If you’ve ever grabbed a glass of orange juice during a cold, you already know about the primary benefit of vitamin C – immunity! That said, vitamin C offers a lot of lesser known benefits that can improve your each and every day.
According to nutritionist Lisa Richards, founder of The Candida Diet (@thecandidadiet), vitamin C also fuels your body by:
- Producing dopamine and serotonin which enhance mood and prevent depression symptoms.
- Helping you absorb iron more readily.
- Providing antioxidants for protecting your skin against toxins.
- Boosting collagen production to assist with wound healing.
Most people don’t realize that Vitamin C is so much more than something you should rely on during a cold. It’s an overall wellness formula that can easily be incorporated into your everyday diet. If you’re looking to soak up more of this incredible nutrient, there are a lot of ways to do it (that you probably don’t even realize).
We reached out to the experts for a few sneaky ways to add more vitamin C to your wellness routine, and they provided responses that genuinely surprised us. Check ‘em out here:
1. Whip up a rose hip syrup.
I collect and dry rose hips every year in the late fall and early winter and use them to make rose hip syrup (my recipe can be found here). Rose hips are not only tasty, when prepared properly, but they also deliver a much needed dose of vitamin C to the table during the winter months.
In fact, rose hips contain a whopping 2000 milligrams of vitamin C per 100 grams of fruit, which is 50% more than oranges!
Simply take a spoonful of the prepared syrup daily for a natural, high dose of vitamin C. I enjoy it mixed into a cup of herbal tea.
Barbi Gardiner, Herbalist, The Outdoor Apothecary
@outdoorapothecary
2. Keep a supply of OJ in the freezer.
Vitamin C is incredibly fragile, because it oxidizes quickly and essentially deactivates itself within minutes of being exposed to air.
In order to capture as much vitamin C as possible in your food, once the fruit or vegetables are cut and exposed to air, you need to consume them immediately. As your fruits and vegetables sit out on the cutting board or sliced in the refrigerator, they begin to lose their vitamin C.
Frozen orange juice made from 100% juice helps avoid this problem. Once the oranges are picked and juiced, they are immediately frozen, which prevents the vitamin C from oxidizing and disappearing. Once the frozen orange juice is prepared for serving, I recommend drinking it quickly and not letting the juice sit around for more than a few hours to prevent losing its valuable nutrients .
Michele Sidorenkov, RDN, My Millennial Kitchen
@mymillennialkitchen
Did you know? At KOR, we order our produce fresh from sustainable farms, and as soon our lemons are squeezed and ginger is crushed, it’s all sealed into our 100% recycled bottles for you to enjoy.
3. Splurge on fruit.
I like to get more vitamin C in my diet by "splurging" on fruit. This is also a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth. I add frozen fruit to my oatmeal in the morning and smoothies in the afternoon. You can also add fresh fruit to desserts! I like to "indulge" in berries, pineapple, grapes, kiwi, mango, and other high-carb fruits that are simply delicious.
Adding more fruit to your diet is an excellent way to stock up on vitamin C, which is not stored in the body and needs to continuously be replaced. By adding more fruit to your diet, you also get the added benefit of increasing your daily fiber intake, which helps reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other common health conditions.
Nutritionist Heather Hanks
We all think of citrus fruit when it comes to Vitamin C, but did you know that peppers have almost twice the amount of vitamin C as an orange?
There are so many delicious recipes with peppers in them. You can experiment with stuffed peppers, fajitas, grilled peppers, pepper dip, red pepper soup, or if you want to keep it easy, simply chop them up and add them to a salad or eat them freshly sliced.
Meg Mill, Functional Medicine Health Care Consultant and Clinical Pharmacist
@drmegmill
We all know lemon packs a ton of vitamin C, but it’s not very appetizing to consume on its own. One way you can discreetly add more vitamin C to your daily eating routine is to incorporate it into your salads.
You can add lemon to tomato salad, green salad, bean salad, and just about any type of salad that has a sour component to it. When you incorporate two lemon-rich salads into your meal plan per day, it equates to a substantial amount of vitamin C (and fiber!) over the course of the week.
Sylvia Manman Kang, CEO, Mira
@mirafertility
A lot of people know that sweet potatoes are packed with nutrients, but not many realize that they’re also loaded with Vitamin C. According to the U.S.D.A., a 100 mg sweet potato has 2.4 mg of vitamin C.
As a natural source of vitamin C, orange and purple sweet potatoes are rich in antioxidants that fight cancer-causing free radicals and strengthen your immune system. Additionally, they help promote the production of collagen, which is beneficial to your skin.
Sweet potatoes can be prepared in a variety of ways, whether boiled, mashed, fried, baked, or steamed. Plus, they pair perfectly with a lot of dishes, so it's easy to incorporate them into your daily diet.
Toby Dash, Founder, Five Star Skincare
While all of these tactics are a delicious way to add more vitamin C to your daily diet, there’ no quicker source than a cold-pressed juice shot. Kor’s vitamin C-drivers include:
- Potent-C: containing vitamin C-rich sea buckthorn, which we press ourselves for optimum freshness
- Immune +: containing acerola juice, one of the most concentrated natural sources of vitamin C
Make the incredible immunity-boosting, mood-enhancing, iron-absorbing, skin-protecting, collagen-producing benefits of vitamin C yours!