Vitamin A Deficiency? Load Up on Sweet Potatoes!

Vitamin A is an extremely important nutrient for your health. It is a fat soluble vitamin that plays a major role in strengthening your immune system, improving or maintaining your vision, skin health, and even reproduction. Vitamin A comes in two forms:

• Preformed vitamin A
  Most people know preformed vitamin A by the name of retinol. It is most commonly found in fish, meat, eggs, and dairy products.
• Provitamin A
  Provitmain A is developed by your body converting carotenoids found in plant foods, such as green, red, orange, and yellow fruits and veggies.

Vitamin A deficiencies are pretty rare in most developed countries where food is generally readily available, but it does occur. The people that have the most risk of developing a vitamin A deficiency are pregnant women, infants, breastfeeding mothers, and children. Some common symptoms of vitamin A deficiency are:

• Dry skin
• Dry eyes
• Night blindness
• Infertility and conception trouble
• Delayed growth
• Throat and chest infections
• Poor clotting and wound healing
• Acne and skin breakouts

If you are suffering from a vitamin A deficiency, or even suspect you are, you should try loading up on sweet potatoes. A large 180 g sweet potato with its skin still on has approximately 1,730 mg of vitamin A. The average adult male needs only 900 mg of vitamin a daily, while the average woman needs around 700 mg. That means just one sweet potato can meet over 100 percent of the average person’s daily vitamin A allowance.

Best of all, sweet potatoes are actually quite delicious and versatile. You can eat sweet potatoes every day and not eat the same dish twice. Just make sure you consume your sweet potato alongside a dietary fat source. Fat increases the rate of vitamin A absorption.