What are the Forms of Vitamin C?
Vitamin C comes in a variety of forms, both natural and synthesized. Synthesized simply means that man has taken compounds and isolated their vitamin C carrying properties. The most widely used isolate is ascorbic acid, which can also be combined with rose hips and delivered in pill form. This is what most people take when they take a vitamin C supplement. These days they seem to be the size of horse pills, and usually have 1000 mg of Vitamin C isolate. Make sure if you are taking these types of pills, that you crunch them between your teeth before swallowing. The more you chew it, the more effective it will be in delivering vitamin C to your body and not to your bowel.
Natural vitamin C comes from whole foods, that are as close to alive as possible. Topping the list of vitamin C providing foods are bell peppers, red, yellow, green or orange. Eat a half a pepper and you have your daily dose of vitamin C. You would need to eat three oranges to get the same amount. If you are a melon fan, then know that eating foods such as papaya, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew or mangoes will get you to your vitamin C required for a day. But not from a bag dried and processed, natural also means as close to live as possible.
How much Vitamin C does a person really need?
Many people believe that you can never have enough. Many cancer patients are taking multiple grams per day in isolate form. Others choose to rely on natural sources. The key to maximizing the effectiveness of vitamin C is to keep it flowing into your system continuously.
What is best way to Get Vitamin C continuously?
Even those who follow the traditional three meal a day regimen, obtaining sufficient vitamin C through whole foods is easy. Eat some fruit such as melon or a few orange for breakfast. This gets your system started, and citric based vitamin C works well to get your acids flowing for the day. At lunch or for a snack, have some strips of bell pepper, or some raw peas or broccoli to munch on, maybe with some lovely mozzarella cheese.
If you are good about eating your greens for dinner, kale is packed with vitamin C, but the classic favorite spinach, not so much. If you cannot get enough vitamin C at dinner, then this is the time to supplement. Best to chew one of those 1000 mg horse pills during your meal, so the ascorbic acid and/or rose hips can get mixed in with the rest of your food.
