Vitamins in fruits and vegetables

Vitamins - this has already been emphasized many times here at Symptomat.de and in numerous other publications - are one of the most important groups of active ingredients in our food. Their importance lies in their irreplaceability for the metabolism and thus for the maintenance of health, indeed life per se. The functions in the metabolism of the human body are extremely diverse. Some of them are needed to build up numerous enzymes, others to produce hormones, and still others, thanks to their special chemical activity, can serve as carriers of oxygen and hydrogen and thus intervene in many metabolic processes.

Without vitamins we get weak & sick

Vitamins - this has already been emphasized many times here at Symptomat.de and in numerous other publications - are one of the most important groups of active ingredients in our food.

Undoubtedly, the metabolism of the human organism is able to evade improvising, as it were, when one or the other vitamin is insufficiently measured.

However, there are limits to these possibilities, and when these are exceeded, clear symptoms of failure appear, which can be of a general nature and manifest themselves as discomfort, loss of performance, functional failure of the nervous system or weakness in defense against infections.

In other cases, very specific symptoms occur, such as bleeding gums, tears in the mucous membrane at the corners of the mouth, certain skin rashes, edema formation, cardiovascular weakness or other signs of deficiency.

In any case, it can be said that those who are fed poorly in vitamins are below their constitutional maximum and suffer a loss of wellbeing and productivity. Decades of research have made it possible to determine the minimum quantities of many vitamins required to maintain health and the best possible supply.

This made it possible to work out vitamin balances for individual people or larger population groups. Such calculations showed that by no means all people meet their real vitamin requirements. As these group studies have shown, some vitamins often have under-balances.

One speaks of a characteristic malnutrition situation in the European industrialized countries, whereby in addition to an oversupply of fat there are clear deficiencies in vitamins C, E and several B vitamins, not infrequently also in vitamin A.

Well-balanced vitamin balance & vitamin balance

The vitamin balance in the temperate and northern parts of the world is now subject to significant seasonal fluctuations. The most critical season in this regard is spring for a number of reasons. On the one hand, our stored main foods suffer more or less large vitamin losses during storage.

This applies above all to potatoes, winter fruit and permanent vegetables. Then, for climatic reasons, the supply of fresh food rich in vitamins is significantly lower in the first spring than in summer and autumn. In the case of some animal foods, winter feeding with less vitamins affects the vitamin content of these products, such as milk, eggs and meat.

Due to the interaction of the factors mentioned, some people who eat fully enough with all active ingredients in summer get into a vitamin deficiency during the first months of spring with a corresponding impairment of health and performance.

One believes with a certain right that, in addition to meteorological influences, the lack of vitamins in the spring diet is the cause of the widespread "spring fatigue" - with a certain right because a number of other factors are jointly responsible.

While the B-group vitamins and vitamin E, which are predominant in cereals, suffer only a relatively small loss during the winter storage of the grain, the seasonal losses of vitamins C and A which occur in other foods are far more significant.

It is important to pay particular attention to the adequate intake of vitamin C, as this vitamin can only be stored to a small extent by the human body, so we are dependent on constant intake. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ensure that you "get through the winter well" by eating particularly plentiful fruit and vegetables during the summer.

Daily requirement of vitamins

The daily requirement of an adult for vitamin C is assumed to be 75 mg, that of vitamin A or its precursor carotene is assumed to be 2 to 3 mg. Infected people as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women need 30 to 100 percent more.

A safeguarding of the supply of vitamins in the spring can be achieved if the vitamin losses are kept to a minimum through the correct treatment of the food and, on the other hand, a careful selection of the foods according to their vitamin content is ensured. Incorrect storage and preparation can lead to considerable losses, especially with the easily destructible vitamin C. If prepared inappropriately, it can even be completely destroyed.

Vitamin C is particularly sensitive to oxygen, contact with active metals such as copper, iron and zinc, heating when exposed to air, leaching and the effects of soda and baking soda. The vitamin A content is particularly reduced by exposure to light, atmospheric oxygen, temperatures above 100 degrees and the fats becoming rancid.

According to the usual eating habits in Germany, a considerable part of the normal requirement for vitamin C can be covered by potatoes alone. The vitamin C content of potatoes shows a clear downward trend during winter storage: 100 g fresh potatoes contain 28 mg in July-September, October 18, December 13, January 11, March 9 and in April 8 mg.

However, the potato can only provide a larger proportion of our vitamin C requirement if it is treated with care and prepared sensibly. The lowest storage losses occur at storage temperatures of 1-4 degrees. When preparing the potatoes, it is important to eliminate all avoidable sources of loss. It should therefore be noted in detail that the losses through leaching are already 50 to 60 percent if potatoes are peeled the day before and stored under water.

Preserving vitamins when cooking

The gentlest cooking methods are steaming peeled potatoes and simmering peeled potatoes. The potatoes are briefly boiled with a little water and kept at a temperature between 75 and 95 degrees until they are cooked. Cooking in an open saucepan results in significantly greater vitamin losses than cooking in a covered saucepan.

If cooked potatoes are kept warm on the stove or in the oven, the vitamin C content drops quickly. After 2 to 3 hours, the content is barely half the amount present when cooking. With sensible kitchen management, around 40 percent of the required vitamin C amounts can be absorbed through daily potato dishes even in spring. If the kitchen is wrong, the potato is consumed practically without vitamins.

Appropriate caution is also required when processing fresh vegetables and fruits. With all suitable varieties, it is also important to note that the preparation of fresh salads is much more vitamin-friendly than any form of cooking. Raw vegetable salads made from leaf, tuber and root vegetables should therefore be largely used as a starter or side dish, especially in spring.

The vitamin content of steamed vegetables can be improved by adding an appropriately chopped, raw portion, which is only added immediately before serving. With spinach, white cabbage, sauerkraut and Chinese cabbage, carrots and other vegetables, about 20 to 25 percent of the total amount can be added raw, which can significantly improve the taste.

Frozen products are becoming increasingly important for the supply of vitamins. With the help of the vitamin-conserving deep-freeze process, it is possible to compensate for seasonal supply gaps. The retention of value in frozen vegetables and fruits at the required temperature of -18 to -22 degrees is pleasantly stable, but the vitamin content drops quickly when thawed.

Thawing begins at -8 degrees, so the most important rule is to store these products evenly at temperatures of -18 to -22 degrees and to keep the critical thawing time as short as possible before consumption. If there are no freezers available, frozen products should therefore not be bought in advance become.

Frozen vegetables are placed in the saucepan in the frozen state and steamed or steamed like fresh vegetables. The time it takes to steam is slightly shorter than with fresh vegetables. Only spinach and kale are unpacked, defrosted at kitchen temperature for about 2 hours until the outer layer has softened, and then steamed with oil in the usual way. Frozen fruit should only be enjoyed when it is completely thawed. Fruits frozen with dry sugar need 3 to 5 hours at kitchen temperature, fruits processed in sugar solution 6 to 8 hours.

Vitamins in milk

Another staple food, milk, has a very varied, but individually strongly varying vitamin content. Before the beginning of spring, the amount of vitamins is lower than in summer, so that we can hardly rely on this source of vitamins.

When treating milk in the household, the hygienic requirements of infection prevention compete to a certain extent with the aspects of vitamin conservation. Milk reaches the consumer after being pasteurized 1 to 3 times. If bottle milk or milk in beverage cartons is properly sealed, you should avoid re-heating, as this is always associated with additional losses of active ingredients.

Far more than in summer and autumn, when we draw many vitamins from abundance, considerations when choosing food are important in spring. In the following, some foods are listed that contain one of the two vitamins A and C, which are particularly important in spring, and should therefore be preferred. The values ​​given relate to 100 g of fresh fruit or vegetables.

Vitamin A is also found in abundance in some animal products, so in oily fish, in liver, egg yolk and butter.

If the listed types of fruit and vegetables are not available as fresh fruit or vegetables, they usually still have a good vitamin content as frozen products. Provided that they are produced gently, some fruit juices can also be used as a rich source of vitamins. Good currant juice (black) 140 mg / 100mg and currant juice (red) 26 mg / 100mg. Carefully dried rose hips also make a vitamin-rich tea drink, which our grandparents are usually very familiar with.

Among the spring herbs that have always been valued as a source of vitamins are: watercress, dandelion, nettle and ribwort. Using the options described, it is usually possible to bridge the bottleneck in the supply of active ingredients that occurs during the spring months and to secure the vitamin supply during this time, even if the supermarkets from all over the world offer a wide variety of fresh vegetables and fruits for sale .