Vitamin A

Vision, immunity, and skin — from liver and eggs, or built from the orange in your vegetables.

Updated

What it is

Vitamin A runs your night vision, immune defenses, and skin renewal. It arrives two ways: preformed (retinol, from animal foods — ready to use) and as carotenoids (the orange and deep-green plant pigments your body converts as needed). The conversion route is self-limiting, which is why carrots can't overdose you.

How much

Reference intakes sit around 700–900 µg of retinol equivalents a day for adults. Deficiency is rare where diets are varied; the excess risk is real but specific — very high preformed intake from supplements or very frequent liver, and a hard caution during pregnancy, where high retinol doses are a known problem worth a professional's guidance.

How well it's tracked

Patchily — vitamin A dropped off many modern labels, so your number reflects foods whose data includes it and misses others entirely. Read it as a directional signal, not a total.

Food sources

Liver (the densest source by far), eggs, dairy; for carotenoids: carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, mango, and dark leafy greens.

In the app

Vitamin A has its card in Insights' nutrition section with contributors and history, and a customizable goal if you track it deliberately.