Vitamins and Minerals
Are you getting the vitamins and minerals you need?
Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients—your body needs them to stay healthy and function properly. They don’t provide calories (energy) like carbs, protein, or fats, but they perform hundreds of vital roles inside the body.
The tricky part? There’s a fine line between getting enough (healthy) and getting too much (potentially harmful). While supplements can help in some cases, the best way to get vitamins and minerals is through a balanced diet rich in whole foods.
Why They’re Essential
Every single day, your body is hard at work:
- Building skin, muscle, and bone
- Producing red blood cells to carry oxygen
- Sending nerve signals through the brain and body
- Creating hormones and messengers that keep your organs working together
To accomplish all this, your body needs raw materials—at least 30 vitamins, minerals, and dietary components that it cannot make on its own in sufficient amounts.
What They Do
Vitamins and minerals work together to:
- Strengthen bones and teeth
- Support healing and immunity
- Convert food into usable energy
- Repair cellular damage
- Keep body systems functioning smoothly
Alphabet Soup of Nutrients
You may have heard of vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K, but those are just the start. Each vitamin and mineral has a specific role in the body, and a deficiency (or an excess) can cause health issues.
👉 In the next two sections, we’ll break down:
- Vitamins – what they are, the different types (fat-soluble vs. water-soluble), and their roles in the body.
- Minerals – the major and trace minerals your body needs, plus where to find them in food.
