Our body needs various nutrients to carry out its functions, including Vitamin A. You might not have heard much about it, but a vital nutrient is required to maintain the retina’s health (a part of the eye that converts images into nerve signals enabling us to see).
Other essential functions include helping maintain a healthy immune system and growing and developing various tissues and organs. Another significant contribution of this nutrient is that it plays a vital role in reproduction and fetal development.
Vitamin A is a must in your diet if you want to have younger-looking skin. However, too little or too much nutrient consumption can have adverse effects, so make sure to eat vitamin A-rich foods as a part of a balanced diet. Keep reading, and you will find the comprehensive vitamin A food chart, which lists all the food sources rich in nutrients.
High Vitamin a Foods Chart
All vitamins and minerals are essential; what’s unique about vitamin A? Well, it’s a frequently asked question with a simple answer. You can suffer from an increased risk of infection and problems with growth development and reproductivity.
To prevent yourself from suffering from a vitamin A deficiency, the recommended daily value of the nutrient is as follows and varies with age and gender:
- Adults and Adolescents (14 years and older):
- Males: 900 mcg RAE (about 3,000 International Units [IU])
- Females: 700 mcg RAE (about 2,333 IU)
- Children (1 to 13 years):
- Both males and females: 300 to 600 mcg RAE (about 1,000 to 2,000 IU), depending on age
- Infants (0 to 12 months):
- Both males and females: 400 to 500 mcg RAE (about 1,333 to 1,667 IU), depending on age
To make things easier for you, we have designed a high vitamin A food chart to help you fulfill your daily count:
| Food | Vitamin A (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Sweet Potato | 14,187 mcg RAE |
| Carrots | 8,280 mcg RAE |
| Spinach (cooked) | 5,577 mcg RAE |
| Butternut Squash | 2,214 mcg RAE |
| Kale (cooked) | 1,772 mcg RAE |
| Pumpkin (cooked) | 1,100 mcg RAE |
| Apricots (dried) | 1,290 mcg RAE |
| Beef Liver (cooked) | 6,582 mcg RAE |
| Cod Liver Oil | 30,000 mcg RAE |
| Mango (raw) | 54 mcg RAE |
| Red Bell Peppers | 313 mcg RAE |
| Papaya (raw) | 55 mcg RAE |
| Broccoli (cooked) | 120 mcg RAE |
| Spinach (raw) | 469 mcg RAE |
| Cheddar Cheese | 322 mcg RAE |
Vitamin A Foods for Eyes
We often neglect eye care in our daily routine, our emphasis is mainly on heart health, and skin health but eye health is nowhere near on the list of our priorities.
Eye health will allow you to have better vision without the need of glasses, wouldn’t it be great not to rely on an additional instrument to enable to see clearly? Besides, glasses are a hassle anyways so make eyes health a priority and see the world clearly without any help.
There are various foods rich in vitamin A, if taken on a daily basis they can help improve eye health hence vision.
However, it should be noted that if you are dealing with serious eye problems, there is no better way than medication to help solve your problem, and vitamin A foods might not be of much help in this case. Here’s a round up of vitamin A foods list good for eye health.
| Food Source | Vitamin A Content (per 100g) |
|---|---|
| Sweet Potatoes | 14,187 IU |
| Carrots | 8,334 IU |
| Spinach | 9,377 IU |
| Kale | 6,200 IU |
| Broccoli | 623 IU |
| Bell Peppers (red) | 313 IU |
| Salmon | 420 IU |
| Tuna | 50 IU |
| Eggs | 520 IU |
| Papaya | 950 IU |
| Apricots | 1925 IU |
Best Vitamin a Food for Skin
You must have heard the famous saying “You are what you eat”; it means what you eat directly affects your body and especially your skin. If you add more junk food to your diet, you will probably be overweight and have acne or other skin issues.
On the contrary, if you love leafy green vegetables or religiously consume eggs, you will likely have a toned body with beautiful and fresh-looking skin.
Dr. Nischal K is a dermatologist and dermatopathologist who has worked in the field since 2007. He explains that vitamin A is needed for the maintenance of the outer layer of skin, protecting it from oxidative damage, rejuvenating, and providing vitality.
Also, the leading cause of aging is dryness which causes the skin to lose its elasticity.
Vitamin A-rich foods maintain moisture for youthful and younger-looking skin; for best results, start a daytime and nighttime skincare routine by applying sunscreens, moisturizers, and lotions. For beautiful skin, include the following vitamin A foods sources in your diet.
Vitamin A Foods Vegetarian
Plant sources store vitamin A in the form of carotenoids, which must be converted into retinol for the body to use. Carotenoids give the plants their green, red, orange, or red color. Vegetables such as mangoes, papaya, squashes, carrots, maize, and sweet potato are considered as the warehouses for vitamin A.
Dark green leafy vegetables also have a higher vitamin content, such as spinach and amaranth, but they are hard to digest. Add healthy fats such as olive oil or sprinkle some nuts to aid digestion othe f your greens. You can also pair your greens with pineapples, or papaya so that the digestive enzymes in these foods help in digestion.
Vitamin A Foods for Babies
A vitamin A diet can help strengthen the baby’s immunity against infection and diseases. Foods mentioned above contain vitamin A, but babies can’t consume them directly. Mothers can steam or boil the veggies or meat and add them with staples to make them soft and easy to chew and digest.
Make sure not to overcook the food as it might reduce the vitamin A content, so shorten the duration of the procedure you are using to prepare the food for your babies. Introduce a small amount to the baby first to see if he has any allergies. newly introduced food.
Here’s a round-up of some of the vegetables high in vitamin A content and how you can feed them to your babies:
| Food | Vitamin A content per 100gm |
|---|---|
| Sweet potato | 961 mcg |
| Mango puree | 25-50 mcg |
| Steamed spinach | 469 mcg |
| Steamed butternut squash | 11155 mcg |
| Carrot puree | 828 mcg |
Final Words
Vitamin A can be stored in the fat and liver hence it can be hard for your body to get rid of excess vitamin A. The excess vitamin A accumulates causing vomiting, headaches, dry skin etc. The healthier way to obtain vitamin A is to rely on natural sources of vitamin A. To know more about the various sources of vitamin A, have a look at the Vitamin A food chart above.