Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
By Dietitian, Juliette Kellow BSc RD
How much you need each day:
- There’s no RNI. A safe intake for adults is considered to be 3-7mg
Why you need it:
Vitamin B5 helps release the energy from food and keeps the nervous system and skin healthy. It’s also needed to form certain stress hormones.
Good food sources:
The best sources of this vitamin are offal, fish, poultry, red meat, wholegrains, nuts, eggs, yoghurt, beans and yeast extract.
Too little:
As vitamin B5 is found in so many foods, deficiencies are rare. In fact, no cases have been seen in the UK, except in people who have followed an experimental diet that’s deficient in this nutrient.
Top tip:
Eating a varied diet means you’ll get plenty of vitamin B5. However, processing and cooking destroy some of this vitamin. Dry heat cooking methods such as frying and grilling are more likely to deplete the vitamin B5 content of food than moist heat cooking methods such as stewing and poaching, so use these instead wherever possible.
How to get enough:
| Food | Vitamin B5 Content (mg) |
|---|---|
| 130g steamed plaice fillet | 0.9 |
| 1 scrambled egg | 0.8 |
| 90g lean roast beef | 0.8 |
| 150g pot low-fat fruit yoghurt | 0.5 |
| 1 slice wholemeal bread | 0.2 |
| 15g peanut butter | 0.2 |
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