Healthy Food Choices for Vitamin C

Video Transcript

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about vitamin C. Vitamin C or ascorbic acid is a water-soluble vitamin; therefore, it's not stored in our body and not stored in the fatty tissues of our body, so we need to have a continual daily supply of vitamin C. However, you can get your recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C simply by eating one orange a day. An orange has about 60 milligrams of vitamin C which is what most healthy Americans need. Vitamin C is important for wound healing and for collagen synthesis. The most notable deficiency condition of vitamin C is scurvy. It's been pretty much eradicated from the American diet because vitamin C is so plentiful in all the citrus produce that you see behind me. So remember that vitamin C has to be taken on a daily basis because it's not stored in our fat. It's water soluble. Two, you really don't need to supplement vitamin C. You can get vitamin C from one orange or a glass of orange juice a day. And number three, there is one deficiency condition associated with vitamin C which is scurvy which is rarely seen in developed countries anymore.