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Vitamin A Vagary
"Eat carrots for vitamin A." Such statements, found in many popular diet and nutrition books, create the impression that the body's requirements for this essential nutrient can be exclusively met with plant foods like carrots, squash, green leafy vegetables and orange colored fruits. The low-fat school of nutrition benefits greatly from the fact that the public has only vague notions about vitamin A; for the family of water-soluble nutrients called carotenes are not true vitamin A, but are more accurately termed performed vitamin A. True vitamin A, or retinol, is found only in animal products like cod liver oil, liver and other organ meats, butter, cream, fish, shell fish and animal fats.