Vitamin E: Food Sources & Daily Intake

Vitamin E is a family of fat-soluble antioxidants, but the only form your body actively keeps and uses is alpha-tocopherol — which is why intake is measured in milligrams of it. Its main job is to protect cell membranes and the fats in your blood from oxidation. The richest sources are plant fats: vegetable oils (above all wheat germ oil), seeds and nuts, with smaller amounts from avocado and leafy greens. Meat, fish and dairy contribute relatively little.

Table of Contents

1. How to Read These Tables
2. Recommended Intakes & Upper Limits
3. Bioavailability & Absorption
4. Cooking & Storage
5. Vegetarian & Vegan Sources
6. Who Needs to Pay Attention
7. Data Sources & References
8. Connections
9. Featured Videos

How to Read These Tables

• Fat-soluble — stored in the body. Unlike vitamin C, vitamin E is stored in body fat and the liver, so you do not need a perfect amount every single day — a steady weekly intake is what matters. Because it travels with fat, it needs a little dietary fat in the meal to be absorbed.
• %DV vs RDA. The %DV column compares a serving against the FDA Daily Value of 15 mg. Your personal target (the RDA) is also 15 mg for adult men and women, rising to 19 mg during breastfeeding — see the second table.
• Per 100 g vs per serving. Per-100 g lets you compare foods fairly, but oils and nuts are eaten in small amounts, so the serving size shown beside each food is the realistic one. A spoonful of wheat germ oil or a small handful of sunflower seeds does most of a day’s work.

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Recommended Intakes & Upper Limits

Your personal target depends on age, sex and pregnancy. The Daily Value used for the %DV column above is a single label figure; the table below is the age-specific guidance.

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Bioavailability & Absorption

Vitamin E is fat-soluble, so it is absorbed best when eaten with some fat — which is convenient, because almost every rich source (oils, nuts, seeds, avocado) is itself a fat. People on very low-fat diets, or with conditions that impair fat absorption (cystic fibrosis, Crohn’s disease, certain liver and pancreatic disorders), absorb less and are the main group at real risk of deficiency. Only the 2R forms of alpha-tocopherol — the natural one and part of the synthetic blend — are retained by the body; the other synthetic forms are largely discarded.

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Cooking & Storage

Vitamin E is more stable to heat than vitamin C, but it is still an antioxidant, which means it is sacrificed to protect the fats around it. It is degraded by prolonged high heat, repeated frying, light and air — so deep-frying oils and long storage of opened oils lose value, while gentle cooking keeps most of it. Buying nuts, seeds and oils fresh, storing them cool and dark, and using them before they turn rancid preserves the most. Cooking greens like spinach actually concentrates the vitamin per serving as the leaves shrink.

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Vegetarian & Vegan Sources

This is an easy vitamin for plant-based eaters. Almost every top source is a plant — vegetable oils, sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, avocado and leafy greens — while meat, fish and dairy supply comparatively little. Anyone eating nuts, seeds and a little plant oil through the week comfortably meets the 15 mg target, with no animal-source gap to plan around.

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Who Needs to Pay Attention

Outright vitamin E deficiency is rare in healthy people and is almost always caused by fat-malabsorption disorders or rare genetic conditions rather than by diet. When it does occur it can cause nerve and muscle damage — weakness, poor coordination and numbness. The bigger practical concern is the other direction: high-dose supplements. Doses approaching the 1,000 mg/day upper limit can interfere with blood clotting and raise bleeding risk, especially for people taking blood thinners; this is why the UL applies to supplements and fortified foods, not to vitamin E from ordinary food, which is safe.

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Data Sources & References

• NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — Vitamin E Fact Sheet (DV, RDA, UL)
• Linus Pauling Institute — Vitamin E Micronutrient Information Center
• PubMed — vitamin E alpha-tocopherol absorption, requirements and supplementation

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Connections

• Vitamin E (Main Page)
• Vitamin E Benefits
• Vitamin E History
• All Vitamins
• Vitamin C (regenerates vitamin E)
• Antioxidants
• Eggs
• Vitamin A

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