Vitamins

nd, such as the nitrates and ammonia salts. Animals, however, cant perform this conversion of simple inorganic substances to amino acids, so they must ingest them in the form of food -- with herbivorous animals consuming plant proteins in vegetables and carnivorous animals consuming animal proteins in the bodies of their prey. Vitamins are essential aids in many body processes, converting food the energy, building and maintaining cells and other functions.
Vitamins can thus be looked at as a crucial ingredient in the long-term maintenance of health. Vitamins come in two main forms -- water soluble and fat soluble. The fat soluble vitamins, including A, D, E and K, are absorbed by the body with the aid of fat and then stored in body fat. Because they are stored in this way, we do not need to take these vitamins daily and it is usually possible to maintain adequate amounts in the body through a normal, well-balanced diet. But for the same reason, it is possible to overdose on these vitamins by taking too many as supplements, in which case they can build up to toxic levels and actually cause harm to the person taking them.
The water soluble vitamins, including Vitamin C and all of the B complex vitamins, are used up quickly or excreted in urine and perspiration; they are not stored and should be consumed daily. They break down quickly and can be partially lost through premature harvesting, long and improper storage, processing, overcooking, and cooking in water. The high amounts of both water soluble and fat soluble vitamins found in raw vegetables and fruits are often lost when they are processed, with a few exceptions such as carrots, which actually gain in vitamin A by being cooked. The best sources of the different vitamin groups are now well-known. Vitamin A