Probably the best-known vitamin C together with eight B vitamins make up a group of water-soluble vitamins. They play an important role when it comes to immunity, digestion, metabolism, neural function, and maintaining healthy looking skin. Let’s look at some good sources and a healthy recipe that will help you avoid deficiencies.
You need them daily
The thing to keep in mind about water-soluble vitamins is that the body is not very good at storing them. Every time you have an excess, you simply pee out what the body doesn’t use. This makes them very safe for supplementation but also makes us prone to deficiencies. We should focus on getting them on a daily basis.
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Good sources of vitamin C are fresh fruits and vegetables in general, but bell peppers, leafy greens, and berries are among the best. You will often hear about the importance of folic acid for pregnant women or B12 for vegans, but there are 8 B vitamins in total, so you should regularly include leafy greens, fermented foods or sourdough bread, eggs, liver, and quality meats or fish to be on the safe side.
Recipe: Sautéd shrimp with buckwheat
Buckwheat is a great source of minerals and B vitamins. In just 100 g you will cover over half of the recommended daily values (DV) for magnesium, copper, and manganese, and you’ll also get very respectable amounts of phosphorus, niacin (B3), and riboflavin (B2). The 250 g of shrimp used in this recipe will also provide you with more than enough of selenium for one day, with 70% of the DV for vitamin B12, and over 25% of DV for thiamin (B1), niacin (B3), magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, zinc, and copper. Onions and garlic will also add a good amount of vitamin C and K. So, as you can see, it’s a pretty micro-nutrient dense meal. It’s a good inspiration for meals that are tasty and healthy at the same time.
Ingredients:
250 g shrimp
100 g buckwheat
40 g butter
2 spring onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
a pinch of salt
Directions:
1. Boil water, add salt and buckwheat, and keep boiling for about 15 minutes.
2. Chop up garlic and onions.
3. Melt butter in pan, add shrimp and garlic, and sauté for 5 minutes.
4. Serve on top of buckwheat mixed with spring onions.
A pro tip – Pre-soak your buckwheat to make it more digestible.
Add buckwheat to a bowl with about 3 times the amount of water. Let soak overnight, or at least 6 hours. You’ll notice when soaking buckwheat that it gets goopy. Just place it in a colander and rinse under running water, stirring occasionally, until most of the goopiness is gone. Note that pre-soaking reduces the time of cooking to about half, so adjust accordingly.
