5 Simple Foods That Contain Lutein to Preserve & Enhance Eyesight By Valerie Rosenbaum At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

If you’re wondering how much lutein is in food, this article will give you the information that you’re looking for. Including the antioxidant in your daily diet is a good idea, especially to reduce your risk of age related eye diseases, such as macular degeneration. There may be other benefits, as well. So, here are the foods that are good sources, along with how much you would need to eat every day.

Recommendations for daily intake vary. No minimum daily requirements have been established. You will not see the nutrient listed on food packaging. But, judging from the scientific studies, 10-50mg per day is necessary to protect the long-term health of the eyes.

That’s not to say that people who don’t get that much have poor eyesight. No studies concerning that have been done. The studies that have been done focused primarily on macular degeneration and at least 10mg has been necessary to slow down the progression of the disease.

When we are talking about how much lutein is in food, we are talking about the average or approximate amount. The nutrient content of vegetables varies greatly. Organic vegetables appear to be the most nutrient rich, but soil and weather conditions have a lot to do with it, too. So, these values are approximate.

Let’s look at what you would need to eat to get approximately 20mg per day, because that’s a little more than the minimum and could make up for variations in nutritional content. In order to get 20, you could eat:

1) 91 grams or 3.25 ounces of kale

2) 123 grams or 5 ounces of collard greens

3) 181 grams or 6.5 ounces of Swiss chard

4) 158 grams or 7 ounces of cooked spinach

5) 202 grams or 8 ounces of mustard greens

If you were wondering how much lutein is in food, those are the best sources. If none of those happen to be on your daily diet, a dietary supplement is an option. Actually, even if you do eat one or more of those foods every day, supplementation is still a good option.

Lutein is not the only nutrient that is necessary for good vision and continued health of the eyes. Zeaxanthin, a primary component of the macula, is also important. The amount of zeaxanthin in foods is even lower.

You see, lutein is in food, but not in large quantities, that makes it a micronutrient. At one time, scientists did not believe that micronutrients were important to human health. Only the basic vitamins and minerals were considered essential, because without them, deficiency disease would occur.

Today, more and more healthcare professionals are coming to the realization that those basic nutrients are not the only important elements of the human diet. In order to wipe out deficiency diseases, fortified foods were developed. Vitamins were added to flour, milk and other common foods, to increase their nutritive value.

That meant that people could basically exist on white bread and milk, but they didn’t get any of the micronutrients present in “real” foods. Your daily multi-vitamin probably contains about 30 different ingredients, but there are over 50 different micronutrients that they do not contain.

Now that you know a little more about how much lutein is in food, you might want to take the time to learn about what a complete nutritional supplement can do for you.

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