“C” the goodness of Vitamin

National Vitamin C Day is on April 4. So let’s learn something about this mighty, mighty vitamin! Vitamin C is good for our bodies and minds in about a gazillion ways. It helps keep us from catching a cold, helps heal our skinned knees and a whole lot more.

Leah Carrington, a nurse practitioner and certified nutritionist with Enhanced Healthcare of the Ozarks reminds us, “Since vitamin C can’t be stored in the body, you need it in your diet every day. But that’s easy… it’s already there in some of our favorite foods — tomatoes, oranges, strawberries, bell peppers, broccoli, potatoes, grapefruit and lemons, just to name a few.”

Vitamin C was officially “discovered” in 1932. But the discovery of this amazing vitamin started way back in 1747, when a surgeon with the British navy found that citrus fruits helped sailors recover from scurvy, a disease that killed millions of them when they were out to sea for months at a time with no fresh fruits or vegetables.

Oranges and the common cold

In the 1970s, a man named Linus Pauling wrote a book called “Vitamin C and the Common Cold.” He recommended that people fight off the common cold by eating a lot of vitamin C… he suggested people eat 12 to 24 oranges a day!

Actually, just one orange will help you get your vitamin C for the day. And eating an orange is better than taking a vitamin C pill or gummy. The mix of antioxidants in vitamin C is much more effective when it occurs naturally like it does in an orange.

Leah says, “We can find vitamin C everywhere, and so many tasty things! Snacking on oranges, strawberries, or drinking a glass of lemonade gives us the refreshing health boost we need!”

Get your daily dose of Vitamin C by making a yummy “Rad Orange Salad” with this recipe from our friends at Apple Seeds Teaching Farm in Fayetteville.