Among the very best foods you can eat are apricots, cantaloupe, citrus (including lemons and limes), cranberries, mangoes, papaya, peaches, pineapple and strawberries— all good sources of vitamins A and/or C. The best vegetables include asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, collards, kale, lettuce (excepting iceberg), mustard, pumpkins, sweet pepper, sweet potatoes, winter squash, spinach, turnip greens and most varieties of sprouted seeds and grains—most are also high in vitamins A and C.
Good sources of zinc include plain unbuttered popcorn, sweet potatoes; most nuts, seeds and peanuts; green beans, lentils, wheat germ, wheat bran and brewers or nutritional yeast, which can be sprinkled on cereal. Cod liver oil is also an excellent source of vitamins A and D while most legumes and whole grains supply the B-complex vitamins and vitamin E.
The late Professor Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, an eminent scientist and Nobel prizewinner, who died recently at the age of 93, reported that since he began eating one-fourth of a cup of wheat germ each day at breakfast several years ago, he did not experience a single cold. Wheat germ is a rich source of zinc as well as vitamin E and manganese.
Because cooking can destroy vitamin C and other vitamins in food, we should eat as many foods as possible fresh and uncooked. For similar reasons, we should avoid all foods that are canned, processed, manufactured, prepared or dehydrated. And when we do cook, we should steam, broil, bake or stew instead of fry.
An important note: dried beans contain zinc but their phytate makes some of that zinc unusable. So be sure to soak the beans overnight before cooking to remove the phytate.
Don’t forget, either, that the vitamin C in orange juice, and in other juices, is easily destroyed by freezing, dehydrating or canning. As a result, the actual vitamin C content of most canned or frozen orange and grapefruit juice is often disappointingly low. Whenever possible, either squeeze your own juices from fresh fruits and vegetables; or else eat the fruits and vegetables themselves. Since fruit juices are also high in fruit sugar, which is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream where it creates a high blood sugar level, fruit juices should be sipped slowly rather than gulped down.
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