Vitamins

The prevalence of commercially sold vitamins has increased many fold in many nations, especially those with viable incomes and purchasing power.   Vitamins, to go back to basics, are manufactured by use of artificially made ingredients, claim the health benefits of a spectrum of produce, fruits and vegetables and mostly contain other stuff to come in tablet form.

There can be an increasing need to monitor the basic standards of manufacture in countries outside your own.   We have come across horror stories of illegal and unhealthy materials being covertly used in the manufacture of several things we consume, so we should be cautious about the quality requirements in the vitamins that many of us take daily.   Vitamins are essentially body intake supplements and are not prescribed medicines to help relieve or mitigate negative medical conditions.

The best sources of health nutrition come from partaking vegetables, seafood and fruits in moderate amounts and ensuring that your personal diet covers the various colours that these Nature given food stuff come in.   It can be exasperating to see the commercial push in sales by manufacturers and retailers of vitamins and other bottled comparable health supplements.

Significant questions of risks in over consuming such vitamin tablets, especially for those who consume them on a daily basis, must be reviewed by every consumer.   Every individual has a unique body in terms of size, metabolism, allergy and preference - and the dosage of taking vitamins can play a risk factor.   The body excretes excess Vitamin C taken by us.

Vitamin D comes especially to mind when low levels are detected in the body from routine blood tests.    The medical sector opinion on what is low, sufficient and too high levels of one's own Vitamin D levels can be subjective.   What is good for the goose can be bad for the gander, so they say.   One school of thought suggests a higher cancer growth risk from having too low levels of natural Vitamin D in the body, but the jury is still out on such pronouncements.   The sedentary and indoor lifestyle of many of the world's city workers can mean they are out of the natural sunlight for most of the day, when just an hour's consistent exposure to such sunlight can mean not having to take any supplementary Vitamin D tablets.


There are further dangers from the treatment if our body has over dosages of such Vitamin D tablets.   Moderation is the key in all aspects of every day life, so beware the recommendation to pop a pill every morning.    Taking vitamins must be viewed as an option in the spectrum of remedies, including physical exercise, ensuring consumption of natural sources, mitigations that address the cause of symptoms instead of just reacting to outward body conditions, understanding the balance of energy in our bodies and allowing the power in ourselves to heal.


A consumer's possible confusion can arise between the usefulness of a supplement as opposed to a medical prescribed need.   In societies where the cure is often a tablet, approved drugs and artificial means of treatment, the mindset of patients can readily accept a litany of manufactured medicines instead of considering other and useful alternative ways.


A few Western governments have ordered combination of specific vitamins into the making of high public consumed items like bread.
This follows the century old practice of putting fluoride into the public water supply.   By law, a certain amount of Thiamin and Foliate is mixed into the wheat flour by bread makers.   Vitamin D is added to margarines and spreads in Australia.   Fortification of such vitamins to foods sounds like an apparent socialist decree from a nanny state, but individuals can choose to make their own breads and spreads.

Vitamins can have a undesired impact on kidneys and the need for the body to absorb more drinking water.   Vitamins can be mostly made of gel to hold it all together in a tablet.   You can figure out the relative costs in making a single tablet and reflect on the prices charged to the ultimate consumer.   Health supplement stores work together with pharmacies, medical clinics, manufacturers, lobby groups and regulatory bodies and governments of the day.   The negative side effects of vitamin intake are often not well known or under emphasised.  Be careful, do not make the cure worse than the original ailment.   A high intake of vitamins can interfere with the workings of specific medicines.


What then are the natural sources of the so called essential Vitamins for us?

Vitamin A - Cod liver oil, butter, cheeses, sweet potato, kale,  carrots, spinach, mangoes, watermelons, papayas, tangerines, apricots, nectarines, guavas, passion fruits, hard boiled eggs, fatty fish like salmon, trout, blue fin tuna and mackerel.

Vitamin B -  Whole Grains, beans, eggs, poultry, dark leafy greens, cantaloupes, oranges, papayas and fish.


Vitamin C - citrus fruits, watermelon, berries, pineapple, papayas, mangoes, Kiwi fruits, cantaloupes, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, green and red peppers, cauliflower and leafy greens.


Vitamin D - Egg Yolks, cheese, okra, soybeans, kale, spinach, salmon, sardines, rainbow trout and other fatty fish.


Vitamin E -   Sunflower seeds, avocado, almonds, spinach and broccoli.


Vitamin K -  Green leafy vegetables, eggs, fish, meat, liver, broccoli, spinach and kale.

Passing Thoughts

We replace one habit with another, thinking we have truly changed.

We feed our passion to possibly become an obsession.

We can overuse a specific one of our five primary human senses, possibly to the exclusion or impairment of the others.

We can trap our selves in routine, happy with its familiar structure, to the extent that we become less willing to try anything else.

We love a daily purpose, no matter how simple or complex it is. 

We often find someone trying to sell us something. It is with a surprising delight when we have an unexpected encounter - a smile, an encouraging chat or a nice gesture - with no hidden agenda.

We can identify double speak and insincerity, but can be forced to deal with them even if we are just minding our own business.

We have to increasingly manage the garbage we generate ourselves or unfortunately encounter in daily life, be they in material waste, misunderstood reputation or unfair experiences.

We take comfort when we are given unconditional love, earned or not.

We receive inner joy in the big stuff we do nothing to deserve - Nature, the beauty of each new day, the love from a pet and the turn of the seasons.

Life can be stranger than fiction, but creativity and imagination can be stronger and more rewarding than expected.

The rewards of companionship can be littered with patience, a fixation and much humour.

The conversation can surpass the culinary, but the culinary settles better in the stomach.

#yongkevthoughts

Comforts of Cooking and Culinary

Cooking for the week. Ya, I like my chicken on the bone and all those spices.
Yet I still relish the best apple pie I had last night at an invite.

The diversity in Australia makes access to various culinary styles so taken for granted. The overload of information from cookbooks, family and the net means one just makes time to try recipes and not excuses. The variety of ingredients available in capital cities just require passion and detail to undertake personal and community journeys in cooking.

I can ask neighbours, relatives and friends for understanding better the nuances in better cooking various styles.

One can then deeply appreciate the techniques, interplay of catefully chosen ingredients that affect the final outcome and the fun experienced in this respect.

You can choose authentic, fusion or contemporary. Dishes are created in a continuum and are never static. Usually when someone nice reveals an extra step or ingredient in making their cooking stand out, I try to reason about the cause and effect of such detail.

So when you dine out, it is not only your taste sensory you activate but also your mind and heart trying to work out how the dish turned out. 

It can be the cut of the veg or meat. It may be both pan frying and then baking in the oven. Some times, it is easier to figure out a dessert or baked item than unravelling the intricacies of a good sauce.

All the while we learn better the cooking philosophy of the chef or our home host.

Cooking at home also means you know better what you are eating. In the perspective of things, culinary creations support the bigger picture of experience - socially, business wise or with the family. 

The aroma from well placed ingredients being cooked gives each of us a sense of well being and satisfaction far removed from feeding our hunger. Good food provides an extra dimension of elegance, civility and purposeful meaning, all well above fulfiling a basic need.

When dishes prepared with passion and detail are also well presented, we should approach them with even more gratitude.