Saturday, October 14, 2006

Eye candy ?? Naaa Eye Vitamins

How many times, when you were a kid, did you hear someone nag you about eating your carrots because they were good for your eyes, were good eye vitamins, and when you challenged this, the nagger jokingly asked you, “Have you ever seen a rabbit wearing glasses?”? How many times did you figure out a way to slide those nasty cooked, mushy things off the plate, onto the floor, into your waiting beggar-doggie’s mouth? And years later, as you squinted or huffed on the stained eyeglasses to clear them, did you regret not listening to those who knew better after all? Yes, the carrot is an eye vitamin. It is classically the first one we think of as an eye vitamin, anyway, as carrots have vitamin A, an antioxidant that is said by the experts and pros to contribute in the prevention of weakening eyesight, macular degeneration, cataracts, and even blindness. But carrots alone or vitamin A alone do not the complete eye vitamin make. And as with any vitamin—eye vitamin, skin vitamin, hair vitamin, etc.—there are a couple of important facts. One, it is possible to overdose on certain (if not most) vitamins. If we read how this or that supplement is the ideal eye vitamin, and we take too much, we can break out in itching, rashes, and worse conditions…due to vitamin toxicity. Two, an individual eye vitamin A, for instance, does not work alone. Other vitamins help the fat-burning properties of a vitamin, or assist in the absorption process. That is, vitamins work in conjunction. If you take vitamin C, considered a good eye vitamin for possibly reducing certain risks of degeneration and glaucoma, you will do well to have the right amount of bioflavonoids, for bioflavonoids are said to help the body absorb vitamin C. This latter point or principle makes sense if you think of the perfectly balanced diet: certain foods are reckless together, doing nothing more than encouraging the omega-6 fatty acids to overpower the nutrients or what have you; yet other foods, when eaten together, work to encourage digestion, or burn fat, or what have you. I am by no means an expert or a nutritional professional of any kind, I just found over the years that certain food combinations are extremely good together, like rice and beans, for instance. And I make the connection with the same process the eye vitamin and its comrades need to undergo by being taken together. I will leave the factual and scientific to the pros, then, and leave you with what I understand to be the ideal combo-eye vitamin: Vitamins A, C, and E, as well as a balance of omega-3 fatty acids and others, are now in one eye vitamin…so you don’t have to weigh, measure, or calculate the right mix, and so you don’t have to, if you can’t stand to, eat those cooked carrots. Raw ones are better and better for you, anyway. Did you ever see a rabbit eating COOKED carrots?

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