Generally if you ask people what vitamin C is for they’ll say it’s to prevent or reduce colds, nothing more; while there is a small chance of that, its powers lie hugely in other areas.
You’ve heard of antioxidants and I’ve spoken about them here before but I’ll summarise the situation – certain processes that happen naturally in your body, as well as your dietary and lifestyle practises (over-exercising, not sleeping much, being stressed, drinking alcohol, smoking, eating poor quality foods and so on) mean that the electrons that are in all of your cells lose one of their mates – this is called oxidation. When they lose a mate they go a bit loo laa and unhappy and ping about the place bumping into stuff and causing damage. What they need to find is a new mate – a new electron partner.
Vitamin C, the gorgeous stuff, happens to have two spare electrons which act as potential partners for the lonely crazy electrons that are on the rampage in your body. More than that, vitamin C’s electrons are easily taken up by your cells, healthy-looking and fit with bags of personality and influence.
Vitamin C is therefore an antioxidant and a superpowerful one. So think of antioxidants as perfect partners for lonely, sad and destructive electrons. A calming and supportive influence.
Once it pairs its electrons with single partners they go around happily together and you heal better, grow better (skin, hair, nails etc), have better immunity, your bodily processes just ‘spark’ better, you’re less likely to be type 2 diabetic (or type 1 come to that but that’s a whole other topic), have better blood flow and much much more.
Humans need to consume vitamin C because we have some weird genetic defect that means our bodies don’t make it. All other animals make their own apart from guinea pigs, fruit bats and primates. You don’t see vitamin C mentioned on your dog or cat food do you? Because they make their own, that’s how critical it is. But no, we went a bit wrong somewhere along the line!
So, why am I always saying things like:
- “Did you have the salad with that?”
- “What about the fruit?”
- “You need to have more veg with your dinner, like half a plate or heaped cupped hands.”
or
- “Aim to have AT LEAST 500g of veg and fruit each day – AT LEAST!”?
Well it’s not only because it gives you fibre and is generally very nutrient-dense and helps to keep you full, it’s because I’m mindful that you need loads of vitamin C.
If you have any questions you can discuss this post in The Hive.
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