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What Deficiencies Could We Get On This Diet?
I have four kids, so I mull these things over a lot. I really don't want to cause more damage in the process of Healing - I've done a lot of that over the past 16 years.
Anyway - assuming that one eats a diet consisting of meat, rice, and a few low-A veggies, nuts, seeds, fats, seasonings, etc....it seems like some essential nutrients could get depleted, such as: magnesium, calcium, b vitamins, vitamin K, vitamin C.
Am I wrong? Am I missing anything?
This might have to be answered in a case-by-case manner (because almost everyone varies their diet a bit from Grant's) and even that might be hard because every food varies quite a bit based on the conditions of it's growth. So one person's organic black beans grown in their own garden and soaked overnight might not be the other persons's canned black beans from the dollar store?
I'm interested in perhaps building a base of knowledge that unites a symptom to a deficiency. That might really help us.
So, for instance, if people are get a symptom (for example, dry hands) and find that adding a food or vitamin (or lifestyle fix like sunshine) fixes it...
that could be good!
Here's a little survey I've been meaning to do.
Below I’ve listed each nutrient, plus the best low-A sources of it, and whether I personally feel that my family might be at risk of deficiency on a Low A diet.
(I have humbly borrowed tons of info from Chris Masterjohn’s very informative Vitamins and Minerals series. I think he has fascinating things to say…just not about Vitamin A at this point!)
(My number one take-home from my own survey is...my family needs to develop the ability to digest beans! If we could do that, then supplementing some B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc until we don't need to anymore, would get me closer to feeling like we have a "complete" diet, within all the Low A (and low-aldehydes and low-lectins etc.) limitations we've got right now.)
I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this topic. 🙂
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B1 Thiamin:
Whole grains and beans.
Liver Diseases, coincidentally, hurt thiamin storage. Might folks with A toxicity qualify for such a definition?
(My family doesn’t eat beans or many whole grains at all, so POSSIBLY DEFICIENT if we don’t supplement.)
——
B2 Riboflavin
Almonds, red meat, mushrooms, sesame, wheat germ and bran.
(My family eats red meat and mushrooms, so POSSIBLY OKAY.)
——
B3 Niacin
Most lean meats, sesame seeds and tahini, pumpkin and squash seeds, pine nuts, almonds, chestnuts, many mushrooms (white, portabella, shiitake, oyster, crimini).
(My family eats meat and mushrooms nearly daily, so PROBABLY OKAY.)
——
B5 Pantothenic Acid
Roasted Sunflower seeds, shiitake mushrooms, White or portabella mushrooms, some muscle meats (but requires many servings per day).
According to Masterjohn, “Pantothenic acid is harder to extract from food than other B vitamins. A healthy person may only extract half the B5 from food, and someone with poor digestion might get even less.” Also: “A lot of B5 gets destroyed by heat, processing, and storage. So it's VERY important never to use values for raw foods in a nutritional database unless the food is fresh (not canned or frozen) and you're eating it raw.”
(Here’s hoping that my family’s high meat and mushroom consumption will carry us through on this one! POSSIBLY DEFICIENT without supplements.)
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B6
Small amounts can be found in chicken and turkey breast, many lean cuts of meat, chestnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, walnuts, corn, white rice, and bananas. One might have to eat several pounds of these foods each day to get enough.
Masterjohn says: “…most plants have a lot of their B6 bound to sugars that make it hard to absorb. We can get, at best, only half the B6 from these sugar-bound forms. At worst, we might not get any. As a result, you should NEVER trust the values for B6 in a nutritional database when looking at plant foods.
“Cooking presents another important issue. Cooking makes B6 bind to the protein in the food. This doesn't just destroy the B6. It actually turns it into a B6 antagonist! …Overall, you can expect cooked animal food to have 25-30% less B6 activity than the raw version, and 40% less for plant foods. It depends how much you cook them though.”
(My family is PROBABLY DEFICIENT based on our symptoms when we don’t supplement.)
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Biotin
If you don’t eat liver or egg yolks, this is difficult to get from food. Masterjohn sez: “…Meanwhile, egg WHITES have a substance that binds biotin and prevents its absorption. Therefore, consuming egg whites without the yolks creates the greatest risk of biotin deficiency. In fact, before we knew what biotin was, we called its deficiency "egg white injury." The fact that "egg white injury" could be cured by eating liver led to the eventual discovery of biotin!
“Thankfully, cooking egg whites helps destroy their biotin-binding substance. However, it depends how you cook the egg:
* Poaching does very little, leaving behind 71% of the anti-biotin activity.
* Frying is better, but it still leaves behind 33% of the anti-biotin activity.
* Boiling for four minutes destroys most of it, leaving behind 5-10%. Boiling for six minutes destroys nearly all of it.”
Masterjohn’s insights:
* 100 grams of whole eggs has 21.4 micrograms (mcg).
* Meats are variable, but have only about 20% as much.
* Sunflower seeds have only 36%.
* Almonds have 20%.
* Walnuts have 12%
* Pecans and canned mushrooms have 10%.
(My family is PROBABLY DEFICIENT without supplements.)
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B9 Folate
Chickpeas, kidney beans, limas, soy, mung beans, black beans, and pinto beans.
(My family eats few beans, so PROBABLY DEFICIENT.)
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B12
300 grams of meat, poultry or fish.
Most B12 deficiencies also have to do with poor absorption.
(My family is PROBABLY OKAY.)
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Choline
These foods are equivalent to one egg yolk, which in turn (according to Masterjohn) means you need roughly FOUR servings per day:
Nuts and seeds, measured dried or roasted: 200 grams of flaxseed, pistachios, pumpkin, squash, or cashews; 250 grams of pine, sunflower, or almonds; 300 grams of hazelnuts or macadamia; 400 of walnuts; 450 of Brazil nuts; 500 of sesame. Meat and fish: 9-12 ounces, measured before cooking. 100-200 grams of beans, measured before cooking.
(My family eats a lot of meat, but possibly not enough to give us adequate choline: POSSIBLY DEFICIENT.)
——
Vitamin C
Strawberries, asparagus, potatoes, radish, turnips, rutabagas, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, limes
(My family occasionally eats asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and limes, but probably not in high enough quantities. Yet Garrett Smith advises against supplementing. We’re PROBABLY DEFICIENT in vitamin C.)
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Vitamin D
Sunlight on our skin! Also: some mushrooms that have been exposed to ultraviolet light (brown, Italian, crimini, portabella, maitake) (but these contain D2). Turkey and chicken fat.
(My family lives in the desert and is PROBABLY OKAY due to all the sunlight, although recent tests prior to our Vitamin A detox showed that our status was fairly low.)
——
Calcium
Equivalent to an 8-oz glass of milk (measured after cooking):
430 g white beans
700 g pinto beans
90 g napa cabbage
Also, mineral water might be a good source.
(My family eats none of these regularly, so we’re LIKELY DEFICIENT.)
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Phosphorus
If we assume a need for ~700mg day, it’s very hard to get deficient. 2000 calories of any of these food groups on its own would provide:
Meat, poultry, or fish: 1700 mg.
Legumes, nuts, or seeds: 1600 mg.
Veggies 1100 mg.
Grains: 1050 mg.
Fruits: 608 mg.
(My family is PROBABLY OKAY.)
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Vitamin E
Nuts and seeds, grass-fed red meat.
(I don’t know how much is needed, but I’m hoping my family is LIKELY OKAY.)
——
Vitamin K
Three servings per day of:
57 g dark chicken meat, 4 g natto made from black beans, 97 g ghee from pasture-raised cows, 110 g goose leg, 160 g butter or lard
(My family does eat butter, but in much smaller amounts than 160 grams per day! We do eat lots of chicken, but not every day. We are POSSIBLY DEFICIENT.)
——
Copper
The food content of copper varies DRAMATICALLY depending on where and how it is grown. Two low-A sources:
20 g shiitake mushrooms
25 g sesame seeds
(My family doesn’t eat much of these, but we have also (three of us) tested very high for copper and low for zinc so I do not worry about copper consumption at this point while we’re still supplementing to lower its levels in our blood. We’re CURRENTLY OKAY.)
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Iodine
It’s complicated.
Iodized salt is the simplest source on our Low A diet.
(My family now uses iodized salt, so we’re POSSIBLY OKAY.)
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Iron
White beans, black turtle beans, the seeds of sesame, pumpkin, and squash; and wheat or rice bran. Many cuts of beef, and also many other beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
(My family is PROBABLY OKAY on iron consumption due to all the beef we eat.)
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Magnesium
Sesame seeds and sesame products, sunflower seeds, almonds and almond products, Brazil and pine nuts. Brown rice, wheat, and these beans: fava, white, great northern, mung, French, baby lima, small white, pink, winged, pinto, navy, black, black turtle, kidney, cranberry, soy, and adzuki). Macadamia nuts and pecans.
(My family does not many of these on a regular basis, and we are LIKELY DEFICIENT without supplementing.)
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Manganese
Brown rice, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, and squash seeds, pink or red lentils, mothbeans, white beans, adzuki beans. Also, almonds and almond butter, cashews, sunflower seed kernels, chestnuts, sesame seeds, raspberries, blackberries, white rice, white (wheat) flour, lentils, and the following beans: great northern, navy, pink, yellow, small white, young lima, French, pinto, kidney, black, mung, black turtle, cranberry, and fava.
(My family is PROBABLY OKAY.)
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Molybdenum
5 grams of (g) lima beans, 10 g small white beans, 23 g red beans, 45 g pinto beans, 75 g string beans, 120 g pasta, 155 g rice, 225 g asparagus.
(We eat a LOT of rice, so here’s hoping that we’re PROBABLY OKAY.)
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Potassium:
Beans, including small white, black turtle, kidney, black, pink, lima, pinto, great northern, cranberry, French, adzuki, mung, hyacinth, mothbean, and navy. Several raw nuts (pistachio, almonds, and hazelnuts); several dry-roasted nuts (pistachios, hazelnuts, and almonds), plus almond butter, roasted pumpkin and squash seeds, roasted sunflower seed kernels, and raisins.
If you eat a lot of these foods, also: chestnuts, oil-roasted or blanched almonds, blanched hazelnuts, roasted cashews and pecans, and dry-roasted walnuts, Brazil nuts, pine nuts, walnuts, cashew butter and tahini, toasted sesame seeds, roasted sunflower seeds, some mushrooms, and some cuts of meat (especially when the juices are consumed (as in soups or stews).
(My family is LIKELY A BIT DEFICIENT due to eating very few of the items on this list.)
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Selenium
This nutrient is notoriously variable depending on the soil in which plants have grown. In GENERAL, good sources include:
Wheat products, including germ, bran, whole-grain flour, sprouted wheat, vital wheat gluten, bread flour, semolina, durum, hard red winter and spring, and most pasta and noodles. Also, “depending”, Brazil nuts, dried sesame seed kernels, dried or toasted sunflower seed kernels, most cuts of beef, and white rice.
(My family sure eats a lot of beef and white rice, but I have no idea at all what the actual selenium content of these foods is. Nor do I know whether we get enough without supplements to balance out the zinc supplements that three of us take. POSSIBLY OKAY once we stop supplementing with zinc.)
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Zinc:
Most beef and lam; adzuki, soy, black, cranberry, navy, and white beans; sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, and squash seeds; cashews, pine nuts, pecans, and Brazil nuts.
(My family should be TOTALLY OKAY on zinc, but without supplements, and prior to our Vitamin A detox, three of us had very low zinc levels without massive supplementation. I am curious whether we can wean off these in time, as our A stores diminish.)
I dont eat any whole grains, beans or nuts and when I put what I eat into cronometer my Bs and other micro nutrients look good. Plenty of animal protein from beef chicken and fish plus potatoes and refined grain covers most micro nutrients. Adding a small amount of fruit, veg and oil completes ones requirements. Whole grains beans and nuts can be ok but they tend to be high in aflatoxin along with being high in phytates, oxalates, enzyme inhibitors, lectins, flatulence causing sugars etc. They are known as "health foods" i.e. foods that the average person prefers not to eat because their instincts tell them not to. The amount of magnesium in meat may not look impressive but micronutrients from meat are far more absorbable. The micronutrients that tend to be most scarce are iodine selenium and dha which is why seafood is crucial.
It's funny @tim-2 , @sarabeth-matilsky but one of the things I've decided (on the long haul of special diets etc that I have tried) is that the MOST important thing we get from food is CALORIES.
I chuckle when I see high-cost foods advertised as low calorie. Derp. Get less fuel for more money!
Anyways, my new theory is that detox cycles happen when we burn fat cells, releasing VA. If you aren't eating enough calories to keep up with a surge of activities, you may experience a detox cycle. No Fun.
So (if you want comfort!) don't be deficient in the number one reason why we eat: CALORIES!
That's really interesting. I just posted a note on your log, @lil chick, concerning my familial tendency to be really weight stable and slender. I kind of wonder if mental health symptoms for me are due to my body not having enough body fat to sequester things in! Which means that the toxins just kind of circulate until reaching my brain, at which point I get "PMS," or "anxiety" or "depression" or any of the many labels that could describe my decades of struggles...
It would make sense that it's important to eat lots of calories in either case - whether you're trying to help the body dissolve and deal with body fat, or if you are trying to help the body eliminate toxins circulating from the liver, etc.
I am interested in your theories about seafood, Tim, but I have not figured out how to source any that satisfies me. I listened to this podcast about ikejime https://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2009/12/ikejime-the-japanese-way-to-bu.html (this is not the podcast, but an overview of the topic of fish slaughter), and it reinforced my thinking that the fish I buy in Trader Joes is just NOT the amazing food our recent ancestors enjoyed! My kids generally dislike the fish I've gotten, except for occasionally really good salmon, and I have to agree - the fishy taste of even just-thawed frozen fish does not fill me with a desire to eat it!
Plus, there were many people and tribes in the recent past who did not have access to the ocean. What did they eat?
Anyway, I'm curious - what seafood do you eat, and where do you obtain it?
Hi Sarabeth,
My kids (grownups now)...
The boy became averted to all seafood except occasional tuna in a can. He gets a taste for it now and then. He was also averted to eggs. He does a lot of dairy (I guess I'm wondering if that fills a similar niche).
The girl really fell for scallops, lox and also for raw sushi. Sushi chefs (good ones at expensive places) are often extremely picky about what they serve. She does less dairy and more eggs.
I personally remember the first time I had scallops and the first time I had salmon and feeling like they were wonderful. Taste is a personal thing, and IMO should be followed. I like sushi well enough but I don't eat it as much as hubs or daughter. Out of everyone I'm the one most likely to buy white fish like haddock. I also like eel and squid and lobster. oops eel is high in A? 🙂
I live on the coast, so it is probably a bit easier for me to get fresh stuff. But I do buy from Traders too! I know my grandmother's family who were all so healthy ....had fish weekly and that is what I aim for. I guess I agree with some people who say: It's a polluted world, but it's the only one we have.
Quote from lil chick on November 19, 2019, 8:08 amIt's funny @tim-2 , @sarabeth-matilsky but one of the things I've decided (on the long haul of special diets etc that I have tried) is that the MOST important thing we get from food is CALORIES.
I chuckle when I see high-cost foods advertised as low calorie. Derp. Get less fuel for more money!
Anyways, my new theory is that detox cycles happen when we burn fat cells, releasing VA. If you aren't eating enough calories to keep up with a surge of activities, you may experience a detox cycle. No Fun.
So (if you want comfort!) don't be deficient in the number one reason why we eat: CALORIES!
Yes I agree about calories, we are supposed to eat calorie dense food.
The fat cell theory makes some sense but Im just not sure we have enough in our fat to cause symptoms. If a liver is very high in va say it has 1000 mcg/g imagine how easily excess would be released when the biochemical signals were sent that the body was low in va, it would be like an avalanche.
Quote from Sarabeth on November 19, 2019, 11:16 amI am interested in your theories about seafood, Tim, but I have not figured out how to source any that satisfies me. I listened to this podcast about ikejime https://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2009/12/ikejime-the-japanese-way-to-bu.html (this is not the podcast, but an overview of the topic of fish slaughter), and it reinforced my thinking that the fish I buy in Trader Joes is just NOT the amazing food our recent ancestors enjoyed! My kids generally dislike the fish I've gotten, except for occasionally really good salmon, and I have to agree - the fishy taste of even just-thawed frozen fish does not fill me with a desire to eat it!
Plus, there were many people and tribes in the recent past who did not have access to the ocean. What did they eat?
Anyway, I'm curious - what seafood do you eat, and where do you obtain it?
Inland hunter gatherers consumed lizards, fresh water fish and crustaceans, eggs and insects. So they could likely get enough iodine, selenium and dha. People burnt iodine rich plants and ate the ash, many people have traded for seaweed and seafood over long distances, dairy consumption supplies iodine. Goiter and cretinism were epidemic, it is said that even the plains indians who were consuming mostly buffalo suffered from it. Many inland people were not ok.
Squid is excellent, it is very low va. I mostly eat whiting or hoki. it is not especially low va. I have two small fillets per day which doesn't give me much va. It is definitely not as good as fresh but it doesnt taste bad or fishy.
Seafood was not pristine inthe past, most mercury in the ocean comes from underwater volcanos and seafood has always contained it. I only choose low mercury seafood.