Now,
if you just started singing the nursery rhyme “‘A’
is for apple, ‘B’ for boy, ‘C’ for cat…where did ascorbic
acid come in?”, you
must have been that guy dozing in front of me in class or that chic
passing notes about so & so’s crush on nani.
So before you start questioning the title & I’m accused of
speaking jargon, let’s talk about vitamin C a.k.a
(also scientifically known as) “ascorbic acid” –the word comes
from the New Latin word "scorbutus"
meaning scurvy.
Vitamin
C is a water-soluble vitamin that we get from our food. Our bodies
can neither make vitamin C nor can they store it for later use. Which
is why we need to ingest as much of it as possible. However, some
animals (mostly carnivores) can make their own vitamin C. This is why
lions, leopards, cheetahs & the other cats do just fine without
fruits & veggies.
Good
sources of vitamin C are fresh fruits and vegetables, especially
citrus fruits (like oranges, tangerines, grapefruit &
pineapples), strawberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes (ngwaci),
sweet bell peppers (hoho
nyekundu na manjano),
kales (sukuma
wiki)
and potatoes. Vitamin C can also be artificially made into tablet
supplements. I recommend getting vitamin C from a diet high in fruits
and vegetables rather than taking the tabs. Supplementation,
especially when not prescribed by a health expert can lead to
toxicity/ over-dosage of vitamin C, which in turn has its
consequences especially in sickle cell disease.
Vitamin
C is one of the most popular micronutrients known to man. Even before
its discovery in 1932, nutrition experts back in the day recognized
that something in citrus fruits could prevent scurvy, a disease that
killed as many as two million sailors, pirates and others who spent
long periods of time onboard ships between 1500 and 1800. When the
voyages lasted longer than the supply of fruits and vegetables, the
sailors began to suffer from vitamin C deficiency, which led to
scurvy. Scurvy is known as the bleeding gums disease, because vitamin
C helps to make collagen, a tissue needed for healthy bones, teeth,
gums and blood vessels. (P.S:
if you have any bleeding gums, don’t panic! There is more to scurvy
& probably all you need to do is change your toothbrush).
But
I’m sure we’ve all first heard of the vitamin when it came to
preventing or treating the common cold. Let me refresh your memory,
remember when you had a cold & your mum made you drink that
bitter concoction of lemon, ginger, garlic & honey (if you’re
lucky)? Yeah, that drink she made you gobble down while holding a
slipper in her hand, because it worked for her mum & mum’s mum
& the shosho
of her mum’s mum’s dad? It actually didn’t begin in your
lineage, but in the 1970s when Chemistry and Peace Nobel laureate,
Linus Pauling promoted daily mega doses of vitamin C (the amount in
12 to 24 oranges) as a way to prevent colds and some chronic
diseases. I don’t know about you but I’d rather have shosho’s
drink than a dozen oranges in a day…yikes! My taste buds are
already getting zingy.
There’s
no question that vitamin C plays a role in controlling infections &
maintaining proper immune function. We know this is very very
important in sickle cell disease. The question is, do we need lots of
vitamin C to keep you healthy?
No.
Vitamin C’s cold-fighting potential certainly hasn’t panned out.
Small trials suggest that the amount of vitamin C in a typical
multivitamin taken at the start
of a cold
might ease
symptoms,
but for the average person there’s no evidence that mega doses make
a difference, or that they prevent colds. It doesn’t sound like
it’s living up to its legendary health boosting name when it comes
to sickle cell disease, is it?
That’s
because most people don’t know it is also a powerful antioxidant
that can neutralize harmful free radicals (like germs, viruses,
toxins) & protect red blood cell membranes against oxidative
damage. Research has shown that sickle cell warriors have low levels
of vitamin C in their blood as a result of the disease. If you have
low vitamin C (the antioxidant) in your blood, then there will be an
increased vulnerability of sickle cells to oxidant damage by the free
radicals. This vitamin even goes the extra mile to regenerate other
antioxidant buddies like vitamin E. More so, vitamin C increases the
absorption of iron from foods in the body; thus replacing any lost
iron from sickling of red blood cells. Super! Right?
You
can always get the most of this vitamin out of foods by the way you
prepare your meals. Since it’s water-soluble, it can easily leach
out of fruits & vegetables when washing or cooking. As Kenyans,
we mostly have the habit of buying thinly sliced mboga
from the soko
and immediately giving the shredded strips a thorough wash when we
get home. As if that is not enough to get rid of the bacteria we’ve
pictured, we cook the veggies until they lose their green crunchy
nature to a swampy murky appearance. When we wash our veggies &
fruits after they’ve already been sliced, we increase the surface
area for their loss through the water being used. And when we
over-cook our veggies, the heat evaporates their nutrient-dense
fluids; we might as well be eating the empty calories in sweeteners &
what not. Other tricks to get more vitamin C from food simply involve
choosing fresh foods to eat. For example, a fresh-squeezed orange
juice is a better pick than ready-to-drink orange juice, because the
fresh juice contains more active vitamin C & no added chemicals
or sugars. Better yet, eat the whole fruit! You’ll benefit from the
fiber too.
Do
you see what’s going on here? Nature is once again curing what ails
us. Not the doctors, not the pills. The earth was designed with
built-in solutions to our health problems. As our bodies crave
healing, the seasons provide all the natural medicine we need. Keep
it healthy!
Love
life!
Sharlene
M.M.
