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Lets Talk About Vitamin C and Tea

Maintaining a healthy, balanced diet filled with different nutrients plays a key part in our everyday health and wellbeing. In this article, discover how Vitamin C can contribute to your normal immune system function, as well as some potentially surprising natural sources you might want to add to your shopping list.

Everyone knows eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health. Sounds simple right? But we’re sure you’ll agree that even with the best intentions in the world, sometimes life gets in the way and a balanced diet goes flying out the window. However, it is important to remember that a healthy, balanced diet can help to keep the immune system working properly and we need to look after our immune systems so that they can fend off infections where possible.

A number of different nutrients are involved in supporting our immune systems to work normally and one of these noteworthy nutrients is Vitamin C!

Our Twinings Herbal Expert Sophia Forrester loves Vitamin C due to it contributing to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. It can also help to support healthy skin, blood vessels and bones and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue. Pretty impressive hey!

However, Vitamin C needs us to play our part! It cannot be stored in the body, so we need to make sure we are including it in our diet every single day. Vitamin C supplements can be very useful, but Sophia believes that nothing beats getting vitamin C than from your diet.

She’s not alone, as the British Nutrition Foundation also says “wherever possible, vitamin and mineral intakes should come from a nutritionally balanced and diverse diet”. Food and drink can contain a whole host of other beneficial nutrients which together with Vitamin C help to make up a balanced and nutritious diet.

But don’t worry, this is easier than you think. And no, you don’t need to eat a million Oranges a day. In fact, the NHS advises adults need 40mg of vitamin C a day and you should be able to get this all from your daily diet.

Although famously found in Citrus Fruit, you can also find naturally occurring Vitamin C in loads of different fruit and veg. Some might even surprise you:

Strawberries – top up your porridge with more Strawberries as there’s 48mg of Vit C in your daily portion of 7 strawberries
Broccoli (steamed) – there is 36mg of Vit C in two spears of this mini tree like veg, but don’t forget to steam rather than boil*
Red Peppers – throw in a salad, toss in a stir fry – whatever you choose to do with it, ½ a red pepper can contribute 107.1mg of your daily Vitamin C!
Tomatoes – one medium tomato will give you 25.4mg of Vit C. Why not combine with your red pepper to top up your salad bowl?
Oranges – we can’t not mention the Orange as it’s earnt it’s Vitamin C reputation. You’ll find an impressive 52mg of Vit C in an average sized orange.
Potatoes – in the UK, we get a lot of our Vitamin C from potatoes. Although they typically only contain around 11 to 16mg of Vitamin C per 100g of potatoes, we generally eat a lot of them!

(all mg of vit c from the Department of Health, all portion sizes from the NHS)

*Sophia always advises consuming any Vitamin C rich foods raw or steaming them with minimal water. This is because Vitamin C is water soluble and some can be lost in cooking water.

Feeling at your best every day is the inspiration behind our carefully crafted Superblends Defence Infusion. A delicious combination of green tea, juicy fruit flavours and Echinacea root will comfort you with taste while the added benefit of 20mg of Vitamin C* helps to support the normal function of your immune system.

*based on an infusion brewed with 200ml hot water for 3 minutes