Dietary Sources of Vitamin E

Table 1: Selected Food Sources of Vitamin E

*DV = Daily Value. DVs are reference numbers developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help consumers determine if a food contains a lot or a little of a specific nutrient. The DV for vitamin E is 30 International Units (or 20 mg ATE). Most food labels do not list a food's vitamin E content. The percent DV (%DV) listed on the table indicates the percentage of the DV provided in one serving. A food providing 5% of the DV or less is a low source while a food that provides 10-19% of the DV is a good source. A food that provides 20% or more of the DV is high in that nutrient. It is important to remember that foods that provide lower percentages of the DV also contribute to a healthful diet.

What is the recommended intake for vitamin E? Recommendations for vitamin E are provided in the Dietary Reference Intakes developed by the Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) is the general term for a set of reference values used for planning and assessing nutrient intake for healthy people. Three important types of reference values included in the DRIs are Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), Adequate Intakes (AI), and Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (UL). The RDA recommends the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97-98%) healthy individuals in each age and gender group. An AI is set when there is insufficient scientific data available to establish a RDA. AIs meet or exceed the amount needed to maintain a nutritional state of adequacy in nearly all members of a specific age and gender group. The UL, on the other hand, is the maximum daily intake unlikely to result in adverse health effects

In Table 2, RDAs for vitamin E are listed as Alpha-Tocopherol Equivalents (ATE) to account for the different biological activities of the various forms of vitamin E

Table 2 also lists RDAs for vitamin E in International Units (IU) because food and some supplement labels list vitamin E content in International Units (1 mg ATE vitamin E = 1.5 IU).

Table 2: Recommended Dietary Allowances for Vitamin E for Children and Adults

There is insufficient scientific data on vitamin E to establish an RDA for infants. An Adequate Intake (AI) has been established that is based on the amount of vitamin E consumed by healthy infants who are fed breast milk. Table 2 lists the adequate intakes for vitamin E for infants in mg ATE and IUs (1 mg ATE vitamin E = 1.5 IU)

Table 3: Adequate Intake for Vitamin E for Infants