Liver was once a regular on our plates, many moons ago. It’s since been outcast and forgotten, to the detriment of us all. Let us revitalise this humble meat, let’s make it the staple it once was. Let it be crowned the king of Mother Nature’s Superfoods, just as it deserves to be known.

A quick interlude – at the end of this post, you’ll find some simple suggestions for getting liver into your diet, even if you can’t stand the taste.

The Wonders of Liver

Liver is one of Mother Nature’s wonders. It’s the king of all the organ meats packing a massive nutrient punch in the most bio-available package possible. In fact, it’s the most potent food on the planet – in a good way.

So powerful that we should limit the amount we eat to just one or two portions a week due to the huge dose of vitamin A in the form of retinol – the best form for us humans.

Oh yes, this wonderous offering from Mother Nature is now under-appreciated, scoffed at, kicked into the gutter and forgotten, at best… left for the dogs.

Which is ironic; there’s a theory that back in simpler times, when we had to hunt for our food, in a time before Tesco’s and Maccy ‘D’s, the fat and offal, and especially the liver, were the prized parts of the kill.

The muscle meat – that we mostly gobble up now – was thrown to the dogs regarded as scraps. I wonder what they knew that we’ve forgotten?

No no, that can’t be right… we’re so much more advanced than they were, we must know better than our ancestors, we must have learnt from their mistakes, you know; ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ ‘n’ all that.

With all our gadgets and gizmos and media and big pharma and corporate processed food giants, this world must be better now than the millions of years before!

Erm… I’m not too sure.

In fact, I am sure… we’ve got ourselves into quite the mess with diseases and illnesses lurking around every corner.

Anyway, that’s a whole other subject. I got sidetracked – rant over – where was I?…

…Ah yes, the mighty liver…

…Let me put the power of liver into perspective. It’s been drummed into us that we need plenty of fruit and veg for all the vitamins and nutrients our body needs… obvious right?

Well, meat rarely gets championed for anything other than its protein content – the following table will show the real picture (I’ve highlighted the winners in blue).

As you’ll see, liver obliterates the competition. Who would’ve guessed?

In fact, if we combine both liver and muscle meat, we cover most nutritional requirement bases.

With plenty of calcium available in dairy and adequate vitamin E obtained from liver (different nutritional sources suggest different numbers here putting liver ahead on this also).

The only anomaly – when it comes to obtaining all we need from animal meats – is vitamin C. As you’ll see, there is some contained in liver but oranges provide more than double. Plus, the cooking of liver will reduce this down further.

I make no secret that I’m a fan of getting all our body’s nutrient requirements from natural sources, which in most cases is food but not forgetting we get healthy levels of vitamin D from sun exposure. I’ve written more on this here.

Vitamin C is where I break my own rule. I supplement daily 4-6 grams which is far more than we can realistically obtain from any food including oranges. As I’ve written in a previous post, we would need to consume between 40 and 60 large oranges per day to get 4-6 grams.

Why do I supplement high dose vit C..?

Well, there’s loads of research that suggests potential benefits for our immune systems taking high dose vitamin C, and there’s little to no evidence that vitamin C is in any way detrimental to our health. If we take more than our body can process, we get a bit of botty trouble and that’s it. Reduce the dosage and you’re good to go.

I appreciate that it sounds like I’m vilifying fruits and vegetables, but that’s not my aim here.

I’m simply trying to highlight that the what’s been rammed into our heads about fruit and vegetables, just isn’t true. We wouldn’t be depriving our bodies of any goodness or essential nutrients if we didn’t eat any fruit and vegetables at all as long as we’re eating nose to tail meats.

So, my philosophy is that I make meats – including offal – my main source of dietary nutrients, and I complement my meat with vegetables.

I eat little in the way of fruit apart from some blueberries and cream… a weekend treat that my daughter Molly and I devour.

I call organ meats ‘Mother Nature’s Superfoods’, and as you’ll now understand, the humble liver is the king of these superfoods.

Simple Recipe Options

If you don’t already eat liver, here some simple ways of getting it into your diet.

Raw

The simplest of all is eating it raw – yes, people actually do this. I’ll confess, I haven’t – yet – but I will at some point. If you consider doing this, I’d suggest ensuring you source the best quality liver you can find.

The dude in this video suggests just swallowing and not chewing due to a grainy texture.

Enjoy!

Sautéed

This is how I usually take my liver – done right, it’s a real treat.

My butcher supplies my liver in long slices, so I either leave it like this or cut it into smaller bite-size pieces.

Get the frying pan nice and hot – my hob goes up to 9 and I set it to 7.5.

Rub in some salt, throw a knob of butter into the pan and get your sizzle on.

The trick here is not to overcook it, you’re just aiming the brown the outside, but still be pink in the middle, otherwise, it’ll taste too livery… not good. Give it no more than a minute each side.

Let it rest on some kitchen roll in a pre-warmed oven, hot enough to keep the liver warm but not hot enough to cook it any more. This will allow any remaining blood to seep out.

I’ll have this on its own with some eggs, or with some salmon for a take on surf ‘n’ turf or alongside my steak

,

Liver and bacon is a perfect combo, my wife Dana and I can’t get enough of my liver and bacon bites – simple but yummy.

Any leftovers will go in the fridge for me to snack on the next day. For me, salt is essential, it complements liver so well – don’t be shy with the salt.

Can’t Stand the Taste?

If your stomach turns at the slightest whiff of liver, don’t worry, you’re not alone, liver is definitely an acquired taste. I heard somewhere that if your given liver at a young age regularly, you’ll grow up to love the taste.

I doubt many of us had that privilege, so there are other options.

Hide it in Other Stuff

Ask you butcher if they can provide you with minced liver. Some get funny about this as they can’t cross-contaminate the meats on their equipment. In which case, you can buy a mincer so you can do it home.

You can then mix this with minced meat for various dishes such as burgers, meatballs, bolognese, lasagne or shepherd’s pie. Basically any dish that has mince in. You may need to play around with the ratios to make sure the taste of liver doesn’t overpower.

Freeze it

This involves cutting the liver into pieces small enough to comfortably swallow. Throw it in the freezer then swallow a few pieces a day – essentially homemade supplements.

Supplements

This is the simplest way of getting your liver without enduring the taste, but it’s also the most expensive.

Liver – due to its unpopularity – is cheap, even for high quality liver. But if you can afford it, then this is a great option.

This Hunter & Gather lamb liver supplement is an option – I’ve never used them or have any affiliations.

This is also a good option if you have a period when you can’t get the real stuff, like a holiday for example.

The Importance of Quality and Welfare

The source of my meat is important to me. I hunt out 100% pastured meat from animals that have lived a good life roaming around and chowing down on good old grass, just as Mother Nature intended.

Grass-fed can be promoted even if the animal has only been fed on grass for just 51% of its life. In my opinion and of many others, this is unacceptable.

In the UK, the only way we know our meat it 100% pastured is if your butcher is certified by ‘Pasture for Life’. You can find your local ‘Pasture for Life’ butcher here.

I get my meat from Deersbrook Farm just outside of Braintree in Essex. The guys at Deersbrook, including Scott and Anna, provide a friendly service, and meat of the highest quality all at reasonable prices. If you’re nearby, I recommend you try them out.

The great thing about offal, even high-quality offal, is that it’s cheap. It’s the most healthy, nutritious food on the planet, yet no one wants it. So if you can, I’d recommend seeking out 100% pastured offal.

But, if that isn’t possible, don’t let that put you off. We have stringent farming regulations in the UK and most butchers will provide good quality meat.

The most important thing, is to get some liver in your belly. Your body and brain will thank you for it.

Have a nutritious day!

There you have it! Just a reminder that I’m no doctor, dietitian or any other profession for that matter. I’m simply a bearer of information for you to do what you want with; question it, research it, erase it from your mind, you are in charge of you.

The post Simple Ways to get the Mighty Liver into Your Diet appeared first on Offaly Good.

There’s been lots of press around simple vitamins recently, such as C & D possibly having a huge impact on the battle against the COVID-19. In this post, I’m going to look into what the big fuss is all about and what that means for us.

In my last blog post, I talked about how we can build a robust immune system that can easily fight viruses including the Coronavirus by simply eating real, unprocessed food, just as Mother Nature intended that would, in turn, further ease the burden on the NHS. Many have been pushing this very message including cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra. If you haven’t read it, take a look here.

Other than eating whole foods, there are specific vitamins that are vital for maintaining a sturdy immune system. They are vitamins C, D & A.

Despite just recent press around these humble vitamins performing seemingly magical feats of recovering COVID-19 sufferers health, bringing them back from the brink of death, there are many that have been banging on about this for some time now

One such person is Dr Shiva Ayyadurai who on the 23rd of March wrote a letter to President Trump giving his advice on how to tackle this pandemic with a 3 step process that promises fewer hospitalizations and deaths and no lockdown, maintaining the economy. This involved high dose vitamins A, D & C for the infected and maintaining doses for the healthy. I assume the letter either got lost in the post or tossed away regarded as nonsense – such a shame, many lives may have been saved.

One of my personal heroes, Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a relentless truth-seeker, gave his advice on taking both vitamin C and D in his first blog post regarding the Coronavirus on the 18th of March stating…

“Vitamins always cause massive controversy, and the mainstream medical community tends to be highly critical of the use of vitamins. However, vitamin C has been found to have many, many, positive impacts on the immune system. It also protects the endothelium lining blood vessels – thus preventing/delaying passage of pathogens from the bloodstream.”

And…

“Vitamin D has important effects on the immune system. A low vitamin D level in the winter is almost certainly why flu epidemics occur in the winter months. [Vitamin D is synthesized in the sun by the action of sunlight].”

Do these guys have magical psychic powers or crystal balls? If not, then how did they know about the potential benefits on these simple, cheap vitamins on this virus but the clever people in charge, that we put our faith and trust in, didn’t?

Immune System Basics

Our immune system essentially has three lines of defence:

1. Outer barrier or epithelium that prevents things from entering our body – this is the surface of our skin, blood vessels and organs and mucosal lining of the respiratory and intestinal tract.
2. The innate immune system – this is the immediate response defence system ready to pounce on any pathogen that manages to get past our epithelium. It is non-specific and will attack anything in sight. These include macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells.
3. The adaptive immune system – works to eradicate the pathogen and bring us back to full health. There are 2 types of lymphocyte cells that kick into action here; T-cells produce cytokines to attack infected or cancerous cells. B-cells then produce the antibodies ready for any potential future attacks.

A Virus and Us

Let’s look at how a virus interacts with the immune system.

Firstly, it’s not the virus that does the damage, it’s our body’s immune system’s reaction to the virus. Have you ever questioned why some have little to no symptoms when others are dying? If your immune system is compromised, it gets confused, overreacts and starts attacking its own cells, tissues and organs.

Cytokines produced by our T-cells, can get out of control and start attacking the body in what’s called a ‘cytokine storm’. This is exactly what can and does happen with Covid-19 patients. If the virus enters the lungs, it can trigger an immune response where cytokines are sent in to clear the viral cells creating an inflammatory response.

If, however, the immune system is otherwise compromised, the inflammation can get out of control resulting in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The alveoli or tiny air sacs in the lungs start to fill with fluid reducing the amount of oxygen getting into the blood and eventually starving the organs of the oxygen they need resulting in death.

We know that the poor people who suffer the most from Covid-19 are those with pre-existing underlying conditions such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and those that smoke. In all these cases the immune system is severely defective resulting in the cytokine storm noted above.

Dr Zoe Harcombe, another seeker and promoter of truth, provides a comprehensive review of the risk factors here.

Now we have an understanding of how the immune system works and how our body reacts to a virus-like Covid-19, let’s look at specific vitamins and the roles they can play.

Magical Vitamin C

Vit C is a wonderful essential nutrient capable of many health-promoting feats. If we’re deficient in vit C, we can’t produce collagen and we would develop scurvy; a horrendous torture of bleeding gums, open sores, organ failure among many other unthinkable ailments that haunted seagoing ships until the 18th century. That was when it was discovered that oranges and lemons prevented the horrors of scurvy and sea goers were haunted no more.

Properly discovered and isolated in the early 20th century and thousands of papers and studies later, vitamin C is now understood to provide the following health benefits:

• Promotes collagen production
• Potent antioxidant.
• Anti-inflammatory.
• Modulates and improves the immune system – including inhibiting a cytokine storm.
• Anti-viral – prevents viral replication.
• Aids the prevention of respiratory infections.
• Aids the treatment of established infections (at high doses).

How Much?

We only need a small amount of vitamin C to prevent scurvy and the dose recommendations suggested by Public Health England (PHE) is minuscule at 40mg and no more than 1000mg. This may be sufficient to keep scurvy at bay, but is it enough to promote the other health perks which would be handy in a time when a virus may be lurking about?

The current recommendations that PHE use for vitamin C is from a Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy or COMA, called ‘Dietary Reference Values – A Guide’ – a scanned-in document.

This guide was last updated in 1991, nearly 30 years ago. Yes… most of our current dietary advice is based on research up to 30 years ago, meaning that any discoveries that happened in the last 30 years – and there have been many – are not taken into consideration. Wow, this is crazy!

That said, there haven’t been any conclusive depletion-repletion studies carried out to determine the optimal levels of vit C. In seeking further advice, Dr James DiNicolantonio suggests that at 100mg dosage, our body tends to hold onto vit C indicating more is required and to fully saturate blood levels, around 500-1000mg a day is needed.

Where Dr Malcolm Kendrick suggests taking at least 2g and probably 5g per day and to up this to at least 10g per day if you’re suffering symptoms of the Coronavirus.

Vitamin C vs. COVID-19

There’s been a lot of press regarding the benefits of vitamin C and critically ill Covid-19 patients in the press recently such as this, this and this.

Some claim the vitamin C benefits are being exaggerated, whilst this article promotes the use of vitamin C being used on patients with Covid-19 in the state of New York hospitals, with Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist claiming…

“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,” he said.

“It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”

Perhaps this ongoing clinical trial that’s looking at vitamin C infusion and its impact on those with Covid-19 that’s being carried out in Wuhan in China will settle the argument once and for all. We’ll just have to wait until at least September to find out – but isn’t that too little too late?

Ah, but hang on; there are real-life cases that we can consider in the meantime…

For example, 45-year-old doctor Ryan Padgett from Seattle, working at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland in the US, contracted Covid-19. He quickly became critically ill and put into an induced coma. After trying many different options, the medical team – realising there was a cytokine storm taking place, quickly sucking the life from Dr Padgett – made the decision as a last resort, to administer both tocilizumab, an immunosuppressive drug, and high dose vitamin C.

As reported in the New York Times…

“They added high-dose vitamin C after seeing reports that it might be beneficial. These experimental treatments had also been tried on another patient, a 33-year-old woman, with some success. Over that week in mid-March, there were signs of improvement. As his inflammation numbers came down and his lungs started to provide more oxygen…

4 days later the doctors were able to remove the ventilator pipes and Dr Padgett recovered.

Conclusions

What to make of the vitamin C conundrum?

It’s clear to me that high dose vitamin C administered to critically ill Covid-19 patients may be beneficial. Despite this, it’s still not standard procedure to administer high dose vitamin C intravenously and is only used as a last resort in some cases.

Why is this not being further tested? It would be a cheap experiment that could have dramatic life-saving outcomes. I guess as Dr Weber put it, it’s just not sexy enough.

If interested, A paper named ‘Vitamin C and Immune Function‘ is packed full of interesting vit C facts and info and further supports the evidence that this amazing nutrient is worthy of more attention.

The Wonders of Vitamin D

Vitamin D, otherwise referred to as the sunshine vitamin, first came into the area of focus in the early 20th century when it was discovered that this vitamin was the main contributor to rickets, a condition that results in the malformation of bones due to the malabsorption of calcium.

For many years, vitamin D’s main role was considered to be for mineral and skeletal health until later in the 20th century when it was discovered that it has a far bigger role in our health. It turns out this amazing vitamin – which is actually a secosteroid – pre-hormone component – is responsible for many other functions in the body, many of which are still not fully understood and being studied. The relationship on our immune system has been the main focus in recent years.

The known benefits of vitamin D on the immune system are:

• Supports both the innate and adaptive immune systems.
• Certain cells in our bodies fight off pathogens – vitamin D enhances the antimicrobial effects of these cells.
• Aids in the control of infections.
• Insufficient levels of vitamin D are associated with upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) such as influenza, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and allergic asthma.
• Aids the control of inflammation.
• Helps in regulating T and B cells

Vitamin D vs. COVID-19

Again there are many news reports regarding vitamin D and Covid-19 here, here and here.

There’s a clinical trial due to be carried out to discover the effects of vitamin D supplementation specifically on Covid-19 patients which is due to be completed at the end of June, the results of which will be interesting.

There are, however, many studies that indicate strong benefits against the symptoms of Covid-19 such as acute respiratory infection here and here, as well as COPD here.

In fact, a recent paper written by Mark Alipio looks at the severity of Covid-19 cases compared to their vitamin D levels. If the GrassrootsHealth graph below, isn’t a slap in the face, then I don’t know what is. This clearly shows that the lower the vit D levels, the worse the symptoms.

How Much?

The old advice given in COMA’s ‘Dietary Reference Values – A Guide‘ suggests that if you’re between 4 and 64 and getting sun exposure, no dietary vitamin D is required. The suggestion is that as long as there is sun exposure during the summer months, no further dietary intake, let alone supplementary intake is required – hmm.

Coincidentally, a report recently released in April 2020 named ‘Vitamin D deficiency in Ireland – implications for COVID-19’ highlights that 47% of those over 85, 27% over 70 and 13% over 55 are deficient in the winter in Ireland. I would imagine the numbers would be very similar in the UK, with the further north you live, seeing less sunshine, more deficient you’re likely to be.

Fortunately, back in 2016, The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) – who took over from COMA in 2000 – updated their advice on vitamin D recommending that we should all be taking 10mcg (400IU) in the form of a supplement during the autumn and winter months and those that see little sun in the spring and summer months to take a supplement all year round. During the pandemic, PHE is urging us to follow this advice.

The U.S. recommends a dietary intake of 10mcg for 0-12months, 15mcg (600 IU) for anyone from the age of 1 to 70, and over 70’s 20mcg (800 IU).

Again, this recommendation is merely enough to prevent rickets and probably not an optimal amount. The levels required? Not sure, as with vit C, there have been no depletion-repletion studies carried out but the evidence we have suggest we need much more than 400IU.

Dr Malcolm Kendrick suggests at least 2000IU, whereas Ivor Cummins, in his ‘D is for Debacle’ talk, suggests taking 3000-4000IU in the winter months or anytime you’re not getting at least 30 minutes of sun exposure per day.

Which leads me to this delicate subject…

…If there’s one vitamin of controversy and confusion it’s the mighty D. The best source of vitamin D is the sun.

Yes the evil sun that we must hide away from and never let a ray touch our skin at the risk of suffering horrible consequences, provides us with copious amounts that diet alone cannot come close to.

As Dr Zoe Harcombe once wrote in a blog post that I highly recommend a squint at for its entertaining and informative surprises about all things D…

“…Did you know that you need 39 eggs or approximately 200g of sardines to get 15 mcg of vitamin D? That’s the challenge for vegetarians to get vitamin D from diet.

Vegans have an even bigger challenge. Mushrooms, which have been exposed to sunlight (most mushrooms are grown in the dark), are the only realistic option for vegans. Over three kilograms of such mushrooms would need to be sourced and eaten daily to deliver 15 mcg of vitamin D. Ideally, but not an option for vegans, these would need to be consumed with butter to make them ‘bio-available’ to the body. There’s an additional problem that vitamin D comes in an animal form (D3) and a plant form (D2). Mushrooms would only provide D2 and human beings need D3. It’s sunshine and/or D3 supplements for vegans – and probably vegetarians too, given the egg factoid.”

Conclusions

Quite the paradox right?

Maybe not… We’ve evolved being exposed to the sun since day one of our existence and it would’ve been our main source of vitamin D, but now the powers to be have decided it’s bad for us?

Using common sense, I have to question this. In fact Ivor Cummins has…

…I highly recommend watching his thorough talk named ‘D is for Debacle‘. It is a shocking series of facts that fly in the face of the orthodox way of thinking – for me one of the most life-changing, eye-opening 1 hour and 20 minutes I’ve had the privilege of experiencing in my existence.

It’s hard to know how much vitamin D we would get from sun exposure with so many variables such as, amount of skin exposed, skin colour (the darker-skinned you are, the more sun you need) the time of day, location on the earth, your diet (the more carb-heavy your diet is, the less efficient you are at making vit D), plus others I’m sure I’ve missed.

In his talk, Ivor suggests that we get somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000IU vit D with around 30 minutes of midday sun exposure which is far in excess of the measly 400IU that Public Health England Recommend.

Versatile Vitamin A

Onto the final immune-boosting vitamin in this series – Vitamin A, probably most known for its eye health benefits and those deficient suffering with night blindness.

Vit A provides the following health benefits:

• Healthy vision.
• Supports cell growth.
• Supports fetal development.
• Promotes growth and development.
• Protecting the epithelium & mucus integrity.
• Anti-inflammatory.
• Supports the production of the white blood cells.
• Increases the number of B-cells required for antibody production.
• Aids in converting T-cells to T-regulatory cells which is the trigger for the B-cells to kick into action. This prevents the inflammation response from getting out of control, preventing a ‘cytokine storm’ as happens with ARDs that Covid-19 sufferers can eventually lose their lives to.
• Supports the immune system through many other mechanisms beyond my intellect as described in this paper.

How Much?

The recommended intake for vit A is not clear with many variables depending on your gender, age and if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. Vit A intake was re-reviewed by the SACN in 2005 and it came to the conclusion that…

“There is currently insufficient evidence on the association between bone health and retinol intakes above 1500 µg/day to justify a change in dietary advice to all consumers regarding consumption of foods or supplements containing retinol.”

So, referring back to the COMA ‘Dietary Reference Values – A Guide’, let’s review the recommendations:

If, like me, this is a table of many numbers that mean very little to you; I feel ya. It takes little to confuse me, so I’ll attempt to decipher this for our benefit.

Firstly, let’s sort out the acronyms and symbols:

• DRV – Dietary Reference Value. A term used to cover LRNI, EAR, RNI and safe intake.
• LRNI – Lower Reference Nutrient Intake for protein or a vitamin or mineral. An amount of the nutrient that is enough for only the few people in a group who have low needs.
• EAR – Estimated Average Requirement of a group of people for energy or protein or a vitamin or mineral. About half will usually need more than the EAR, and half less.
• RNI – Reference Nutrient Intake for protein or a vitamin or mineral. An amount of the nutrient that is enough, or more than enough, for most (usually at least 97%) people in a group. If the average intake of a group is at RNI, then the risk of deficiency in the group is very small.
• µg – Symbol for microgram, an SI unit of mass equal to 10−6 grams.

In the text accompanying  this table, they suggest the following:

• Adult requirements – DRVs are based on calculations of intakes needed to maintain a liver store of 20 µg retinol/g liver.
• Infants – Values are based on the fact that 100 g/d from breast milk is adequate to prevent deficiency. But it is probably not enough to build and maintain a body store of the vitamin. Reference intakes for infants are, therefore, higher than 100 g/d.
• Children – No experimental data is available to establish the vitamin A requirements of children. There is a requirement for growth as well as the maintenance of body stores and DRVs are based on the assumption that there is a gradual transition from the requirements of infants to those of adults.

Let the detective work begin…

The title – ‘Dietary reference values for Vitamin A µg retinol equivalent/d’

• This tells us that the numbers given are for micrograms of retinol equivalent. We need to understand at this point that vitamin a comes in 2 forms; retinol and Beta-carotene.
• Retinol is the form readily used by the body whereas beta-carotene has to be converted into retinol by the body. The conversion rate is 6 µg of beta-carotene to 1 µg of retinol.
• We get retinol from animal-based foods such as liver, oily fish, dairy products & eggs.
• We get beta-carotene from plant-based foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash.
• So, when making our calculations of intake, we need to divide the plant-based beta-carotene intake by 6 to establish the retinol equivalent.
• The ‘d’ represents per day.

Which set of numbers should we look at?

I assume the reason why they offer 3 sets of values is that everyone is different so they’re covering all bases. For example, being that vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, if you were to eat a big bowl of green leafy salad with no oil dressing, your absorption would be low.

That’s why you should at least dress your salads with olive oil; it not only tastes better, your body will also absorb any fat-soluble vitamins contained within the salad – FYI, vitamins A, D, E and K are all fat-soluble. Interestingly, the animal sources of vit A will generally come with fats, making them naturally more bio-available.

If you eat plenty of fibre, the fibre binds with vitamin A and takes it out of your body meaning you’ll need to compensate

In fact, there are a number of factors that affect our vit A levels:

• Eat lots of lean protein or protein shakes? More vitamin A required.
• Supplementing vit D? More vitamin A required – FYI, Vitamin D, A and K work synergistically together.
• Consume polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) such as vegetable and seed oils or spreads? More vitamin A required.

The question then is ‘at what point does the dose become a poison?’

Going back to the guide text the following is suggested…

‘Regular intakes should not exceed 7500 µg/d for women or 9000 µg/d for men. An intake of retinol in excess of 3300 g/d is hazardous during pregnancy because it may cause birth defects. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant need to avoid excessive intakes.’

Based on these numbers, I think we’re safe to look at the RNI as guide for intake. Alas, at last, we can derive that according to the ‘Dietary Reference Values – A Guide’ recommendations, we should have a dietary intake of between 350 and 950 µg/d.

In my case being a 39-year-old male. I’m not pregnant nor breastfeeding so my dietary intake should be 700µg/d. Very good – but, as we know from looking at vit C and D, the recommendations were the minimal amounts and not optimal. In the case of vit A, these numbers may prevent vision issues but may not be enough to support the essential immune functions that vit A provides.

The answer to this question is murkier than for vit C and D in that you have to go a long way to overdose on these whereas with vitamin A it’s easier to overdo it and as mentioned above, there are many variables. That said, it’s better to overdo it than to be deficient. This article on the Weston A. Price Foundation website is an excellent source of info about vit A and suggested dietary intakes.

What I do…

I’m a believer that we should try and get all of our body’s nutrient needs in the most natural form, because that’s how our bodies are designed to do so, through evolution and the gentle touch of Mother Nature. I believe eating a real food diet including nose to tail meats, some dairy and fish and supplement these with vegetables, we’ll cover most of our body’s nutrient requirements.

When it comes to vitamin D, if the sun’s shining I’ll be out, baring as much skin as is socially acceptable in the current scenario. In the privacy of my own garden, I’ll be adorning my favourite Y-fronts and nothing else – my poor neighbours.

Oh, and please don’t burn!

This is the most natural form and would’ve been how our ancestors got their vit D. But, being in the UK, we can’t rely on the sun for the clouds that get in the way. On these days, I supplement 5000IU, and in the form of D3.

D3 is the hormone-precursor molecule required to synthesise 25(OH)D.

We can get some vitamin D from food although as Zoe states above, you’ll need to eat copious amounts to get the required levels.

Vitamin D per 100g
Herrings – 760 IU
Eggs  – 488 IU
Salmon – 404 IU
Mackerel – 340 IU
Sardines – 144 IU
Lamb kidney – 24IU
Mushrooms – 4 IU (this varies depending on the level of sun exposure)

For vitamin A, we can turn to the powerhouse that is the mighty liver. The vit A content in liver varies wildly depending on the source. PHE rely on the ‘McCance and Widdowson’s The Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset‘, and states that raw lambs liver has 17300µg (57666 IU) of retinol, where the USDA’s ‘FoodData Central‘ state 7391µg (24612 IU).

I don’t know why there’s such a vast difference here – To be honest, I thought I was misunderstanding something. Either way, liver provides an astounding amount of vitamin A. That’s more than any other food known to man.

In fact, it’s recommended we limit our liver intake to once a week. I eat around 200 to 300g per week… Recipes coming soon. Along with my other sources of vitamin A as listed below, I’m confident I’m getting more than adequate amounts.

Vitamin A per 100g
Retinol sources
Eggs – 533 IU
Cheddar Cheese – 1213 IU
Butter – 3193 IU
Double cream – 2597 IU
Plain yoghurt – 93 IU

Beta-carotene sources
Carrots – 19607 IU
Spinach – 11007 IU
Sweet potatoes – 9267 IU
Butternut squash – 6050 IU
Curly kale – 3495 IU
Cantaloupe Melon – 1735 IU

Vitamin C is not abundant in meat of any kind with the best source being liver and brains, but is minuscule in comparison to some vegetables and fruit. This is the big question over the carnivore diet; is it vitamin C deficient for optimal health?

Carnivores such as Dr Paul Saladino believe that there’s not enough evidence to support taking more vitamin C than is required to prevent scurvy, whereas the likes of Dr James DiNicalantonio would strongly be in favour of high dose of vitamin C for optimal health.

Perhaps they’re both right in different circumstances. Carnivores are inherently low carb so they will have less glucose competing with vit C for uptake, so less vit C is required for those on the low carb diet. Also, if you’re in good shape metabolically and not fending off any illnesses, then perhaps a minimal amount of vit C is all that’s required.

Where – as we’ve learnt above – there’s strong evidence showing higher doses of vitamin C supplementation may aid the immune system against getting infected, as well as IV vit C administered to critically ill patients suffering chronic inflammation seeing dramatic improvements.

This is one that I struggle to get the quantities I want from food alone, so I supplement 4-6g a day. For example, to get 4-6g from oranges, we would need to consume between 40 and 60 large oranges per day – wowsers.

Example sources of vitamin C:

Vitamin C per 100g
Chicken Liver – 28mg
Ox Liver – 23mg
Lamb Liver – 19mg
Lamb Sweetbread – 18mg
Lamb Brain – 17mg
Red Bell Pepper – 126mg
Blackcurrants – 200mg
Steamed Broccoli – 60mg
Oranges – 52mg
Kiwi fruit – 52mg
Cauliflower – 30mg

At the end of the day, you can rest safe in the factual bosom that vitamins, even taken in large doses present little in the way of health issues. Overdose on Vit C and you may need to quickly visit the toilet, although it won’t last long.

Overdosing on D is called hypervitaminosis D and can lead to hypercalcemia which is a build-up of calcium in your blood leading to weakened bones and kidney stones among other things. Sounds terrible but it takes supplementation of over 40,000IU a day for a prolonged period to get to this point – anything up to 10,000IU per day is considered to be a safe dose so nothing to fear here.

And, taken from the Weston A. Price Foundation article I mentioned above…

“What are the signs of vitamin A excess? They include nausea, fatigue, headaches, dry skin, joint pain, muscle pain, anorexia, hair loss, brittle nails, elevated liver enzymes, high blood calcium and bone abnormalities. The risk of vitamin A toxicity is higher in situations of liver disease or protein and zinc malnutrition. Fortunately, these symptoms are reversible with discontinuation of vitamin A sources.”

In fact, in the latest American Association of Poison Centers’ ‘National Poison Data System (NPDS) Annual Report’, there were no recorded deaths at all from taking any vitamins, yet there were 1,058 deaths from prescribed pharmaceuticals.

And it may be that these numbers are somewhat downplayed with this paper suggesting that in the U.S. some 128,000 deaths came as a result of prescribed pharmaceuticals…

“A systematic review of the 39 methodologically strongest studies performed in the U.S. between 1964 and 1995 examined patients who were hospitalized due to a serious adverse drug reaction (ADR) or who experienced an ADR while in the hospital. The review found that 4.7 percent of hospital admissions were due to serious reactions from prescription drugs that had been appropriately prescribed and used. In addition, 2.1 percent of in-hospital patients  who received correctly prescribed medications experienced a serious ADR, for a total of 6.8 percent of hospital patients having serious ADRs. Applying this 6.8 percent hospital ADR rate to the 40 million annual admissions in U.S. acute care hospitals indicates that up to 2.7 million hospitalized Americans each year have experienced a serious adverse reaction. Of all hospitalized patients, 0.32 percent died due to ADRs, which means that an estimated 128,000 hospitalized patients died annually, matching stroke as the 4th leading cause of death. Deaths and serious reactions outside of hospitals would significantly increase the totals.”

With big pharma having such big mouths to feed and stockholders to keep happy, they need to maintain a steady inflow of wonger. To do this, they need to have a constant stream of new drugs coming onto the market so that when one patent runs out, they have another ready to take up the resulting slack. It’s just business at the end of the day, but business that affects millions of lives.

Vitamins are almost harmless. If you start feeling funny, just reduce the dose and you’re good to go, no risk of death. Yet big pharma goes to great lengths and expense to put us off of relying on vitamins for any more than is required to prevent scurvy or rickets

Why? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions there…

Have a nutritious day!

There you have it! Just a reminder that I’m no doctor, dietitian or any other profession for that matter. I’m simply a bearer of information for you to do what you want with; question it, research it, erase it from your mind, you are in charge of you.

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