Healthy Food Choices for Vitamin C

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for humans, which are one of the few organisms that cannot produce their own vitamin C. Try these tips for buying foods rich in vitamin C in this healthy shopping video.

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Consult a dietician
One orange has 100% RDA
Important for wound healing

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Michelle Cooper has been a registered dietician for more than 10 years. She currently works for the state of North Carolina for the New Hanover County School District in the Child Nutrition Department as the supervising registered dietician on staff. She specializes in child nutrition, child fitness and overall child health. She enjoys her job because it allows her to be a pivotal piece of child development.

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.

Healthy Food Choices for Vitamin C Video

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