Want off the Sickness Carousel? (You'll need C for that.)

If there's a dad joke out there about why goats don't catch the flu, here's the answer; they make a ton of Vitamin C in their livers! 

In fact, almost every living thing on earth makes its own C. And not just a little. Goats make 10 grams a day (that's grams not milligrams), rats make 4-5 grams a day, rabbits 6-8 grams a day, and plants? Of course, they’re our vital human supply of C. 

Unfortunately for us, we modern humans have lost the gene to produce C. Sadly, even potatoes make more vitamin C than we do..  And given that C is essential for the formation and action of our entire immune system and that without at least a little C in our bodies humans quickly sicken and die, that's a spot of bad news for us. 

But if we could make C from carbs like other animals, how much would we be making on the daily to keep optimally healthy? 

How much C should humans take? 

Based on weight and use-case, if humans could make C, healthy adults would likely produce roughly 8 to 12 grams a day in our livers. 

But the reality of our genetic problem is why we humans need to eat our C. And not just enough to stop us dying, enough to start thriving. We need to eat like gorillas! (Or at least, a similar amount of C as gorillas.)

From the 30's to the 70's hundreds of scientists and doctors discovered that milligram doses of C didn't have much effect on disease, but as they inched up to gram doses they had exponentially better outcomes. Particularly in the case of viruses. And although sincere efforts were made, it was impossible to find a toxic dose level.* Verry handy!

To shoot for a level of health we haven't perhaps let ourselves believe possible, we can start by swapping the 'M-for-milligrams' version with the 'G-for-grams'  version of Vitamin C.   like Yesterday.