different forms, but we will talk about two.  The first form is Retinol, and this is absorb-able the way it is.  This form comes from animal sources.  The second form we see the most is beta-carotene, and is the plant source.  Our body converts this to vitamin A in the intestines.  I wanted to do a little research about the conversion, because what happens if our gut health is bad, does it still get converted properly?  I don't know yet.

Vitamin A has many jobs within our body.  The most famous has to do with our vision.  Children who do not get enough of this vitamin will develop poor vision and can even become blind, especially in countries where there is not enough food.  Adults will develop night-blindness, and obviously can make our vision get worse.   The vitamin is needed for gene transcription, very important to help our genes reproduce correctly.  If they don't, it may be one reason we develop cancerous cells.  This vitamin helps our immune system work properly, and also is important for healthy skin.  You may have heard people getting prescriptions for vitamin A creams for acne. It is very important for proper fetal development, and is the reason why alcoholic mothers have babies with fetal alcohol syndrome.  The children were deprived of vitamin A.  I also read that once the damage is done, it can't be helped by giving the infant vitamin A, so there is irreversible damage. So you can see why this vitamin is important.


So, how can we eat it? We can get the retinol form in these animal sources; shrimp, eggs, butter, milk, (not sure if conventional milk is good), and salmon.  The beta-carotene sources with the most vitamin A in order are sweet potatoes, carrots, dandelion greens, broccoli leaves and florets, kale, spinach, and pumpkin, along with other winter squashes.

Organic butter is great, there is a lot of vitamin A in it.  So feel free to put butter on your veggies. You're adding healthy fat and vitamins to the veggies, plus the fat helps your body absorb the vitamin A from the veggies.

The assignment this week would be to try to get some vitamin A every day.  If you know you won't eat it, try to get a supplement for 5000-10,000 iu a day.  Sweet potatoes are great, especially with butter.  Carrots are yummy with dressing or peanut butter.  I like greens, but not everyone does. If you have decided to eat eggs for breakfast, cook them in butter... yummy!