The Vitamin C Effect

Now that all of the B vitamins are done with, we have one more vitamin to discuss: Vitamin C. This vitamin happens to be involved in many of the systems of the body.

Since there are so many important functions, I decided to make a list with a short explanation of each:

1. Collagen Synthesis: Collagen is the most abundant protein inside of the body, and it does some very significant things. Collagen strengthens tissues and allows cells to stay together inside of the body. Because of this, our skin, bones, teeth, cartilage, tendons, and blood vessels are all primarily made out of cartilage. Vitamin C donates an electron to iron in a super complex reaction and, long story short, collagen can now be made. Many of you have probably heard of how Vitamin C helps increase iron absorption. This is why! Their processes are interconnected.

      2.  Antioxidant: Similar to Vitamin E (hopefully ya’ll remember…), Vitamin C takes away the bad guys (free radicals) in our body that want to kill our cells. These ‘bad guys’ were originally ‘good guys’ in that they were originally neutrally charged molecules, but now they are molecules with a positive or negative charge. I like to compare it to a toddler. If a toddler has everything it needs and wants, it is content and doesn’t raise havoc. But the second you take the toddler’s toy away or refuse to obey its commands, scary things happen. Just ask any mother. Or me (not a mother, but who has seven years of experience watching children). What Vitamin C does is neutralize the free radicals in our body! They make our cells happy again, much like giving a toddler what it wants makes it happy again. If our free radicals are neutralized, our risk for chronic diseases lessens.

   

      3.  Iron Absorption: Well…I kinda explained this one already. But I do want to go in a bit more detail. Vitamin C only enhances the absorption of nonheme iron, which is the iron not found in our red blood cells. This is the iron that is used in reactions (such as collagen synthesis) throughout our body that do not involve our blood. When Vitamin C donates an electron to iron (which we call the ‘reduced state’ of iron), as explained above, that iron is now more readily absorbed. For whatever reason, iron prefers being in its reduced state. When I was running cross country in high school, my coach put me on an ‘iron cocktail’. The ‘cocktail’ contained a liquid form of iron, orange juice, and a crushed up Vitamin C tablet. It worked a heck of a lot better than taking the pill form of iron—I felt a difference in my performance within a couple of days instead of a week or two.

4.       Immune System: Quick question! How many of you have ever been told by your doctor that you need to drink orange juice when you are sick? I know mine tells me every time I go to get medicine for a cold. If you haven’t had this happen to you, perhaps you have heard of Airborne? My brother takes this before he gets on a plane so he doesn’t get sick. Well…Airborne is basically just a ton of Vitamin C. What Vitamin C does is help the body make white blood cells, which are cells that fight infections. I’ve found that if I am already sick that orange juice may or may not help. I don’t know if that’s just me, or perhaps this is a proven thing. But orange juice definitely helps prevent colds. But at the end of the day, whether it stops colds when you already have them or not, orange juice is freakin’ delicious.

On top of these four main functions, Vitamin C helps convert amino acids into neurotransmitters and also makes hormones used by the thyroid gland. Along with these, Vitamin C helps decrease inflammation in the body by breaking down histamine, the hormone that causes inflammation in the first place.

I don’t know about you, but some of these functions scare me. Clearly, if you aren’t eating enough Vitamin C, bad things can start to happen. On the bright side (literally, BRIGHT), foods that contain Vitamin C are boldly colored. Citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruits, lemons, and limes all contain a lot of the vitamin. If citrus isn’t your things, perhaps you will like one of these other sources: tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, and broccoli. Clearly, all of these sources are SUPER bright in color! Potatoes are also on the list as a good source, but I would suggest that if you see a brightly colored potato that you don’t buy it…unless it is a sweet potato. The general rule of thumb is this: do not buy a brightly colored regular potato, and do not buy a brown sweet potato. If you follow this rule, your tummy will thank you for it. And the rest of your body, as you will be consuming a lot of Vitamin C.

I understand that some of these fruit and vegetables are not everybody’s favorites, but I have a couple of tips to help you. I think many get into the thought process that you have to eat a raw pepper, or raw broccoli, to get the benefits from them. That is most certainly not true! Sure, cooking does effect the amount of nutrients a food has, but that doesn’t mean it now has no nutrients. For example, I do not like raw bell peppers. I despise them. I think the texture is weird, the taste is funky, and I am just not a fan. However, I love cooked bell peppers. So I throw bell peppers into my taco or fajita fillings, saute them with olive oil and salt to put into sandwiches, fill them with pasta and roast them, etc. This is the only way I will eat them, and two good things come from it: I get my Vitamin C, and I get some delicious food.

So I don’t want all of you to feel stuck in the cycle of eating nothing but oranges because you feel that’s all you like. I bet if you try cooking up some of these yummy veggies, you will be surprised at which ones you like. Especially if Ryan Gosling supports it. Personally, I'm more of a Chris Hemsworth fan, but Ryan isn't too hard on the eyes either.