Vitamins are natural substances that your body needs to grow, develop and function normally. The term vitamin is derived from the words vital and amine, because vitamins are required for life and were originally thought to be amines. Although not all vitamins are amines, they are organic compounds required by humans in small amounts from the diet. An organic compound is considered a vitamin if a lack of that compound in the diet results in overt symptoms of deficiency. Vitamins are contained in food; a well-balanced diet usually provides all of the vitamins required. However, there are times, such as during pregnancy, childhood, when your body needs more vitamins than usual.

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Vitamins are natural substances that your body needs to grow, develop and function normally. The term vitamin is derived from the words vital and amine, because vitamins are required for life and were originally thought to be amines. Although not all vitamins are amines, they are organic compounds required by humans in small amounts from the diet. An organic compound is considered a vitamin if a lack of that compound in the diet results in overt symptoms of deficiency. Vitamins are contained in food; a well-balanced diet usually provides all of the vitamins required. However, there are times, such as during pregnancy, childhood, when your body needs more vitamins than usual.

There are two types of vitamins: fat-soluble and water-soluble.

Fat-soluble vitamins are found mainly in fatty foods such as animal fats (including butter and lard), vegetable oils, dairy foods, liver and oily fish. Your body needs these vitamins every day to work properly, however, you don't need to eat foods containing them every day. This is because, our body stores them in the liver and fatty tissues for future use. This means the stores can build up so they are there when we need them. But, if we consume much more than we need, fat-soluble vitamins can be harmful.

These are all fat-soluble vitamins:

• vitamin A
• vitamin D
• vitamin E
• vitamin K

Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body, so you need to have them more frequently. If you have more than you need, your body gets rid of the extra vitamins when you urinate. Because the body doesn't store water-soluble vitamins, generally these vitamins aren't harmful. Water-soluble vitamins are found in wide variety of foods. High vitamin density foos are the fruit, vegetables and grains. But unlike fat-soluble vitamins, they can be destroyed by heat or by being exposed to the air. They can also be lost in the water used for cooking.
This means that by cooking food, especially boiling, we lose lots of these vitamins from the food we eat. The best way to keep as much of the water-soluble vitamins as possible is to steam or grill, rather than boil.

These are all water-soluble vitamins:

• vitamin B6
• vitamin B12
• vitamin C
• biotin
• folic acid
• niacin
• pantothenic acid
• riboflavin
• thiamin

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