15 Questions About Vitamins All Dieters Should Be Able To Answer Correctly

At times you can almost see Vitamin C vanishing in a cloud of ectoplasm. Green leafy vegetables wilt at room temperatures, and as they wilt much of the vitamin is lost. Reject limp and wilted vegetables from your produce dealer. Store fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator. Foods that provide their own containers, such as oranges and bananas and potatoes, hold onto their Vitamin C well. The flightiness of Vitamin C makes it advisable to serve it raw whenever possible.

The B vitamins, as well as C, are water soluble, and you get the most out of them by serving the juices they're cooked in. Vitamin Bi is an acidulous little fellow who resents going on the alkaline side; so does Vitamin C. The addition of baking soda to cooking water, as is ' frequently done to preserve the green color of vegetables, causes these vitamins to go to pieces.

Vitamin A is a hairy-chested citizen who can take most anything except long continued high temperatures. Ordinary cooking procedures do hot affect it much, but oxygen will hasten its breakdown, as it will for other vitamins, and therefore closed vessels are advised for cooking when they are practicable. Vitamin G (riboflavin) is water soluble but reasonably immune to cooking losses. Vitamin D can be more or less ignored by the cook.

15 Questions About Vitamins All Dieters Should Be Able To Answer Correctly

An ancient and unhonorable superstition holds that commercial canning processes wreak havoc with the vitamins in food. Whatever may have been the case fifty years ago, it just isn't true today.

Foods from modern canning plants, processed in airtight vessels to minimize vitamin destruction, not only compare favorably with fresh foods but in some cases may even be superior in vitamins. Fresh produce bought in open markets during hot weather, for instance, is likely to contain less Vitamin C than foods rushed from the fields to the canning factories. Of course a careless cook can destroy canned vitamins as well as fresh ones.

Innumerable laboratory checkups disclose that canned foods have practically the same Vitamin A value as the corresponding fresh foods. Vitamin B1 is well preserved. There is a slight sacrifice of Vitamin C, although foods of an acid nature, such as tomatoes, grapefruit, orange and grapefruit juice, when canned by modern methods, are nearly as rich in Vitamin C as fresh foods available in city markets.

There is a strain of frigidity running through the vitamins. They don't resent being chilled and wrapped in cartons that come to us as quick-frozen foods. But they are a little nervous and eager to escape when the package thaws. You'd feel the same way about it if you were kept below zero for a few days.

How Well Do You Know Your Vitamins?

Don't allow frozen food to kibitz in the kitchen until it is completely defrosted—unless, of course, you are serving it raw. Store the package in the coldest compartment of your refrigerator and when you are ready to cook it, plunge it immediately into boiling water.

Ready for a little quiz about vitamins?

Unless you can answer at least 10 of the following questions it is probable that you are not getting full vitamin-value out of your food dollars.

1. What colors usually indicate good Vitamin A values in vegetables?
2. How should frozen fruits and vegetables be prepared for eating?
3. Are the vitamins you buy in a drug store the same as those you obtain in foods?
4. Why are boiled foods likely to be low in Vitamin B values ?
5. Are canned foods good sources of vitamins?
6. What is the outstanding vitamin value of citrus fruits and juices?
7. If it is difficult for you to find your seat in a darkened movie theatre, what vitamin deficiency may be indicated ?
8. Are constipation and lack of appetite ever aided by increased vitamin intake?
9. Are the white inner leaves of lettuce, cabbage, etc.,as rich in vitamins as the coarser outer leaves?
10. Why is it recommended that at least one raw fruit or vegetable be eaten every day?
11. ARE THE IMPORTANT B VITAMINS STORED IN YOUR BODY IF YOU CONSUME A SURPLUS?
12. What is meant by "fortified" or "restored" foods, in reference to vitamins?
13. Does an expectant mother require more vitamins than she otherwise would?
14. What vitamin is important in preventing rickets in children?
15. Is there any danger of your diet providing too many vitamins?

Answers

1. Green and yellow. 2. Vegetables, plunged into water before thawing; fruits to be consumed raw, thawed just before using. 3. Yes, except that foods may provide other undiscovered vitamins. 4. They are soluble and likely to be thrown out with the water. 5. Yes. 6. Vitamin C. 7. Vitamin A. 8. Yes, by Vitamin B1 (thiamin). 9. No, white leaves are low in vitamins. 10. Because of Vitamin C content, easily destroyed by cooking. 11. Not in any significant amount. 12. Fortified foods contain more vitamins than normal; restored foods have vitamins added to make up for normal values lost in processing. 13. Yes. 14. Vitamin D. 15. None whatever; massive doses of pure vitamin D may be toxic .