easy to do, for vitamin B Is widely distributed by nature in our foods and is not easily destroyed by heat in cooking processes. The best sources of vitamin B are milk, whole wheat cereals, and bran, vegetables, especially spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, and navy beans.
Vitamin CAbsence of vitamin C causes scurvy. But if the supply is deficient, there will result irritability, stunted growth, and lack of stamina. Vitamin C is the vitamin easiest to miss, because it is so easily destroyed by heat and is found less generally in foods than the other vitamins. It is not enough barely to escape scurvy. We need an abundance of vitamin C to insure vigorous health, and it is extremely necessary for mothers, both before and after baby’s arrival. It is found in good quantities in oranges, lemons, grape fruit, tomatoes, fresh or canned, raw cabbage, raw onions, lettuce, and rutabagas. We should eat at least one of these every day to be certain of getting a good supply of vitamin C.
Anti-rachitic Factor, Vitamin DAnother food element is vitamin D, the absence of which, especially in infants’ food, is one of the causes of that prevalent form of malnutrition called rickets—the failure of the bones to deposit calcium and phosphorus properly and to harden normally. Once rickets has fastened itself upon the child, the little victim becomes more susceptible to other diseases, especially those of the respiratory tract. A deficiency of vitamin D also causes poor development of the teeth. Egg yolk and cod liver oil are the best sources of the anti-rachitic factor and therefore should be used to keep rickets at bay.
[ 17 ]
