Nowadays, the prevailing opinion is that our body has enough vitamins in summer and autumn, suffers from vitamin deficiency in winter, while in spring, the lack of vitamins increases and the situation worsens.
Nowadays, the prevailing opinion is that our body has enough vitamins in summer and autumn, suffers from vitamin deficiency in winter, while in spring, the lack of vitamins increases and the situation worsens.
This view is not entirely correct, because in fact the modern lifestyle allows us to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, exotic or not, from the stores all year round.
So should we take nutritional supplements or not?
Fruit and vegetables
Vitamins do not stay longer in the body.
It is necessary to constantly replenish vitamins. In most cases, our body cannot create “vitamin stores”, as it creates with energy in the form of fat. Regardless of the number of fruits and vegetables we eat in summer and autumn, vitamin B1 will be absorbed by the body in 3-4 days, while other vitamins can have a “life” of about 2-6 weeks.
Only the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and E and K can be stored in subcutaneous fat and the liver, but even these do not last longer than 2-2.5 months.
We should also be aware that although we have the possibility to find fresh fruits and vegetables all year round, they are rarely “fresh” in the literal sense, during the winter months during the harvesting process and storage in refrigerators for preservation purposes, many vitamins are partially destroyed or completely. The same process, albeit at a slower rate, occurs during storage of fruits and vegetables.
For example, about 30% of vitamin C is lost after 3 days of storing food in the refrigerator. Storing food at room temperature destroys 50% of the vitamin.
In autumn and winter, we most often consume fruits and vegetables grown in greenhouses, and the amount of vitamins in them is much less than in vegetables grown in the ground.
