Not hitting mineral targets

[Josh]

Revisiting the topic of minerals:

I've been using fitday and noticed that I am not hitting anywhere near RDA's of minerals like magnesium and potassium.

If I play around putting in 100% raw meat, and with adding nutrient dense foods like liver, sea fish and oysters it's still not what they say.

So either the RDA's are very off base, or it's very hard to get enough from RPD. Or of course somewhere in between the two.

Some people say the food source is depleted of these minerals through agriculture so they're not in meat.

Some people recommend edible clays. I can't find any nutritional data for these, in fact I found a lot of handwaving when searching.

What do you think? And if you do hit nutritional targets, how, what are your strategies?

[ys]

i would ignore all RDA numbers.  the way they came up with daily allowances is fuzzy math at best.
Lex does not appear to have any obvious mineral deficiencies.

are you deficient on paper or do you have health issues?

[Josh]

Deficient on paper. Not sure how you can hit it on paper...I have tried entering a few raw foods. If you ate 1.2 kg a day of raw tuna you'd hit the magnesium target for example.

Health issues, not sure. I felt much better mentally when I was eating a 'standard healthy diet' and taking a good mineral supplement.

But then I'm not fully raw yet.

[cliff]

You could add plant foods, fruits probably being the best option as far as magnesium and potassium go. 

[sabertooth]

The issue may not be a deficiency caused by not consuming the RDA of minerals, but the efficiency in which the body can absorb the amounts of nutrients necessary to maintain health.

Perhaps the RDA for minerals like calcium and magnesium is so high because that the average sad diet has so many antinutrients, and other garbage that it prevents those minerals from being properly absorbed. The food industry had no choice but to start fortifying the foods with vitamins and minerals, because so many people were suffering from malnourishment.

While a raw paleo diet may be lower in minerals, this should be compensated for if one becomes fully adapted, then you would be more able to completely absorb the minerals in digested animal flesh. A more compact digestive tract that is primed with flesh eating bacteria and well adapted to raw animal foods, should be much better at extracting minerals, than the gut of the average SAD dieter who may require the actual RDA amounts of minerals.

[Dima]

Look into mineral waters. Gerolsteiner and Apolinaris brands contain plenty of Mg and Ca.

[Raw Kyle]

Why would you think you could get all the nutrients you need from 100% raw muscle meat? Is there any animal or human civilization ever that lived on that?

[ys]

Why would you think you could get all the nutrients you need from 100% raw muscle meat? Is there any animal or human civilization ever that lived on that?

muscle meat - no, whole animal - yes.

[KD]

Dr. Fred Bisci who is a 40+ year raw foodist (vegan) has said that if you lived on a diet of NYC rats and romaine lettuce that you'd probably be better off than most average Americans as far as health problems. I'm sure its somewhat of an exaggeration, but a similar mindset does seem to penetrate alot of people and even thought there is some logic to it there probably is some holes as well.

before I say how I agree, let me just say how I disagree with these kinds of generalizations in that some known deficiencies are so ubiquitous - like Vit D - (which is of course.. a vitamin and not a mineral I suppose) and yet many of the people consuming the highest amounts here of raw FOOD BASED vitamin D are not remotely hitting this goal and more or less claim to feel fine or even good living this way for the time being. This is not the same as optimal health. Some people choose not to obsess over such things but that doesn't mean for others that such issues could not be fairly important for a particular condition or to feel well.

Basically we know for certain from looking at the RDAs and people eating complete garbage that its completely possible to have multiple deficiencies of absolutely key vitamins and minerals and still survive. Its also worth noting that people can indeed consume cooked and processed foods (vitamin pills) and increase their vitamins and minerals that way, correcting deficiencies. We also know that you can completely overdose on vitamins through pills, making the 'ineffectiveness' of pill based supplements to be pretty much the only one of AV's claims that makes no sense to me. Now whether these are all net harmful I do not know but obviously you can uptake minerals if need be from things which might have nothing to do with our natural diet.

The thing is - is that if the soil actually is in fact depleted of minerals. This is unarguable and this affects all the minerals that you eat. So in a way that would put us in the same position as vegans as requiring other minerals than what we would have eaten. Of course I don't believe people ate a vegan diet but on on paper its actually fairly easy to meet many (not all) of the RDAs with most vegetables and some fruits but even then these actually do not contain the minerals that are listed in many cases. All the other stuff like deep ocean fish, bivalves, seaweeds, and algae similar to green leafy vegetables and some fruits are similarly abundant in minerals that are not easily found in at least today's ruminant animals. Concentrated powders and juices and cooking can provide more nutrients but possibly more questionable absorption. One could argue that these minerals are not necessary for humans and can only be supplied by agrarian diets/supplementation and processing of some kind, HOWEVER, if one does have an actual deficiency of minerals these would be probably the obvious points to turn to to create a healthy balanced diet. Also things like mineral salts, clays and mineral waters which were already listed.

There is alot of truth that if you are not doing certain things and in a certain state of health that you will be able to uptake minerals from food easier and you should shed fewer of those minerals. Its been thought generally that high protein diets and an 'acid environment' are notorious for leeching calcium for instance, but there are some interesting rebuttals even in the research community as to that. Apparently in this article an all meat diet was used as a study (more than 80 years ago) that I was unfamiliar with.

rarely do I read whole studies but this one is pretty interesting:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/78/3/584S.full

The whole blaming of the RDA as being artificially high is actually the claim the vegans and vegetarians make so they don't have to hit key vitamins and minerals which are really aren't very present in vegetation. There might be some truth to it with selling the need for pasteurized dairy and so forth but overall I wouldn't feel comfortable using that to dispel real world deficiencies as fabrications. If you know someone else that doesn't have a deficiency that eats a natural diet similar to you, this seems to be a fair assessment that your deficiency is not a fabrication by the US government. The other thing is that alot of people ARE NOT actually eating all that many organ meats, marine oils and other things high in most vitamins and minerals and also the more specific nutrients the WAPF for instance say like proper A, D3 and K2 etc...

Basically the very idea that one needs to get certain vitamins and minerals on a daily basis seems to be a bit skewed there based on a natural paradigm, however I wouldn't be surprised if the values on average over the year are actually quite low, considering how abundant foods would have been in minerals prior to agriculture. Also in some cases traditional people did eat quite a bit of food, being very active which means more of the micronutrients.

[Johan August]

The RDA was established using a population of refined carbohydrate eaters, that diet decreases absorption of minerals as well as creating a need for more  minerals. Also the average salt consumption increases the need for more potassium to keep the sodium potassium balance in place, insulin spikes also increase the need for potassium.

You could have an intracellular mineral status test taken to assess your mineral position if it really is a worry to you. Google EXATEST for more details.

I have supplemented potassium, magnesium and taurine every day for years but since going paleo I am tapering down these supplements and aim to stop using them within three months. They have helped to stabilize a lone atrial fibrillation condition I have. I am betting that very low carb raw paleo will do the job much better, I will  find out if I am wrong. My priorities are to reduce insulin spiking and  extra salt to keep my minerals in balance.

[CHK91]

One mineral that I found that I actually need the RDA requirements was calcium. My metabolism seemed to be too acidic and 200-300mg of calcium wasn't enough to buffer. I have seen improvements especially in concentration after eating about 1/2 teaspoon of eggshells a day.

[sabertooth]

Has anyone out there actually benefited from taking standard mineral supplements?

I think that most mineral supplements are useless for most people most of the time. I often wonder if the cheaper brands that contain anti caking agents, and vitamin D, and who knows what else, could even be harmful?

Didn't Ogres use bone meal to enrich their diets. I try to make bone meal, but its a lot of work and my two year old ends up eating half of what I make. I chew on it like gum.



I wonder if connective tissues are higher in minerals?

[miles]

...

Yo Kaydeena

Acidic environment causes tissues to break down? If the acidic environment is caused by amino acids, then this would be good right, because it would allow proper repair without formation of scar tissue? Because the acid environment would be breaking the tissue down and amino acids reforming it. If you just had a load of amino acids building on top of what's there your muscle/bone would become a mess, with gaps and damage throughout, just getting bigger and bigger and less efficient? So the two work together.

And... Eating fat would also contribute to an acid environment, right? keto-acids.. so you would get the break-down, but they wouldn't be rebuilding.. So eating more fat than what you need would be a bad thing?

[KD]

Yo Kaydeena

Acidic environment causes tissues to break down? If the acidic environment is caused by amino acids, then this would be good right, because it would allow proper repair without formation of scar tissue? Because the acid environment would be breaking the tissue down and amino acids reforming it. If you just had a load of amino acids building on top of what's there your muscle/bone would become a mess, with gaps and damage throughout, just getting bigger and bigger and less efficient? So the two work together.

And... Eating fat would also contribute to an acid environment, right? keto-acids.. so you would get the break-down, but they wouldn't be rebuilding.. So eating more fat than what you need would be a bad thing?

I was just citing that as an assumption of one way that environments can effect uptake or loss of minerals. Mostly its vegans that make that comment about 'high-protein' diets. The article seemed pretty convincing that what it considered at least to be medium protein (100-150% of the regular western diet actually) was almost necessary for proper calcium levels. The other common one is that of eating things like cereals others pointed out. Personally I think many modern fruits (and the environment created by such) leech minerals...

I'm not sure what to think generally of the acid/alkaline thing. It makes sense to me that you want to have a digestive tract that is acidic and be at least somewhere near the border of acid/alakine or slightly alkaline in terms of the bodies' PH.

The most annoying way to answer your second part would be 'well how much is more than you need?" I would probably ask Lex or PP this because I don't really know. I tend to think its pretty difficult to OD comfortably on fat in that extreme when on a fat adapted diet like VLC or ZC but I don't really have the long term experience or research to say that is true.

...I do appreciate that you asked me what seems to be a legitimate and good question particularly after my comment.

Didn't Ogres use bone meal to enrich their diets. I try to make bone meal, but its a lot of work and my two year old ends up eating half of what I make. I chew on it like gum.

What the mineral folks would point out is not only are the soils that these cows are eating depleted, but the obvious that they arn't eating wild grasses and other forage from wild areas not to mention the issues of domestication of the 'meat' itself. There are people that say we don't need to eat plant food because the ruminants process the plant food for us..but where is that plant food? How can grass possibly represent the full nutrition profile of animal forage our ancestors ate 1000's of years ago?...

So even if the bones, the marrow and organs have far more vitamins and minerals than the muscle meat (and likely way more than people are getting on a SWD diet) that these are still technically deficient. There are some plants and plant extracts that can actually hit mineral caps far quicker than deep ocean fishes. So whether one actually needs to 'supplement' with wild plants or other foods that our ancestors might not have even eaten (equally likely is that they might have also eaten herbs and other forage regularly) to survive or even thrive....the likelihood is people can benefit from thinking about diet in ways that are somewhat more outward in their perceptions of what can be useful as food or 'supplementation' . Just my take.

[HIT_it_RAW]

Has anyone out there actually benefited from taking standard mineral supplements?

YES!
I've been using "Lava oerlevenskracht" (basalt primal life force) minerals. Its a dutch product I think. Its made from vulcanic rock ground to the finest powder i've ever seen(powder-sugar like). Its very rich in Mg, Se, Ca & many more. Could post a pic of the chemical analysis later if you wish.

When I started using it I was eating a modified SAD => no grains except brown rice, lots of veggies, little meat, lots of butter, fish, tallow, lard, some fruit, yoghurt. It made al the difference to me. Instant results felt more energetic the first day.

When I started paleo I started using less. Recently when I went RPD I stopped using it altogether. This went ok at first because I got all the raw meat benefits. However lately my energy was down and I started using it again in small amounts. Same effects energy back feel great.

Maybe I should start eating more organ meat or start eating marrow. For now 1/4 teaspoon before breakfast. Or 1/4 teaspoon in a green smoothy, also helps to buffer the chemicals(if not organic) like AV uses clay.

If you feel like your doing everything right but lack energy I really recommend it. Just don't use it at night cause you won't sleep...

[Josh]

Thanks for replies.

I may consider a mineral supplement if things don't level out. A lot of factors involved for me, so experimentation one thing at a time is needed, otherwise I will never know what's helping.

I was talking about a varied paleo diet with organs by the way. Try putting in your average diet. I bet noone will come close to certain targets. If you do, tell me what you're eating please.

[miles]

Try putting in your average diet.

Where?

Edit: Aha - http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/off-topic/cron-o-meter-is-amazing!/

[Josh]

Or there's fitday or this one seems a little better than fitday actually:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

[miles]

                                                                               Ammount     Calories
Beef, brisket, whole, separable lean only, all grades, raw   1000   g   1550.0
Beef, retail cuts, separable fat, raw                                     250 g   1685.0
Lettuce, green leaf, raw                                             360   g   54.0
Water, bottled, POLAND SPRING                                   1500   g   0.0
Coriander (cilantro) leaves, raw                                      20   g   4.6
Beef, variety meats and by-products, kidneys, raw            400   g   396.0
Beef, variety meats and by-products, liver, raw                    100   g   135.0
Lamb, variety meats and by-products, heart, raw            150   g   183.0
Lamb, variety meats and by-products, lungs, raw            200   g   190.0

Nutrition report attached below:

[Josh]

Miles, thanks for posting this as a data point. That hits a lot of things. However...I know I've checked this before, but your meat and organs add up to 1850g...1.85kg.

I'm not doubting your sincerity, but just..are you sure this is what it measures with scales? and you eat this on average every day?

[miles]

I'm not doubting your sincerity, but just..are you sure this is what it measures with scales? and you eat this on average every day?

No that's not every average day, you can decrease some stuff quite a lot and it's still pretty good. I have eaten that much though before. I put in like the most that I would eat in a day, to try to get the best results.

"Try putting in your average diet. I bet noone will come close to certain targets. If you do, tell me what you're eating please."

I only downloaded cronometer specifically for this, so I picked the highest, though I actually missed out a few things I could've put in like sweetbreads. I was just showing what you would eat to get the targets.