Top 5 Foods You Didn’t Know Are High in Vitamin C
According to two-time Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Linus Pauling, vitamin C is critically under consumed. He suggests the recommended daily dose is only the minimum needed to prevent the fatal disease scurvy, and is not nearly enough to achieve optimal health. He even claims it could cure diseases such as polio and cancer. Sure Vitamin C may not be as sexy as some of the fancy antioxidants like green tea extract or resveratrol. But think of it like the classic sexy black dress—vitamin C is always in fashion.
One thing that’s for sure, vitamin C is super good for you. It’s not toxic (though way too much can cause, um, diarrhea. But you’d typically need to take over 30 grams before that happens). If you think of your body’s cells as bricks, vitamin C is the cement that holds them all together. You wouldn’t just cement one layer of bricks when building your house, right? (Er, when your brawny husband’s building it for you, that is.) Of course not. The glue that holds our bodies together is vitamin C. It creates collagen, elasticity, repairs tissue damage and makes cells strong enough to block virus and bacteria from making us sick. Try these foods high in vitamin C.
Red Bell Peppers: They’re sweet and crunchy and actually have double the vitamin C content found in oranges! Add them to salads, sandwiches or slice ’em up like carrot sticks and munch as a snack.
Cranberries: Admit it, when you think of berries, you think blue, straw, ras…but the cran is King of vitamin C. It’s tangy tartness can make your lemonade sublime and your trail mix terrific.
Taro Root: Next time you’re in Hawaii, you might want to put down that Mai Tai and pick up some Poi. Taro can have nearly 100 milligrams of vitamin C per serving. Now you’ve really got a reason to get off the mainland.
Currants: You’ve seen them. They look like raisin-runts. Actually, currants are super tasty and pack a lot of vitamin C for being so itty bitty—almost as much as red peppers. They go great anywhere you’d use a raisin, especially your mouth.
Acerola: This West Indian cherry is the vitamin C mother load. You’ll often find it added to juice blends or in vitamin C capsules and powders. It’s tangy and tart and contains over 1000 times your RDA of vitamin C.
Image Credits: Half Chinese, Cobblucas, jkadavoor, vadim plessky, sonia furtado
