Vitamin Information Center

Anyone who takes vitamin supplements and looks at its bottles or boxes is familiar with the vitamins that are contained in each tablet.

But what do those vitamins really do? Do you really need to take them? Below is a list of the most common vitamins found in supplements as well as a description of what they do.

Vitamin A

- commonly found in leafy vegetables and in other products like carrots, broccoli, papaya, eggs and liver, this vitamin helps keep the eyes healthy. A deficiency of this vitamin can cause permanent loss of eyesight.

Vitamin B1

- thiamine is the other name for this vitamin. It keeps the heart and the digestive and nervous systems functioning normally. Aside from that, thiamine is also important in a person’s physical growth and development.

Good sources of this vitamin include beef, pork, nuts and legumes, among other foods.

Vitamin B2

- otherwise known as riboflavin, this vitamin is important in metabolizing energy as well as fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Common sources of this vitamin include milk, cheese and leafy vegetables. A deficiency of this vitamin is signaled by cracked lips, mouth ulcers and sore throat, among other symptoms.

Vitamin C

- also known as ascorbic acid, this vitamin has a lot of benefits attributed to it. Some of them include boosting the immune system and minimizing the symptoms of illnesses.

It is also a well-known antioxidant. Lack of this vitamin can cause scurvy that leads to loss of teeth and eventually, death.

A garden may mean different things to different people. To some, it’s a way to trim back the grocery budget. If laid out properly and maintained, a 50-by-50-foot garden could produce all the vegetables a family of five would need for a year. Even a 20-by-20-foot plot could produce enough food to greatly impact that weekly trudge to the grocery store.Some find it relaxing, some, a source of exercise. Light gardening will burn 170 to 240 calories an hour, while vigorous work such as spading and hoeing will burn 250 to 350.
Most have found how much better homegrown harvest tastes than the store bought stuff and how much better it is for you. Tomatoes that are picked green will ripen with 1/3 less vitamin C than vine ripened ones, and broccoli will lose 2/3 of its vitamin C six days after harvest. But even when stored for a period of time, good amounts of disease fighting beta-carotene are found in winter squash, carrots and sweet potatoes.

Why should it surprise us that fresh, just-picked veggies are the best for us? You wouldn’t need to take another store bought vitamin if all your vegetables came from your garden.

Going down the list we find that asparagus is high in vitamins A, C, B1, and Calcium. Because they root deep they become a good source of minerals too. Beets are high in A and C, while turnips are packed with B2 and E.

Besides the beta carotene found in carrots, significant amounts of B1, calcium, and phosphorus make the carrot one of the best snacks you could give your little munchkin. They would consider it a tasty treat if it came from your garden; the store stuff can taste pretty bad sometimes, thus leaving a bad taste in their mouth for veggies.

Parsnips, when harvested in the winter under 12 inches of leaves, will give you a whole new appreciation for this B6, C and potassium packed, cream-colored, carrot-looking thing. Other vegetables whose flavor sweetens with each passing frost include broccoli, which has more body-ready calcium than a glass of milk could ever hope for. Brussels sprouts are just plain stuffed with everything. And just one serving of Cauliflower will give you all the vitamin C your body will need for that day. Cabbage goes beyond that, adding good amounts of vitamins B1, B2, A and calcium as well.

Onion and leeks rate high in vitamins A, C and E, with corn adding vitamins A, B and some minerals, though not in very big amounts. My wife says there is not much nutrition in sweet corn; and I guess after it’s been smothered in butter and sprinkled with salt, any good has probably been canceled out. But I tell her, “It’s got to be better than a Twinkie.”

There are many more, including spinach. We around 50 years old know what gigantic muscles can be had by downing a can of this stuff, and these are necessary when protecting our Olive Oyls from the Blutos in our lives (I still don’t know what he saw in her, what a bean pole).

If gardening is your thing, whatever your reason, be it saving money or good health, your tastes buds and, more importantly, your children’s buds will say, “I didn’t know veggies could taste this good.”

If you have any questions about your landscaping, lawn, or garden, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope and write to Niemeyer Landscaping, 3368 Perry St., Hudsonville, 49426, or e-mail NiemeyerLandscaping@Juno.com.

The problem with allergy medication is that they only treat the symptoms, they never treat the actual cause. As a result the symptoms tend to reappear as soon as you stop taking your medication. This can be very frustrating, and it can be pretty expensive depending on how susceptible you are to allergies. As a result many people have turned to natural allergy cures that treat the problem rather than just the symptoms. In this article we will take a look at some of these natural allergy cures. Continue Reading…