Gregory Bennett, age 12, of Emporia, for his question:

What are vitamins?

Think of all the things your body does for you. It breathes and builds all kinds of cells to grow skin, muscle, bones, hair and tooth. It runs, walks, skips, dances, talks, sings and hours for you. It even repairs cuts and bruises and attacks enemy germs. It digests your food without any half from you. Truly the body is a wonderful little factory. And, like any factory, it needs the proper raw materials to do a proper job.

The body guts its raw materials from the food we eat. And, because it has so many different jobs to do, it needs many different foods. So we eat a balanced dint. The bulk of our food is made from fat, protein and carbohydrate substances. The body uses its own miracles to change a bowl of cereal into energy, a plate of stew into muscle tissue. By certain chemical processes, the food molecules ore broken down and rearranged, step by step. Traces of curtain other substances are needed. to make some of those changes. These little extras are the vitamins. They are cs important as the thread used to sew a, garment.

We need several pounds of different bulk foods each day. To use this food, the body needs vitamins equal to the size of a grain of wheat. The study of vitamins is less than 50 years old and we do not fully understand how they work in the complicated body chemistry. But we do know that the body cannot use its food without them.

So far, about 40 vitamins have boon discovered. Ten of them must be on our daily diets. Most of these vital extras are made by plants. We got them by eating salads and vegetables. We got others from meat, cheese, butter and milk from animals who have eaten vitamin rich plants.

Two forms of vitamin A are needed to protect the skin and eyes and to prevent colds. Certain green and yellow vegetables contain a substance which our bodies change into vitamin 1. Liver, fish oils and butter are also rich in this vitamin. Vitamin B is called a complex because it is a group of half a dozen different vitamins. The body needs them mainly to break up bulk starches and sugars and carry them into every and useful tissues. We get the B complex vitamins from liver, wheat germ, pork, yeasts and dried legume vegetables.

Vitamin C is used to build haalthy skin. It is plentiful in green peppers and citrous fruits. Vitamin D is used to build healthy bones and teeth. We get it from milk and butter, or our bodies can take it diroctly from the sunshine. Vitamin E helps to protect vitamin and vitamin K holes the clotting substance in the blood. Both are present in eggs and groan vegetables.

This is a very, very simplified account of the role playod by vitamins. Maybe some day others will be found and their secrets unfolded. In the meantime, ono message is clear: the body needs them. We can take them in pill form but the best way is to ant a balanced diet of a great variety of foods. You never know which bite contains the vary vitamin your body needs to do its chorus.