Vitamins – this has been emphasized many times here at Symptomat.de and in numerous other publications – are one of the most important groups of active substances in our food. Their importance lies in their irreplaceability for metabolism and thus for the maintenance of health, indeed of life par excellence. The functions in the metabolism of the human body are extremely diverse. Some of them are needed to build up numerous ferments, others to produce hormones, still others, thanks to their special chemical activity, can serve as transmitters of oxygen and hydrogen and thus intervene in many metabolic processes in a mediating manner.
Without vitamins, we become weak and sick
Vitamins – this has been emphasized many times here at Symptomat.de and in numerous other publications – are one of the most important groups of active substances in our food. Undoubtedly, the metabolism of the human organism is able to dodge, so to speak, improvising, if one or another vitamin is too scarce. However, there are limits to these possibilities, and once they have been exceeded, clear symptoms of deficiency appear, which can be of a general nature and become noticeable as discomfort, loss of performance, functional failure of the nervous system or weakness of the immune system against infections. In other cases, very specific symptoms appear, such as bleeding gums, cracks in the mucous membranes at the corners of the mouth, certain skin rashes, edema, cardiovascular weakness or other signs of deficiency. In any case, it can be said that the person with a low vitamin diet is below his or her constitutional peak and suffers losses in well-being as well as performance. In decades of research, it has been possible to determine the minimum amounts required to maintain health and the best level of supply for many vitamins. This has made it possible to work out vitamin balances for individual people or larger population groups. Such calculations revealed that by no means do all people meet their true vitamin requirements. On the contrary, as these group studies showed, underbalances repeatedly occur for some vitamins. There is virtually talk of a characteristic malnutrition situation in the European industrialized countries, with clear deficiencies in vitamins C, E and several B vitamins, and not infrequently also in vitamin A, in addition to an oversupply of fat.
Balanced vitamin balance and vitamin balance
Vitamin balance is now subject to marked seasonal variations in temperate and northern parts of the world. The most critical season in this regard is spring for several reasons. On the one hand, our stored staple foods suffer more or less major vitamin losses during storage. This applies in particular to potatoes, winter fruit and permanent vegetables. Secondly, for climatic reasons, the supply of fresh foods rich in vitamins is significantly lower in the first spring than in summer and autumn. In the case of some animal foods, the lower vitamin content of winter feed affects the vitamin content of these products, such as milk, eggs and meat. As a result of the combined effect of the above factors, many a person who eats a diet completely adequate in summer for all the active ingredients will find himself deficient in vitamins during the early spring months, with a corresponding impairment of health and performance. It is rightly considered that, apart from meteorological influences, the lack of vitamins in the spring diet is the cause of the widespread “spring tiredness” – with some justification because a number of other factors are also responsible for it. While the vitamins of the B group 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 considerable. Particular attention must be paid to the adequate supply of vitamin C, as this vitamin can only be stored by the human body to a limited extent, and we are therefore dependent on a constant intake. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ensure that we get “well through the winter” just by eating a particularly abundant amount of fruits 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 for vitamin A or its precursor carotene 2 to 3 mg.People suffering from infections as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women need 30 to 100 percent more. A secure supply of vitamins in spring can be achieved if vitamin losses are kept to a minimum through proper handling of foods and, on the other hand, care is taken to select foods carefully according to their vitamin content. Incorrect storage and preparation can cause very considerable losses, especially of vitamin C, which is easily destroyed. Inappropriate preparation can even destroy it completely. Vitamin C is particularly sensitive to oxygen, contact with active metals such as copper, iron and zinc, heating when exposed to air, leaching and exposure to food soda and baking soda. The vitamin A content is reduced in particular by exposure to light, atmospheric oxygen, temperatures above 100 degrees and rancidity of fats. According to the usual eating habits in Germany, a considerable part of the normal requirement of vitamin C can be covered by potatoes alone. The vitamin C content of potatoes shows a clear downward trend during winter storage: 100 g of fresh potatoes contain 28 mg in July-September, 18 in October, 13 in December, 11 in January, 9 in March and 8 in April. However, the potato is able to provide a larger share of our vitamin C requirement only if it is treated with care and prepared sensibly. The lowest storage losses occur at storage temperatures around 1-4 degrees. When preparing potatoes, it is important to eliminate all avoidable sources of loss. In detail, therefore, it should be noted that losses due to leaching are already 50-60 percent if potatoes are peeled the day before and stored under water.
Vitamin preservation during cooking
The gentlest cooking methods are steaming peeled potatoes and cooking peeled potatoes. In these methods, potatoes brought to a brief boil with a small amount of water are kept at a temperature between 75 and 95 degrees until cooked. Cooking in an open pot results in considerably greater vitamin losses than cooking in a covered saucepan. Keeping cooked potatoes warm on the stove top or in the oven causes the vitamin C content to drop rapidly. After 2 to 3 hours, the content is barely half of what it was when cooked. With sensible kitchen management, about 40 percent of the required amounts of vitamin C can be absorbed through daily potato dishes, even in spring. If the wrong cooking techniques are used, the potato will be consumed with practically no vitamin C. Appropriate caution is also required when processing fresh vegetables and fruit. With all varieties suitable for this purpose, it should also be noted here that the preparation of fresh salads is much more gentle on vitamins than any form of cooking. Raw salads from leaf, tuber and root vegetables should be used therefore straight in the spring as Vor- or Beigericht to a large extent. The vitamin content of steamed vegetables can be improved by adding an appropriately chopped, raw portion, which is added just before serving. In the case of 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 flavor. An increasingly important role in the supply of vitamins is played by frozen products. With the help of the vitamin-preserving deep-freezing process, it is possible to compensate for seasonal gaps in supply. As pleasingly stable as the preservation of value in frozen vegetables and fruits is at the required temperature of -18 to -22 degrees, the vitamin content drops rapidly during thawing. Thawing symptoms begin as early as -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 before consumption as short as possible. Therefore, unless freezers are available, frozen products should not be purchased in stock.
be purchased. Frozen vegetables are placed in the cooking pot in the frozen state and steamed or steamed like fresh vegetables. The time required for steaming is slightly shorter than for fresh vegetables. Only spinach and kale are unwrapped, thawed at kitchen temperatures for about 2 hours until the marginal layer is softened, and then steamed in the usual manner with oil. Frozen fruit should be enjoyed only when completely thawed.Fruits frozen with dry sugar require 3 to 5 hours at kitchen temperature for this purpose, while those processed in sugar solution require 6 to 8 hours.
Vitamins in milk
Another staple food, milk, has a vitamin content that, although very versatile, varies greatly in detail. Before the onset of spring, the amount of vitamins is lower than in summer, so we can rely little on this source of vitamins. In the treatment of milk in the household, to a certain extent the hygienic requirements of infection prevention compete with the aspects of vitamin preservation. Milk reaches the consumer after being pasteurized 1 to 3 times. In the case of perfectly sealed bottled milk or milk in beverage cartons, reheating should be avoided, as this is associated with additional loss of active ingredients each time. Far more than in summer and autumn, when we draw many vitamins from the abundance, in spring considerations are in place when choosing food. The following are some foods that are abundant in one of the two vitamins, A and C, which are especially topical in spring and should therefore be preferred. The values given are based on 100 g of fresh fruit or vegetables.
| Vitamin A (mcg) |
Vitamin C or carotene (mg) | |
| Average
Daily requirement of an adult |
2000 | 75 |
| Carrots | 7500 |
5 |
| Kohlrabi | 80 | 53 |
| Cauliflower | 50 | 60 |
| Kale |
6000 | 100 |
| Spinach | 6500 |
50 |
| Lamb’s lettuce | 5300 | 40 |
| White cabbage | 100 | 50 |
| Red cabbage |
10 | 50 |
| Parsley | 26000 |
180 |
| Chives | 300 | 60 |
| Bell bell pepper (red) | 25000 | 200 |
| Currants |
240 | 180 |
| Orange | 160 |
55 |
| Tangerine | 240 | 30 |
| Lemon | 90 | 60 |
| Tomato |
3500 | 25 |
Vitamin A is also still abundant in some animal products,
so in fat fish, in liver, egg yolk and butter. As far as the listed fruits and vegetables are not available as fresh fruits or as fresh vegetables, they usually still offer a good vitamin content as frozen products. Provided they are produced gently, some fruit juices can also be used as a high-yield 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 is usually still very familiar to our grandparents. Among the spring herbs that have always been appreciated as a source of vitamins are: Watercress, dandelion, nettle, ribwort. Using the described possibilities, it is usually possible to bridge the bottleneck in the supply of active substances that occurs during the spring months and to ensure vitamin intake even during this period, even though supermarkets from all over the world offer a wide variety of fresh vegetables and fruits for sale.
