The B family of vitamins is a large one! Vitamin B1, also known as thiamin, helps your body fight off illness and diseases of the nervous system. But that’s barely the beginning.
Vitamin B1 was discovered in the search for a cure for beriberi. It is a key element in the chain reactions that provide energy for the body. It helps your body convert food, manufacture fat, and metabolize protein. Thiamin is also beneficial for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other mental degeneration and impairment. It may also help improve the mental function of people who suffer from epilepsy.
Most foods don’t come with a lot of vitamin B1 — but trace amounts can be found in many different foods. It occurs naturally in pork, oysters, green peas, and lima beans. You’ll also find thiamin in “enriched” foods like breads and cereals. However, high cooking temperatures can destroy thiamin. Thiamin is also water soluble, which means it can leach out of food into the cooking water. Sulfates and baking soda can destroy the thiamin content in your vegetables — an amount that’s already small enough. Reducing the amount of water you use and keeping temperatures low can help preserve vitamin B1. Microwaving or steaming are the best ways to keep the vitamin B1 in your foods.
That “enriched” on the label means three B vitamins — thiamin, niacin, and riboflavin — and iron have been added to the food to make up for nutrients that were lost during processing.
The U.S. recommended daily allowance for thiamin is 1.2 milligrams for men and 1.1 milligrams for women up to the age of fifty. Try pistachio nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, cashews, or sunflower seeds if you aren’t fond of peas, lima beans, or oysters.
If you don’t get enough thiamin in your diet, you may end up with the very disease that led to the discovery of vitamin B1! Beriberi comes in two forms — wet beriberi causes fluid accumulation and leads to heart failure; dry beriberi causes numbness, weakness, loss of appetite, and nervous system dysfunction.