Top High Vitamin Foods to Supercharge Your Diet

High vitamin foods are essential for optimal health, energy, and vitality. Incorporating these nutrient-dense foods into your diet can significantly boost your well-being and prevent deficiencies.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top high-vitamin foods, their unique benefits, and how they can contribute to overall health.

Understanding the best vitamin sources is crucial for maintaining optimal health. In this guide, we explore various foods that are rich in essential vitamins.

Discover how to enhance your diet with these powerful foods, from vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables to nutrient-packed animal products.

Top 12 High-Vitamin Foods List

Liver is one of the most potent vitamin sources, providing high levels of vitamin A, B vitamins, and iron. Including liver in your diet can significantly boost your nutrient intake. Vegetables like spinach and broccoli are excellent vitamin sources, packed with vitamins C, K1, and B vitamins.

Twelve of the top high-vitamin foods that pack in more vitamins per serving, popular with our Optimisers, are:

liver
salmon
lamb roast
sirloin steak
ribeye steak
filet mignon
mussels
pork chops
whole egg
spinach
avocado
broccoli

What Are High Vitamin Foods?

High-vitamin foods, detailed in our high-vitamin foods list, contain more essential vitamins per serving. Thus, they give you more of the essential vitamins per bite and enable you to boost your vitamin intake.

While vitamin-rich foods pack more vitamins with less energy, high-vitamin foods also contain the protein and energy you require daily. High-vitamin foods are great for building the foundation of your nutrient-dense diet.

How Can I Get More Vitamins in My Diet?

The best way to get your vitamins is through a balanced diet with a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods that also contain the vitamins and protein your body needs to thrive. This ensures you get all the essential nutrients to optimise your health and vitality.

The infographics at the end of this article will show the foods that contain more of each vitamin per calorie. When you’re ready to level up your nutrition game, you can find longer PDF food lists for each vitamin and mineral in our Optimising Nutrition Community.

Benefits of High Vitamin Foods?

Vitamins are essential micronutrients that are crucial in maintaining overall health and well-being. Consuming a diet with plenty of vitamins can offer numerous health benefits, including:

Enhanced Immune System: Vitamins A, C, and E act as potent antioxidants that help protect cells from damage caused by free radicals. These antioxidants boost the immune system’s ability to combat infections and illnesses.
Stronger Bones and Teeth: Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption, which is essential for maintaining bone density and preventing osteoporosis. Vitamin K1 also plays a role in bone health and helps prevent blood clots.
Improved Cardiovascular Health: Vitamin C helps lower LDL cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease. Vitamin E protects blood vessels from damage and may help prevent stroke.
Healthy Skin and Hair: Vitamin C is required to produce collagen, a protein that gives skin structure and elasticity. Vitamin A promotes healthy cell growth and turnover, contributing to radiant skin and healthy hair.
Enhanced Energy Levels: B vitamins, such as B1, B2, and B3, are involved in energy metabolism and help convert food into energy. Consuming adequate B vitamins can combat fatigue and boost energy levels.
Reduced Risk of Chronic Diseases: A diet rich in vitamins can help protect against various chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamins play a role in cellular processes that may reduce the risk of these conditions.
Improved Cognitive Function: B vitamins, such as B6 and B12, are essential for brain function and may help improve memory, concentration, and overall cognitive performance.
Healthy Vision: Vitamin A is crucial for maintaining healthy vision and preventing night blindness. Vitamin E may also protect against age-related macular degeneration.
Stronger Muscles and Nerves: Vitamin B1 supports muscle function and nerve transmission. Vitamin B12 is essential for nerve cell growth and maintenance.
Enhanced Mental Well-being: B vitamins, such as B5 and B9, play a role in regulating mood and reducing stress. Consuming adequate B vitamins may help improve mental well-being and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Risks Associated with Excess Vitamin Intake

While vitamins are essential for our health, consuming excessive vitamin supplements can lead to serious health problems. This is known as vitamin toxicity or hypervitaminosis.

Fat-soluble vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K, are more likely to cause toxicity than water-soluble vitamins, as the body stores excess fat-soluble vitamins in the liver and fatty tissues. Meanwhile, water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins C and B, are excreted in the urine, making it less likely to accumulate to toxic levels.

In our Micros Masterclass, we guide Optimisers to chase their priority micronutrients with whole foods. Continually focusing on the nutrients you’re getting less tends to ensure that people aren’t consuming a broad range of foods and avoiding excessive amounts of any single nutrient.

How Much of Each Vitamin Do I Need?

Our satiety analysis has provided unique insights into the minimum amount of each vitamin we crave.

The ‘bliss point’ intake for each vitamin, shown in the table below, aligns with the maximum energy intake. If we get less than this amount, we’ll crave more food until we get the necessary vitamins.
The Optimal Nutrient Intake (ONI) is our stretch target for each of the vitamins achievable with food but aligns with greater satiety because we satisfy our requirements for the vitamins with less energy.

The table below compares the bliss point, optimal nutrient intake, and Dietary Reference Intake (per 2000 calories).

vitamin	Bliss Point	ONI	DRI	units
thiamine (B1)	1.6	2.7	1.2	mg
riboflavin (B2)	1.4	3.1	1.3	mg
niacin (B3)	20	55	16.0	mg
vitamin B5	3.3	9	5.0	mg
vitamin B6	1.2	3.6	1.3	mg
vitamin B12	2.4	7.2	2.4	mcg
choline	450	1000	550	mg
folate	400	1200	400	mcg
vitamin A	400	1000	900	mcg
vitamin C	90	200	90	mg
vitamin E	6.2	15	15	mg
vitamin K1	58	120	120	mcg

Note: These values are shown per 2000 calories. In our Micros Masterclass, we provide Optimisers with a spreadsheet to help them factor these based on their energy intake.

Will Vitamins Help Me Lose Weight?

Our satiety analysis shows that foods that contain more vitamins per calorie tend to be more satiating. However, protein and minerals not used in fortification and supplements dominate the satiety equation, so don’t trust your multivitamin as ‘nutritional insurance’ to compensate for a low-satiety processed diet. For more details, see The Role of Vitamins in Satiety and Weight Management.

Vitamin-Rich vs High Vitamin Foods

Foods high in vitamins will help you boost your vitamin intake if you are not yet meeting the minimum (bliss point) intake. Once you get the minimum amount of each vitamin, you can focus on vitamin-rich foods that provide more vitamins with fewer calories.

In our Micros Masterclass, we guide our Optimisers to use high-vitamin foods to meet the minimum vitamin requirements. From there, they can use vitamin-rich foods to get more vitamins with less energy and move towards the Optimal Nutrient Intakes to boost satiety, nutrient density and vitality.

Nutrient Dense Foods Chart

The chart below shows nutrient density (per serving) vs. nutrient density (per calorie), illustrating the difference between nutrient-dense and high-nutrient foods.

Notice that many of the foods with the highest nutrient density (per calorie) towards the top of the chart are ones that we eat in much smaller quantities. Once you have laid the initial foundation with high-nutrient foods, these are great for filling in your remaining nutrient gaps.

If you’re curious about how your favourite foods rank in terms of vitamins per serving vs. calories, check out the interactive chart here.

High-Vitamin Recipes

If you’re looking for high-vitamin recipes, check out our NutriBooster recipes, designed to maximise nutrient density while aligning with different goals and preferences.

High-Vitamin Meal Plan

To see what a week of eating foods high in vitamins looks like, download our free Healthiest Meal Plan in the World here.

How Can I Know if I’m Getting Enough Vitamins?

The best way to determine whether you’re getting the required vitamins is to track your food intake for a few days in Cronometer.

Take our Free Nutrient Clarity Challenge. You’ll discover which vitamins you’re missing and the foods and meals that contain all your priority nutrients.

Once you’re ready to take your nutrition to the next level and optimise your diet at the micronutrient level, we’d love you to join our Micros Masterclass.

Have you tried incorporating more high-vitamin foods into your diet? Share your experiences in the comments below! Also, remember to check out our articles on other essential nutrients for a balanced diet.

Appendix – High Vitamin Foods Lists

The infographics below show popular foods that provide more of each of the essential vitamins per serving. Below each food, the amount of each vitamin provided by the typical serving size consumed by our Optimisers is also shown.

We’ve also included the satiety charts for each vitamin, highlighting each vitamin’s bliss point and optimal nutrient intake.

If you’re getting less than the bliss point minimum, high-vitamin foods containing more of each mineral per serving will help you boost your mineral intake.
Once you’ve exceeded this minimum, mineral-rich foods containing more of each mineral per calorie will help you pack more of each nutrient into your energy budget.