Filippa//Iron/Zinc/food vs pills

[Guest guest]

All this zinc and iron, food/pill stuff is closely related, so I'm

dumping everything into one post to keep the list tidy...

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> A little more meat isn't going to cut it for a lot of people.

First, once

> you're deficient in something, you often need a lot more of it for

awhile

> in order to build up your reserves, and from what I've read, zinc

is

> definitely in that category.

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okay, then a lot more meat for those special cases...

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Second, people with deficiencies,

> particularly mineral deficiencies, tend to have impaired

absorption, so

> merely adding some food often will have little to no effect on the

> problem.

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I don't follow the logic here--if they have absorption problems for

the mineral in question, then why would food be less effective than

pills? The absorption problem should affect both, but if anything,

for minerals the greatest bioavailability will be from foods.

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Digestive aids (like HCl and enzyme supplements) are often key

> for those people. In some cases liberal consumption of oysters

coupled

> with digestive aids will be enough, but not everyone can find or

afford

> lots of oysters, particularly nowadays, so sometimes temporary

> supplementation is the only way to go, in which case I'd recommend

a lowish

> dose of optizinc.

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For the above reasons and more, I thoroughly disagree with your

conclusion that temporary supplementation would ever be the only way

to go. The matter of digestive aids should be completely independent

of whether the nutrient in question is supplied via food or via

pills, so I'll just ignore that for the matter at hand, although of

course it's probably great advice! I don't see why eating extra

amounts of pretty much any meat (along with digestive aids or

whatever other independent protocols are being followed

simultaneously) wouldn't be preferable to pills. As for the

economics of the specific case of osyters, as a budgetary compromise,

a person could always eat canned oysters (in water), which are quite

inexpensive, and of course have an indefinite shelflife, and hence

couldn't be considered unavailable or inconvenient. While the

flavor and vitamin content (and rawness?) might be compromised, it

would be equally as effective as fresh with respect to the specific

goal of obtaining a concentrated food source of zinc. So problem

solved. But if someone is allergic to shellfish or something, simply

eating a pound of beef or the like per day would probably give plenty

of zinc for anyone. Any combination of these options is certainly

not infeasible or awkward in any way.

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> Well my problem now is iron. So this makes me wonder whether I DO

need to take iron tablets after all as the doctor recommended. meat

eating has not solved my low iron. I am now trying to boost my iron

count by eating a small amount of raw liver every day with black

strap molasses. I'm also taking Floradix herbal iron liquid several

times a day. I'm avoiding taking these with or near dairy intake.

Does this sound do-able or am I wasting my time? I thought iron

tablets were toxic?

>

> - Filippa

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I think the idea of advising people to take iron pills is unethical.

It's just so incredibly easy to get iron from meats. Whether or not

a person also eats any raw liver, nothing stops them from eating

cooked liver, which provides an equal amount of iron as raw liver.

Further, spleen is much more concentrated in iron than even liver, so

you could easily eat a small serving of spleen and just forget about

the whole issue. Spleen is also a low-demand food you could probably

get practically for free, and they're fairly large, so you'd get

pretty heavy mileage from just one. And you could get plenty of iron

from large amounts of meats in general, even without spleen or

liver. Eating vitamin C during the same meal dramatically increases

iron absorption, so there's another extremely easy to way get more

iron. Supplementing iron is stupid and ridiculous.

Even a tiny amount of raw liver would never be a waste of time,

whether or not its iron contribution is significant!

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> I am a lifelong milk drinker. But doesn't isn't calcium a zinc

> antagonist? Perhaps I should avoid drinking milk with foods

> containing zinc...until I see an improvement?

>

>

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I wouldn't dwell on that stuff... probably best to just eat balanced

meals and let the body find its balance... But on a practical note,

the zinc-lode will always be some kind of meat, and it doesn't make

much sense to me to eat a lot of milk and meat in the same meal for

the simple reason that either supplies adequate fat and protein. I

typically have a " beef meal " and a " kefir meal " each day, although I

do often mix small amounts of meats and milk in the same meal, and

very often have a cup of kefir and a raw oyster or two in the same

meal, so it's not like some kind of principle I follow; it just tends

to work out that way in my " at least one high-quality animal food per

meal " approach... But also, it's not like it would very bright for

most folks to drink, say, a quart of milk in one meal on a daily

basis, and you get just as much calcium from greens, sea greens,

small fish, etc as sensible amounts of milk, so it's not like you

want to give up the idea of eating varied meals because of a vague

theoretical idea about nutrient interactions... I mean, if you're

overdoing calcium (through milk or whatever), then maybe that's part

of the zinc issue... Meat is far more valuable than milk for

virtually all non-infants, so maybe just increasing meat and

decreasing milk would be the way to go...

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@@@@@@@ Chris/Filippa:

> <<Depending on how small the amount of liver is, you may well be

wasting your time. If " small " means a quarter pound, you should be

getting a significant amount of iron from it, but if " small " means a

bite, there's just not much iron there. >>

>

> Sighhhhhh.a quarter pound is about one quarter of a lamb's liver I

think. I just don't think I could stomach that much every day. I've

started having about 25gm a day. Before I was just having liver every

now and then. I figured if I have a little bit every day, I'll

consume more. So today my goal will be 2 x 25gm = 50gm. So that's a

whole liver consumed over ten days. Maybe not enough? (this is on

top of meat about 3 times a week).

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Don't sigh! 25g of raw liver everyday is far from a waste of time!

That's pretty serious nutrition! I eat raw liver and kidneys in only

50g servings about once a week each, and I like the flavor! (I keep

the quantities low to avoid excess iron and retinol.) You're

getting lots of good stuff, and a nice hit of iron in the best form

you can get!

Look at it this way: 25g of beef liver has about 1.7mg of iron.

Suppose, for the sake of understanding how the numbers can fall, that

you absorb 58% of that. Then you just scored 1mg of iron, which is

nothing to sneeze at. Now compare to a supplement form. What if you

took 10mg of iron in a supplement, but only 10% was absorbed--you

might feel like you're doing a good thing, but that's the same 1mg of

iron you got from the liver, and what are the risks of iron

supplements? I don't know what the actual numbers are absorption,

but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was even higher than my

arbitrary example of 58% for liver, and if it was even lower than my

arbitrary example of 10% for the supplement! Just remember to eat

extra vit C with your meals to increase the iron absorption!

You could double or quadruple your iron intake from liver easily by

mincing some up and cooking it in with a soup or some other dish

where the flavor is masked, in addition to the bit of raw liver

you're enjoying for other reasons... And instead of meat 3 times a

week like you say, why not at least once or twice a day? Why not

every meal? You're apparently in a special physiological condition;

you need the iron; and besides all that, meat is cool.

And if that 25g was beef spleen instead of beef liver, it's got over

11mg of iron!!!!!! You just hit the iron jackpot! And it only cost

you 26 calories! And it's presumably safer and more bioavailable

than pills! And the butcher would probably be happy to give it away!

And if you just want the iron, it probably doesn't make any

difference whether you cook it or not!

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> Filippa,

>

> I believe vitamin C taken with iron enhances the absorption. So

> having OJ with your beef meal is an idea.

>

>

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Yeah, that effect is well-established, but OJ is a bad idea because

it's a crap food of unwisely processed unwisely hybridized unwisely

grown crap, and there are *so many* foods much higher in vit C than

any citrus, with so many other goodies to boot! Kale has *twice* as

much vit C as oranges. Sweet pepper have almost *four* times as

much as oranges! And, geez, it would be a thousand times better to

eat a little acerola powder instead of OJ....

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Yes I guess I should increase it. I just don't know how to eat that

much food (especially with only 1 WD meal a day)! I've been having

meat 3-4 times a week, fish 3-4 times a week and chicken about once a

week. Trying to keep up my fish intake too.

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Oh geez, now we discover what you meant by " meat " .... aaargh... That

is one of my pet peeves.... All those meats have plenty of iron, not

just ruminant meat or whatever, so you're probably eating enough

meat, although it couldn't hurt to increase the serving size... Or

at least all three of those meats at every WD meal...

Mike

SE Pennsylvania

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