Vitamins in Five Minutes

Vitamins are small molecules your body needs in small amounts to run thousands of chemical reactions. You can’t make most of them, so they have to come from food. There are thirteen, and they sort neatly into two families based on one question: what dissolves them?

The fat-soluble four: A, D, E, K

These dissolve in fat, travel with the fat in your meals, and get stored in your body fat and liver.

• Vitamin A — vision, skin, immune defense. Found in carrots, sweet potatoes, eggs, and liver.
• Vitamin D — bones and immune function. Made in your skin from sunlight; also in fatty fish and fortified milk. The one many people genuinely run low on, especially through a Canadian winter.
• Vitamin E — an antioxidant bodyguard for your cells. Nuts, seeds, and plant oils.
• Vitamin K — blood clotting and bone health. Leafy greens, mostly.

Two practical notes. First, these need dietary fat to be absorbed — a fat-free salad wastes some of its own vitamins. Drizzle the olive oil. Second, because they’re stored, megadosing fat-soluble vitamins can let them build up. More is not better here.

The water-soluble crew: B-complex and C

These dissolve in water, aren’t stored in any meaningful amount, and whatever you don’t use mostly leaves in your urine.

• The B-complex — eight vitamins working as the pit crew that turns your food into usable energy. Whole grains, meat, eggs, dairy, legumes.
• Vitamin C — builds collagen, supports your immune system, helps you absorb iron. Citrus, peppers, strawberries, broccoli.

And here we must pause for the myth. No, 5 grams of vitamin C will not cure a virus. Your body uses what it needs — a fraction of that — and escorts the rest straight to the toilet. Megadosing vitamin C doesn’t defeat infections; it mostly produces the most expensive urine in your household.

The boring, reliable truth: a varied diet with vegetables, fruit, protein, and some sunlight covers nearly all of this. Food first. Supplements are for actual gaps — like vitamin D in winter — not for chasing immortality at the pharmacy.

The takeaway: eat varied and colorful, and the thirteen vitamins largely take care of themselves — no megadose required.

Next lesson: deficit, surplus, and maintenance — the three settings on your body’s energy dial, and which one matches your goal.