Olwen Anderson's Blog

If you studied just a little history at school, you would have read about the problem sailors on long voyages had. In the early days of exploration, a large proportion of sailors who joined the adventure were expected to die from scurvy. This disease was caused by a diet without any fresh food at all. Fortunately the cause (vitamin C deficiency) and a solution was found, but the lessons learnt by those sailors can be applied in our modern times too – because some of us are running a little low on Vitamin C.

Vitamin C has an important part to play in your body - including digesting food, boosting immune function, making neurotransmitters like serotonin, feeding your adrenal glands to cope with stress, helping heal wounds, lowering cholesterol, and acting as an antioxidant.

Its certainly an essential vitamin in our diet. We can’t make it ourselves, although plants can. That’s why fresh raw fruit and vegies are the best food sources of vitamin C.

You may be deficient in vitamin C if you are recovering from illness, have an infection, take the oral contraceptive pill; feel stressed, anxious or depressed; have a hormonal imbalance, bruise easily, have rheumatoid arthritis, are deficient in iron, or if wounds take a long time to heal. 

To get more vitamin C in your diet eat more fresh, raw fruits and vegetables; the fresher the better. This valuable vitamin quickly degrades in the presence of heat, that’s why fresh raw food is so important. Strawberries and capsicum are particularly good sources, but any fresh fruit or veg will contain some vitamin C. By the way, when the cause and treatment of scurvy was discovered, raw onion was the preferred treatment, as the onions were so easy to store on a voyage– but can you imagine munching on a raw onion every day?!

It might seem easier to just take a supplement – but C-rich foods also contain other vital nutrients that can help your body absorb and utilise the vitamin C better. Bioflavinoids, essential for the proper absorption and use of C, appear in C-rich foods. Interestingly, your body will actually absorb small doses of vitamin C more effectively than mega doses.

Here’s a tip – if you have been prescribed an iron supplement, remember to take it with a vitamin C-rich food for best absorption.

Naturopaths often use vitamin C as a treatment, but with caution. Some people should approach supplementing with care, particularly those with a family history of kidney disease, those who tend to contract bladder infections, those who are about to go into surgery, and those on the oral contraceptive pill. So, if you suspect that you may be low on vitamin C, see your health professional for an assessment before reaching for the supplements. But in the meantime, enjoy more fresh fruit and veg for a vitamin C boost!