Vitamin C

Vitamin C is surely the most popular micronutrient out there. Supplements containing this vitamin were heavily advertised claiming that you will avoid getting sick or even fight the aging process because of its antioxidant capabilities. We’ll look later at how true these statements are. Vitamin C is also called ascorbic acid and it functions as an electron donor for 8 enzymes. Its role is complex and its most important functions are: -          It aids in the synthesis of: carnitine (gets fat through cell membrane and is formed from lysine and methionine), collagen (structural protein which...

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Vitamin basics

When it comes to vitamins people have extremely different opinions. Some think that they aren’t necessary and that you can live just fine with what you get from food, while others tend to exaggerate and think of them as all around “fixers”. As in most cases the truth is somewhere in the middle. Vitamins are organic substances, meaning they are carbon based. They don’t have any calories although I’m sure you’ve heard people complain that they have gained weight after taking a complex of vitamins (we’ll tackle ridiculous myths like this one in future articles). Vitamins can’t be produced internally so your body must get them from food or...

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The importance of water

From the entire nutrition world, water is surely the most known term. Unfortunately it is more known than understood. For the majority it doesn’t represent more than the liquid that they drink when they’re thirsty. We all know that about 65-70% of our body is water and this should be indication enough of its importance. Water can be found around all cells and in our blood. A closer look at different types of tissue show that stored fat contains about 10% water, while muscle contains about 70% of it. This means that if you’re interested in building muscle, before you rush out to buy the next miracle protein supplement, you should make...

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Nutrition label tricks

If you’re serious about your diet then I’m sure you know that every calorie counts. Quality should be the main word here and a good place to start looking for quality is the nutrition label. What are the key points to watch for when buying something? First of all you should realize that manufacturers are interested in making a profit and not your health. That’s why world wide the food industry spends over 12 billion euros on chemicals that are added to food. A statistic shows that on average, a normal person consumes somewhere between 7 and 8 kg of chemical additives per year. To my surprise I know people that said: “Hey, if I eat it and...

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