QandAs: Food

What are some Foods High in Vitamin C?

Answer:
Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid is found naturally

in many fruits, vegetables, and some animal sources. Drinking Vitamin C in juice form (probably my favorite way of getting the vitamin), eating as fresh fruit or meeting the required daily allowance through types of meat, can help the body fight infection.

I love most fruits and vegetables, so I find those rich in Vitamin C easy to work into a daily regimen.

Some of the most common are:

Citrus fruits; lemons, limes, oranges, etc.
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Green peppers
Brussels sprouts
Honeydew melons
Juices
Potatoes

Some less common sources are; red and black currants, sweet red peppers, persimmons, Kakadu plums, Camu Camu, parsley, kiwi fruit, guavas, papayas and rose hips.

Animal sources include raw beef, calf, pork livers, raw oysters, fried cod roe, fried chicken livers, fried lamb livers and boiled lamb brain.

As a kid growing up, I remember teachers talking about a time when those at sea for months, including the first colonists coming to America, suffered a disease called scurvy. It was later learned that lack of fruits and vegetables containing Vitamin C could cause extreme problems for crew and passengers' health. The result was a major turnaround in thinking that led to many a ship’s captain stopping offshore to buy or harvest fruits and vegetables to carry throughout a long voyage.