Let’s say one glass 8 oz. glass of orange juice is 100% Vitamin C (daily value). Well, obviously it doesn’t just reset after 24 hours, or at midnight.
If I only have a fixed amount, say one bottle, would it be more healthier to drink tiny sips every hour and try to spread it as much as possible?
If you’re interested in your health, it would be better to skip the juice and eat other foods that contain vitamin C. Some contain more than orange juice, without the sugar.
What you are aiming for is an adequate intake adding up to the RDA without going over the tolerance level. Depending on the vitamin, supplement or mineral, you could have a real problem up to and including death if you go overboard while others don’t have a known tolerance level. If you are taking a multi-vitamin though, you will get the best benefit by taking it at approximately the same time every day. I take mine when I get up. Some vitamins should be taken at night, some work better with meals, some don’t go together, some have interactions or malabsorption so unless it’s a plain multi, look it up.
Constant sipping to give yourself Vitamin C in food form drop by drop minute by minute is completely unnecessary. You can take a supplement of 500 mg in one bite.
Or consume all your Vitamin C. My morning multi vitamin has 120 mg or 200% of the RDA of Vitamin C. The tolerance level is 2,000 mg so unless I plan on eating 4 - 5 sacks of oranges that day, I won’t have a problem with either. It’s not going to matter if I take it at 6:00 am today and 8:00 am tomorrow or skip a day because you don’t empty and develop scurvy overnight. You are simply keeping your levels at a healthy amount.
Keep it simple and take a multivitamin & mineral every morning unless you develop a deficiency that needs special supplements.
I don’t have any vitamins, and nothing but frozen food, but I do have and buy juice when I can.
I’ve wondered similar. Since the human body doesn’t produce this necessary compound, we have to ingest it … but how frequently is that necessary?
In other words, how long can the metabolic process that requires ascorbic acid “coast” off what you ingest?
Oxygen? I can only coast for a couple minutes. Water, I can only coast for a couple of days. So, same idea: where does vit. C fall in that timeline?
(Also, should this be G.Q. instead?)
Yeah, I only have a few cartons of orange juice before I go shopping again, which will hopefully be a while. So what I think is best is to spread it out… I would assume its a waste to drink heavy quantities, because the body would get 100%, but if you keep drinking, you’re basically wasting it, and will pee it out.
The body is said not to store water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C, but it depends what you mean by “store.” They aren’t stored in the same way fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) are, where you can have years’ worth in your fat tissue. But in a reasonably healthy adult on a reasonably healthy diet, at any given time there is at least several weeks’ worth of vitamin C dissolved in the body’s plasma, and turnover is fairly slow. Take more vitamin C when your levels are already high and the kidneys do an efficient job of reducing the levels. The maximum concentration as regulated by the kidneys is enough to supply its needs for several weeks to several months. Trouble doesn’t start until concentrations fall to 20% of maximum.
Think of it like a warehouse where about two or three percent of the storage capacity gets moved out and used up every day. If you try to overfill the warehouse beyond its capacity, the excess product gets ruined and leaks away. Furthermore, if you let your inventory fall below about 20% of capacity, you start to run into trouble with your creditors. You have a handy chart telling you how much new stock to add every day to keep your warehouse fairly full (daily value). But if you start with a reasonably full warehouse, it doesn’t much matter whether you restock it once an hour with a little, once a day with a medium amount, or once a week with a lot. But trying to restock only once a month is really pushing it, and once a year obviously won’t work at all.