Whether an athlete, a patient in need, or a regular consumer, taking and storing your vitamins properly is essential in ensuring your best health and their best quality.
While there are countless modern ways to store both vitamins and supplements, properly taking care of your nutrients can still pose a challenge for many consumers.
Vitamin storage might have been a mysterious concept a decade ago, but today, it represents an efficient, productive, and optimized way to have your vitamins in order, thus ensuring their utmost quality and effects.
From safety measures to general storing tips, below is a detailed guide on how to take care of your vitamins and therefore, your health.
How to Store Vitamins Right: The Options
In terms of the best location to keep your vitamins, whether at home or at work, here are some helpful pointers to consider:
The Fridge
For optimal effects and quality, vitamins should be stored in a cool and dry place. While your fridge might seem like the coolest option for vitamin storage, it is actually a place where moisture thrives, which can ultimately hurt the potency of your vitamins. However, there are some supplements that are directly dependent on refrigeration, such as liquid vitamins, fish oils, flaxseed oil, and probiotics.
Bathroom Perils
Although baths come with their own medicine cabinet, this is not the safest place to store and keep your vitamins. As most bathrooms are smaller than other rooms, they are prone to excessive humidity, which can negatively impact the quality of your stored vitamins. Plus, bathrooms make a heaven for bacteria and germs, which is another reason why you might want to store your supplements elsewhere.
Kitchen Caution
Vitamins and foods go hand in hand, so the kitchen might seem fit for a storage option. However, as the kitchen is a place of varying temperature and humidity, storing your vitamins in your kitchen cabinets is a bad idea. If you want your vitamins close to your kitchen every morning, consider the dining room as a more favorable place to keep them.
The Bedroom
While the bedroom might be the last place you’d think to store your supplements, it makes a great choice for various reasons. For one, bedrooms ensure your vitamins are far from children’s reach. Next, the bedroom is far less crowded than other rooms in your house, so you avoid the risk of compromising the vitamin effects and quality. Bedroom nightstands make a great place for storing your vitamins as they keep the daylight away which then gives your supplements greater longevity and viability.
Medicine Organizers
While it is smart you keep all of your supplements in their original package, you can also turn to professionally manufactured supplement organizers. The secret behind choosing a great supplement organizer has to do with material and vacuum. Namely, you want to always choose metal organizers instead of plastic ones, as they are a more health-friendly option. In terms of vacuum, ensure the organizer you choose seals well and does that ‘click’ sound, thus ensuring no air is reaching the supplements and affecting their performance as a result.
Take Supplements Only as Recommended
No matter how well you store your supplements, they, too, have their expiration date, which can affect their overall safety and effects. Because of that, ensure you take supplements only as long as recommended by your nutritionist. Even if stored well, always track possible changes in your supplements, be it their color, smell, or texture.
The Proper Environment
Not all supplements are safe to refrigerate, but some are. Depending on the type of supplements you are using, do proper research to determine whether your vitamins are safe for refrigeration or if they need to be kept away from sunlight. Most supplement brands include a storage how-to guide on the product’s label, so you can store them accordingly and safely.
Out and About
While most users take supplements while at home, some consumers like to have them ready on the go. If that is the case, whenever stepping outside your home ensure your supplements are safely stored. The best way to keep them safe is to keep them in a dark, cool, and dry place, such as your car or office cabinet. However, during the warmer seasons, your car might not be the ideal storage option, due to the excessive heat. In terms of packaging, ensure you bring your supplements packed in their original bottle or a safe medical organizer. One last tip, when carrying your supplements with you, only bring the necessary dosage along, instead of the whole package.
The Final Verdict
As more and more consumers are relying on vitamin and mineral supplement consumption, storing your nutrients right is of utmost relevance, healthwise and otherwise.
To learn how the most reputable supplement brands are manufacturing, safely packaging, and storing supplements of all kinds, read more here.
