Orange You Glad You Came?

While on vacation at Disney, I took advantage of the Florida produce, and made sure to stop for a few minutes to get some delicious Florida oranges. On our way to Disney World on the first day, I noticed a HUGE building that was shaped like an orange. I started freaking out, and knew that was the place I wanted to go to get some oranges.

On the last day we were in Florida, we stopped at Orange World to check out their oranges. Unfortunately, the building wasn't filled with fruit (like I thought it was) but there was a beautiful selection of freshly picked oranges and grapefruits. There were also samples of all the fruit that was being sold so we were able to taste to see which types of oranges we like best. After trying all the different types of oranges, my mom and I decided to go with the Valencia oranges. They were big, juicy, and very sweet. We bought a huge bag so that we could share some with family back in North Carolina.



  


Take advantage of your vacation location, and take home some food souvenirs that will bring your vacation back home with you!

                                   

Is Your Money Going Down The Toilet?

I really want to talk about this little thing called vitamin C. Everyone seems to always be pushing vitamin C because of its immune protection powers, as well as its overall health benefits. Many people take vitamin C supplements, or powders to try to get enough vitamin C.

For a while, I took Emergen-C which is a powder that you add to water and drink. It has 1000 mg of vitamin C which, according to the nutrition facts, is 1,667% of your Daily Value. Although it does have some other nutritional supplements added to it, it also has an enormous amount of vitamin C. (it also has non-nutritional additives such as "natural" orange flavorings and tapioca maltodextrin)

You can't have too much vitamin C, right....?

Wrong. Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin, meaning our bodies only absorb a certain amount at a time, and the leftovers just get peed out. This is much different from fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) which their leftovers get stored in the body for later use.

Women need around 75 milligrams per day, while men need around 90 milligrams a day. Which as you can see, is well below the 1000 mg dosage in a packet of Emergen-C.

So what should you do if you don't think you're getting enough vitamin C in your diet?

Well, personally, I would try my best to get the most vitamin C from your diet, incorporating foods like oranges, kiwi, dark left greens like kale or spinach, peppers, broccoli, or peas. All of these will not only provide you with large amounts of vitamin C, but they also provide many other nutritional benefits (they are all low in calories as well).

But if you just can stand the taste of any of these foods, and still insist that a supplement is what you need to keep your immunity levels up then supplements are fine, just take them in SMALL doses. Taking small doses of vitamin C powders, or pills will keep you from wasting money. So if you enjoy Emergen-C, take only half a pack in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. Or buy vitamin C pills that have less than 100% of the Daily Value of vitamin C and take one pill in the morning and one at night.

But like I said before, save your money on supplements and EAT vitamin C from natural sources, because not only will you reap the vitamin C benefits, but also the benefits from all the other nutrients in the foods.