Vitamins

A Little InSIGHT on Vitamin A

Vitamin A is one of the four fat soluble vitamins. One of the major functions of Vitamin A is to help give us the ability to see during the day and at night. Other critical functions include the formation and maintenance of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other vital organs. Vitamin A also plays a supporting role in cell growth. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the daily Recommended Dietary Allowance¹ for Vitamin A is as follows: Continue reading “A Little InSIGHT on Vitamin A”

Food Labels

How often do you go to the grocery store? How long do you spend in there? Are you the type to browse every aisle – like me – or do you like to get in and get out because you know exactly what you want? Do you read the nutrition label and ingredients to see what is actually in the foods you eat?

March is National Nutrition Month, and our theme is “Go Further with Food.” These next few weeks, I will be showing you how to get the most out of the foods that you eat. To start, let’s look at nutrition labels. The nutrition, or food, label will tell you how many of the six major nutrients are in that particular food – this will tell you where your calories are coming from. The ingredients are broken down by the source of each nutrient – for example, nuts = fat/protein, and high fructose corn syrup = total carbohydrates. Continue reading “Food Labels”

Vitamins are a micronutrient, and they are essential for growth and development. Some vitamins, like Vitamin D and Vitamin K, can be produced by the body, but others we have to get from the foods that we eat. There is no single food source that contains all 13 vitamins, so it is important to eat a variety of foods and colors to make sure that we get all, or almost all, of them daily. Continue reading “Vitamins”