With the supplement industry being worth billions, it can sometimes be easy to overlook some of the most important and maybe a little bit more ‘boring’ supplements that are still essential to your health. I am of course, talking about vitamins.
If you didn’t know, a simple search in google will define vitamins as ‘’any of a group of organic compounds which are essential for normal growth and nutrition and are required in small quantities in the diet because they cannot be synthesized by the body.’’
Now unfortunately, it is quite hard to get all the required vitamins just from your diet every single day, which is why supplements were created. With this being said, I think people forget that a supplement is meant to do exactly that, supplement your diet. Just because you bought a few tubs of vitamins doesn’t mean that you should suddenly drop all healthy foods from your diet.
So, with that said, what are the best bang for your buck vitamins that should be in your supplement cupboard? Let’s get to it.
Vitamin D
The body can only create vitamin D from direct sunlight, so if you live in a country where you see enough sunlight for around 20 minutes a day, you should be covered. Most of us don’t, so we should be looking to supplement vitamin D daily.
Getting a healthy amount of vitamin D helps you regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body and a lack of it can cause some bone deformities such as rickets and can also bone pain.
As well as supplementing with a vitamin, it can also be found in foods such as red meats, egg yolks and oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines.
Vitamin B3 (also known as niacin)
Vitamin B3 helps release energy from the food we eat, keeps the skin looking healthy and helps the nervous system tick over.
Like vitamin D, you can get some source of vitamin B3 from foods such as fish, meat, eggs and milk. Vitamin B3 cannot be stored in your body, so you need to be getting the healthy amount every day, which is 16.5mg for men and 13.2mg a day for women.
Zinc
I know, I know, it's not technically a vitamin, but I couldn’t leave it out!
Zinc is very underrated and usually flies under the radar in terms of supplement use, but it has some important functions in the body that include the creation of new enzymes and cells, the ability to help heal wounds such as cuts and scratches and it also helps with processing carbohydrates, proteins and fats that we get from food!
You can find zinc in meats, cheeses, breads and some cereal products. Men typically need 9.5mg a day and women 7mg a day.
If you were expecting to read about vitamin C and multivitamins, I apologise. I wanted to highlight some of the vitamins you may not be aware of that can have a positive impact on your health.
Obviously, getting as many nutrients out of your diet is the smart thing to do. As I mentioned earlier, supplements should be secondary to your diet.
Vitamin supplements are a great tool to have in your arsenal, but you should always try and get your daily amounts from food first.
The matter of the fact is though, that in today’s fast paced society our diets sometimes take a back seat for a little bit, so supplementation is always going to be needed.
