Chapter 3. Vitamins

Purpose and Goals

Photo Credit: Heike Rau/Shutterstock

Vitamins are divided into two groups: fat-soluble and water-soluble. The fat-soluble vitamins required by the body are vitamins A, D, E, and K. These vitamins need the presence of dietary fat and the assistance of bile to be effectively absorbed. They aren’t excreted as easily as water-soluble vitamins, making them more likely to cause toxicity. However, this rarely occurs when consuming vitamins exclusively through foods.

The water-soluble vitamins include the B vitamins and vitamin C. Because these vitamins are generally not stored in the body, deficiency conditions of the water-soluble vitamins develop more quickly than for the fat-soluble vitamins.

In this activity, you will identify the sources of fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins in your diet and compare the amount you get with the current dietary recommendations.

This will allow you to save your information for future use. After you have created your profile, select ‘Track Food & Activity’ at the top of the page and click ‘Food Tracker’ in the drop-down menu. Record your food and beverage intake for one day or for multiple days that most reflect your typical eating patterns. Enter each food and beverage you have consumed into the Food Tracker. Note that there may not always be an exact match to the food or beverage that you consumed, so select the best match available.

Once you have entered all of your food and beverage choices into the food tracker, select ‘My Reports’ from the navigation bar at the top of the page. You will need to use both the Nutrients Report and the Food Details Report for this activity.

3.1 Build Your Grid

3.2 Analyze Your Intake

3.3 Activity Completed!

REFERENCES: