When we purchase vitamin C supplements, we expect that we can be healthy. Unfortunately, our supplements may not contain real vitamin C that can give us actual benefits. First of all, we should know what a vitamin is and it’s more than just a molecule. Vitamin is also about actual interactions with our body, which can activate desired functions that can keep us healthy. When we buy a vitamin C supplement, we should get fully functioning ascorbic acid, which is the primary component of vitamin C. Compared to other vitamins, it is the highest selling vitamin. When people buy vitamin C supplement, they want to stay fit and be able to ward off colds. It’s true that vitamin C is essential to our heath, but only if it is the real deal. Real vitamin C is found in potatoes, dark leafy greens, peppers, papaya, kiwi fruits, pineapple, mangos, oranges and other fruits. These natural sources don’t only contain ascorbic acid, bust also ascorbinogen bioflavonoids, rutin and tyrosinase. Also, there are also mineral co-factors that support the full benefits of vitamins.
Each company claims that their supplement products are the most superior. In reality, there is no difference between ascorbic acid in one product and in another. It’s identical and works the same way. The most important thing is that it needs to ensure desired activity with actual cellular and biological changes. Ascorbic acid is essentially a derivative of sulphuric acid, a very corrosive substance and cornstarch. It’s a myth that we need to get a lot of vitamin C in our body. Vitamin C is necessary but we only need a minute quantity. Our body can’t make most types of vitamin and we need to get them from food, especially whole foods. Unfortunately, foods from industrialized plantations may not be the healthiest, especially if they are contaminated by pesticides, fertilizes and pollution. Extracting vitamin C from whole foods is an expensive process and inefficient, so manufacturing plants create synthetic ascorbic acid. A supplement that contains mostly synthetic ascorbic acid won’t anything good to our immune system, because it lacks all the supporting substances.
If we only get purified, synthetic ascorbic acid, our body may think of it as a foreign substance, which will be quickly removed from our body. Man-made ascorbic acid is a dead vitamin and we won’t get any benefit from it. There are hundreds of companies out there that are selling vitamin C supplements, but only very few of them are offering vitamin C from whole food sources. Again, because it’s an inefficient, such a supplement will be noticeably more expensive. Even if we can get real vitamin C, we should also get the recommended usage. Our body could only absorb 200mg of vitamin C at a time and no more than 1000mg each day. Excess vitamin C will be removed from our body through urine. The best source of vitamin C is still whole food and it should be our primary source for vitamin C.