1) Eat 1 to 2 daily servings of red and/or orange vegetables. For example, one carrot will provide you with about 7,950 Ills of beta-carotene and one medium tomato provides 820 lUs of beta-carotene.
2) Eat at least two green leafy vegetables per day. Two ounces of spinach will provide about 4,600 lUs of beta-carotene.
3) Eat at least one piece of fruit—with colored flesh—every day.
4) Take a beta-carotene supplement.
While the best source of any vitamin is food, it may sometimes be necessary to take a supplement. And while there is no conclusive evidence that daily supplements of preformed vitamin A, with up to 15,000 Ills, poses any serious health risk, many experts advise taking a beta-carotene supplement instead.
The recent advent of inexpensive and readily available beta-carotene supplements, along with mounting evidence suggesting that beta-carotene can provide many of the same benefits (and possibly more) as preformed vitamin A, make taking a daily supplement of 5,000 to 25,000 lUs of beta-carotene the way to go if you need a supplement. But again, you should consult your doctor before using any supplement.
Carotene is actually a precurser of vitamin A, and is a substance that is changed in the body to vitamin A. The transformation takes place in the wall of the small intestine. Depending on the type of food we eat and the form in which it is eaten, the amount of carotene that changes into vitamin A varies between 30 and 70 percent. Carotene itself is not active in the body and is not toxic. An “overdose” of carotene may cause the skin to turn slightly yellow, but nothing more serious. The main sources of Provitamin A, or carotene, are red, orange, yellow and green vegetables and fruits, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash, yellow corn, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, chard, turnip greens, kale, apricots, peaches, oranges, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

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