Scientific articles

Homemade vitamin C

Details

Hits: 5434

Vitamin C is best known for strengthening the immune system. This potent antioxidant also has many other important roles that control significant aspects of our health. Vitamin C helps detoxify our bodies, protects and promotes healing of all of our cells, and helps us deal with both mental and physical stress. It also supports healthy bacteria in our gut, neutralizes free radicals, is anti viral and anti bacterial, prevents and kills cancer cells, and so much more. Most people, especially children, would benefit from more vitamin C.

Natural vitamin C complexes from wholefoods are more potent than store-bought vitamin C tablets. Yellow and red peppers, guavas, dark green leafy vegetables like kale, kiwi (especially with skin), broccoli, strawberries, and watermelon all have more vitamin C than a citrus fruit without the peel.

Full disclosure, I meant a fully-grown, large watermelon. I assume I'm not the only one who can eat a large watermelon every day?

Rosehips, parsley, cilantro, and coriander are also very potent vitamin C suppliers.

The best vitamin C is the vitamin C that comes as food. It's not about how many milligrams of vitamin C you take, it's how much vitamin C your body assimilates. Citrus peels are very high in vitamin C; 100 g of citrus-peel provides around 130 mg of vitamin C. The fruit of an orange provides just 71 mg per 100 g of fruit. Citrus peels also benefit due to enzymes, phytonutrients, and important nutrition we don't even know about yet.

Save money with your own vitamin C supplement

Any organic orange, lime, or lemon peels left over from the fruit you buy will do the trick. Save all of your peels after you eat the inside of the fruit, and then cut the peels into thin strips. Place them on a plate on your dining room table and let them dry at room temperature for a couple of days until they are dry and crisp. You can also dehydrate the peels with a food dehydrator and then store them for up to a year in a dry container. For consumption, you can break up peels into smaller pieces and mix them with your favorite tea. This makes the tea taste great, but the downside to this approach is that heat destroys the enzymes. A better option is to place the peel strips into your blender or some sort of grinder and grind them into a powder (which won't hurt the enzymes). Throw the powder into your smoothie or fresh juices. One rounded teaspoon will supply you with more organic vitamin C complex, rutin, hesperidin, and bioflavonoids than your body needs for the day, regardless of your size.

This is perfect for anyone who's about to start a lemonade detox, considering the leftover lemon peels (see first source). Also look at these homemade nutrition, nutrition, calcium, and toothpaste recipes.