Vitamin A
Vitamin A - a fat soluble vitamin.
Meaning, you need to consume some sort of fat at the same time for your body to actually absorb the vitamin.
This vitamin is a MUST for healthy vision, as well as stimulating our white blood cells - which are part of our body's immune system - they’re our soldiers that help us fight infection, viruses and other diseases.
Think you may have a vitamin a Deficiency?
It’s pretty rare to be deficient in Vitamin A in Australia, however if you are, it will usually manifests itself as night blindness, impaired immunity and also little white lumps on the skin.
Perhaps you’ve overindulged in Vitamin A?
This is actually a very real possibility as toxicity is more common than a deficiency here in Australia - due to over supplementation. Also, being that it’s a fat-soluble vitamin - excess vitamin A gets stored in our fat tissue and/or in our liver (it doesn’t get flushed out of our body like water soluble vitamins), which can then lead to a range of symptoms, including:
Blurred vision
Nausea
Vomiting
Vertigo
Headaches
Reduced bone density (for chronic cases)
Looking for a little more vitamin a in your life?
It’s a good thing to note that there are 2 forms of vitamin A:
Carotenoids | Found in plant foods. Our body converts carotenoids into retinol before it can do anything with it. Food sources included lots of orange/yellow fruits and veggies like pumpkin, sweet potato, yellow capsicum and carrots, as well as tomatoes, dark leafy greens, broccoli and the superfood - Spirulina.
*Remember - you need to add a little fat to any of the above plant-based foods to help absorb vitamin A . Perhaps a drizzle of olive or flax oil, a sprinkle of hemp seeds or even topped with some chopped nuts or avocado *
Retinol | Mostly found in animal sources. Our body can use retinol without having to go through any conversion (like with plant-based foods above). Great food sources include liver, cod liver oil, oily fish, cheese, eggs, butter and cream.
Looking for more - see my previous post here!
Vitamin A Recipes
