21 + 4 = 25

While I was sitting at the breakfast table eating my Cornflakes this morning, I noticed some of the fine print on the jar of Vitamin E supplements. They're vegetarian softgels (400 IU) turned out by a New Jersey company called Solgar Vitamin and Herb. And it turns out that Solgar's been in business since 1947! I looked at their website this morning and - sure enough - Solgar (founded by two pharmacists and a holistic physician) introduced Naturvite, a "high potency natural multivitamin with minerals," as their first product in 1947. Naturvite's special selling point seems to have been that it used parsley, watercress, and alfalfa as the "fillers" that bound the vitamins and minerals together instead of the sugars, starches, or salts that brands such as Vimms were using.

American scientists had learned a lot about vitamins and minerals during the war. The military put a ton of cash into researching how to better fuel the bodies of servicemen and heal wounds more quickly. The Office of War Information churned out ad after ad promoting better awareness among the general public of the vitamin and mineral content of various foods. After all, it was critical that men and women working in the defense industry and keeping the home front humming also be in as good health as possible. Americans were highly conscious of vitamins during this period, so it makes sense that the founders of Solgar would find the postwar era an ideal time to launch a multivitamin.

Vitamins may have been a hot topic, but the general public still had a pretty fuzzy understanding of their benefits. This 1940 article from St. Petersburg, Florida's Evening Independent gives you a sense of just how novel all this information was to people outside the medical community:

It is true that people knew very little about vitamins until the present century. So far as they did know anything, the knowledge was in the hands of a few who used certain foods to cure illness. No vitamin had even a name 25 years ago.

Knowledge of vitamins is leading the world toward a new and better day. Babies are being fed foods which make them stronger and healthier. Adults are slowly learning that vitamins can make life better for them as well…

Vitamin A brings better ability to see in dim light. It also appears to be of help in guarding against long-drawn-out colds. It adds to a person’s general feeling of good health, and seems to play a part in guarding teeth against decay.

Vitamin B (also called B1) helps children to grow as they should. It does something to bring about better digestion.

Vitamin C does a great deal to build sound teeth. Along with the A and D vitamins, everyone who has teeth (or hope of teeth) needs it. It also joins with A in building up a feeling of good health.

Vitamin D is a bone-building and tooth-building vitamin. It is needed by the body to make use of calcium and phosphorus, which are minerals in food.

Other vitamins, including E and G, also have their important uses. Scientists are now exploring new vitamins in the B group, and facts about these will be known to a greater extent as the months go by.

Though vitamin "concentrates" and "preparations" were becoming popular, home economists also recognized that a truly balanced diet contained all the vitamins needed for optimum health --- and many cookbooks published during this era contain material on the vitamin content of various foods and how best to prepare foods in order to preserve those vitamins. A columnist for the Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote an article on this very topic in 1941, stressing the role the housewife could play:

The people of this country are more conscious of the importance of vitamins and minerals, and other nutritional factors in food, than ever before. The average housewife goes to market with a determination to buy protective foods that will give her family the essentials for better health. But if she is not careful in the preparation of these foods, the loss of their protective values will be tremendous… Natural foods have high contents of vitamins and minerals which incorrect cooking methods can destroy.

Do not cook vegetables in a copper kettle. Use a covered pan, a pressure cooker or a double boiler, and heat them just long enough to make them tender. Many vitamins are water soluble, and also are lost in high heat. Save the water, because in it are vitamins and minerals. Use it for sauces, gravies, soups, or for a cocktail to which lemon juice is added. Use little water when cooking vegetables, just enough to cover them. Green leafy types may be cooked in the water left on the leaves after washing…

Cook potatoes in their skins to preserve the vitamin and mineral contents.

Here on my own home front, I'm doing a pretty good job at taking my multivitamin. It's a three-times-per-day tablet, designed to be taken with a meal. I'm great at remembering it with my breakfast and my dinner. And at lunch on the weekends. But I'm having a terrible time remembering to take it with my lunch on weekdays! Maybe I need to bring a week's supply to work with me on Mondays so it's right there in front of me.

I'm also taking a Vitamin E supplement, a Vitamin D supplement (as the multivitamin only contains 50% of the recommended daily allowance of D), and a sublingual Vitamin B12. My doctor and my mother have been after me for years to take the B12. It's the one vitamin that's absorbed only at the very end of the small intestine. I had to have my large intestine and a portion of my small intestine removed nine years ago, so the sublingual supplement (a little pill you pop under your tongue) is one of the few ways I have of getting that into my body. My levels have always been normal, but it can't hurt to give things a little boost while I'm reducing.

Speaking of which, check out those numbers in the title to this post!!! I practically did a jig this morning when I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 169. The 160s at last! It feels like a milestone... I'm headed out tomorrow to do some shopping and see if I can finally fit into a size 14. Wish me luck!