How Vitamins A, D, E, and K Interact – Part 3: Where To Find Them
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So we’ve looked at the four fat-soluble vitamins – A, D, E, and K – and discussed their roles within the body as well as looked at few ways that they interact to keep your health in check. Now let’s rise above the science and dive into the buffet. It’s time to have a look at all of the delicious foods that contain these incredibly important vitamins.
First, I want to give you one more interesting anecdote from Stephan:
In my opinion, vitamins A, D and K2 are among the very few micronutrients worth worrying about in your diet. Hunter-gatherers didn’t have multivitamins, they had nutrient-dense animal foods. As long as you eat a natural diet containing some vegetables and some animal products, and lay off the processed grains, sugar and vegetable oil, the other vitamins and minerals will take care of themselves.
Food for thought…
What Are Some Good Food Sources Of These Vitamins?
Vitamin A
Here are some excellent food sources of vitamin A (per 100g (3.5 oz) with a bit of conversion work to get from “micrograms of retinol equivalent” to IU and account for beta-carotene [number in italics is IU divided by 12 for plant-sources]):
- Liver, beef, cooked 3 oz (30,325IU)
- Liver, chicken, cooked, 3 oz (13,920IU)
- Butter (3420IU)
- Carrots (8350IU – 695)
- Broccoli leaves (8000IU – 666)
- Sweet potatoes (7090IU – 590)
- Kale (6810IU – 567)
- Spinach (4690IU – 390)
- Pumpkin (3690IU – 307)
- Milk, whole, 3.25% fat, 1 cup (305IU)
- Whole egg, 1 medium (280IU)
- Collard greens (3330IU – 278)
- Cantaloupe melon (1690IU – 141)
But let’s remember one thing: only animal foods provide retinyl palmitate, which is readily converted to retinol in the small intestine. Plant sources of vitamin A actually provide beta-carotene, which is not efficiently converted to retinol in humans, somewhere around the order of 12-to-1 is the assumption. These two studies found marked variation in beta-carotene absorption for men and women:
The vitamin A activity of beta-carotene, even when measured under controlled conditions, can be surprisingly low and variable.
Variable absorption and conversion of beta-carotene to vitamin A both contribute to the variable response to consumption of beta-carotene.
That means only the animal foods above are “guaranteed” to provide that amount of vitamin A. The plant sources are going to depend very much on the individual. (And of course, the animal foods may vary, though not as markedly as the plant sources.)
Vitamin D
We’ve already discussed where to get your vitamin D from food, so I’m just going to scavenge the previous list of foods:
- Cod liver oil – 1tsp, 450IU
- Salmon, cooked, 3 1/2 oz: 360 IU
- Mackerel, cooked, 3 1/2 oz: 345 IU
- Sardines, canned in oil, drained, 3 1/2 oz: 270 IU
- Pork lard, 1 tbsp – 140IU
- Beef Liver, cooked, 3.5oz – 30IU
- Whole Egg – 25IU
But remember that vitamin D is preferentially created by the body in the skin via interaction with UVB radiation from sunlight. While food can provide moderate amounts and supplements can provide hefty doses of the D3 the body needs, neither compares to the ability of the skin to create this vitamin. Thirty minutes of full body exposure can drop up to 20,000 IU of vitamin D (depending on latitude, skin color, time of day, pollution, etc). That’s a lot of cod liver oil.
Vitamin K
The two main sources of vitamin K2 in the diet are MK-4 and MK-7. There are other forms of this vitamin, like MK-8, 9, and 10, but the two predominant forms are the -4 and -7 forms.
MK-4 Sources (mcg/100g)
- Egg Yolk (Netherlands) – 32.1 (Egg White contains 0.4)
- Goose Leg – 31.0
- Egg Yolk (United States) – 15.5
- Butter – 15.0
- Chicken Liver – 14.1
- Chicken Leg – 8.5
- Ground Beef (Medium Fat) – 8.1
- Calf Liver – 5.0
- Milk – (Whole: 1.0, 2%: 0.5, Skim: 0.0)
- Salmon – 0.5
MK-7 Sources (mcg/100g)
- Natto – 1103.4 (0% MK-4)
- Hard Cheeses – 76.3 (6% MK-4)
- Soft Cheeses – 56.5 (6.5% MK-4)
- Curd Cheeses – 24.8 (1.6% MK-4)
- Sauerkraut – 4.8
Plenty of vegetable foods are high in vitamin K1, such as avocados, spinach, chard, and the cruiferous vegetables. Remember that MK-7 is produced by bacterial fermentation, hence why the foods in that list are all fermented foods. MK-4 is produced directly in animal tissues. But there isn’t much K2 in fish.
In case you didn’t get a chance to read through all of Stephan’s posts on vitamin K, here is an important excerpt:
Cardiovascular disease and vitamin K2:
Notably absent from the main text body is a discussion of where the K2 is coming from. It’s tucked away in one sentence of the methods section: “cheese contributed 54%, milk products 22% and meat 15% of menaquinone intake.” Oops! These are the foods that are supposed to cause heart disease! And do you remember where the K2 is? In the fat– double oops! Yet another important nutrient that’s found in animal fat.
Chris Masterjohn points out that both K1 and K2 have their place:
Since the amount of vitamin K1 in typical diets is ten times greater than that of vitamin K2, researchers have tended to dismiss the contribution of K2 to nutritional status as insignificant. Yet over the last few years, a growing body of research is demonstrating that these two substances are not simply different forms of the same vitamin, but are better seen as two different vitamins: whereas K1 is preferentially used by the liver to activate blood clotting proteins, K2 is preferentially used by the other tissues to place calcium where it belongs, in the bones and teeth, and keep it out of where it does not belong, in the soft tissues.
Vitamin E
Now vitamin E is a bit of a different beast than the other three vitamins, and that’s why I put it last. You’ll notice that the main sources of vitamin E are not animal foods.
- Almonds, dry roasted, 1 ounce – 5mg
- Spinach, frozen, chopped, boiled, ½ cup – 1.1mg
- Red Palm Oil, 2 tbsp – 0.9mg
- Broccoli, frozen, chopped, boiled, ½ cup – 0.8mg
- Kiwi, 1 medium fruit without skin – 0.7mg
- Mango, raw, without refuse, ½ cup sliced – 0.3mg
- Spinach, raw, 1 cup – 0.2mg
These are all foods that fit perfectly into my way of eating. I don’t cook with palm oil as I used to, though it is still in my kitchen (and I’m not sure that vitamin E number is correct as it was very hard to find information on palm oil other than “it’s bad because of the saturated fat”). Palm oil is notable however because it contains all 8 forms of vitamin E, the 4 tocotrienols and the 4 tocopherols. Especially at this time of year, I eat tons of broccoli and I always toss a few almonds in my salads. Note that the RDA is 10mg for men and 8mg for women.
Stepping Onto My Soapbox
Ahem! Does anyone notice anything revolutionary? I see one very important thing: the very animal foods that we’re told to reduce our consumption of or avoid altogether are also the richest sources of the oh-so-important fat-soluble vitamins (vitamin E excepted). We are told to reduce our consumption of real foods like liver, eggs, and butter, and to increase our consumption of foods that have had these vitamins added back into them, like fat-free vitamin A & D fortified milk.
How can we ever expect to be healthy when we’re shunning the foods our bodies are built for? These foods come with the vitamins our body needs, but we’re told to avoid them. Instead, we are told to increase our consumption of processed foods that are enriched or fortified with vitamins, invariably vitamins that are in their least-usable state (such as D2 rather than D3 or beta-carotene rather than retinyl palmitate). And then there’s a little thing of importance that these are FAT-soluble vitamins. How much of that added vitamin A & D do you think you get from fat-free or reduced-fat milk? Did you see how much vitamin K is left in skim milk? (I’ll wait while you go look again.)
Is it any wonder we see such ill-health throughout the population, from the elderly who expect declining health as part of “aging” to the youth, those who should be in the prime of their lives, full of energy and vigor? Does it seem right that 1-in-4 school-age children are wearing glasses or contacts? We have children aged 6-19 with the arteries of 45-year-olds. Something isn’t right here! Yet we keep taking this vitamin or that and adding it to some new Frankenfood and putting a big label on it that says “Look how good for you I am! I have the vitamin-du-jour in me!” Worse yet, there are companies being paid (PAID!) to endorse this stuff as healthful (see: American Heart Association).
In trying to find how much vitamin E is in palm oil, I happened to look at the standard nutrition label on the foods in the supermarket. Anyone notice anything? Not a single of these four vitamins are listed, only the water-soluble vitamins. There’s no way to even know what your intake of A, D, E, and K are from processed foods.
So I ask again, how can we ever expect to be healthy when we’re shunning the foods our bodies are built for?
Table of contents for Understanding The Fat-Soluble Vitamins
- Just How Important Is Vitamin D?
- How Vitamins A, D, E, and K Interact – Part 1: The Players
- How Vitamins A, D, E, and K Interact – Part 2: Playing Together Nicely
- How Vitamins A, D, E, and K Interact – Part 3: Where To Find Them
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Great series, Scott. Thanks for the info.
Question though, is there some reason you don’t use palm oil in cooking anymore?
Thanks,
Joe
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Dude, forget Delicious, Digg and Reddit, I’m gonna frickin laminate this one and tape it up in my fridge! Super informative posts, thank you Scott!
All the Best,
Andrew R
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Thanks for the excellent information. The food-vitamin content is valuable and interesting.
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Hey Scott,
Well-researched and written series that needs much more attention than it has been given (e.g. besides the role of these nutrients, pointing out that the natural foods these nutrients occur in are the typical fat/cholesterol-phobia foods that our society has been brain-washed into avoiding for the sake of health—HELLO . . .).
Your series here, in addition to Chris’s, and Stephan’s writings are great additions to reading Dr. Weston Price’s “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” enlightening work (and look what year that was originally published [1939]). When it comes to diet I love to quote Mark Sisson: “it really is so simple”. Put simply, just eat they way that we humans have evolved to eat and your 70% of the way there,
Calvin
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Very good series on vitamins…duh, we are supposed to eat natural, unprocessed foods. Why doesn’t anyone understand!!!
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Great series.
Your mention of kids and glasses just made me realize something–my eyesight has improved since I started eating “real” foods with plenty of saturated fats. I just had my yearly eye exam two weeks ago, and both my eyes are better. My left went from a prescription of -3.5 to -2.75, and my right from -1.5 to -1.25. It didn’t even occur to me that my diet had anything to with it, I was just pleasantly surprise by the change, glad to have an explanation for the almost constant mild headaches I’d been having recently, and then annoyed that I had to shell out $350 for new glasses.
I never expected for this new way of eating to do much for me in the immediate future. I’m 28 years old and I’ve never been overweight and have no health issues, so I’ve always thought of this real food concept as a long-term investment in my health. It’s really exciting to notice an actual change.
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My eyes improved tremendously when I started eating beef liver. I had guessed the problems I was having with them were related to elevated blood pressure, but when I went paleo, and the bp dropped to normal, the eyes didn’t improve. Then I found Stephan’s blog and read his really great bit on liver. I was shocked to learn it’s a health food. For years I’d always read that organ meats are to absolutely be avoided. But really, it’s very very difficult to get much dietary Vitamin A without eating liver (once you account for beta carotene’s conversion factor). I still detest the taste, but after eating liver twice a week for about a month my eyes went back to normal.
I also started with butter oil and I don’t know if it’s just in my mind, but I feel overall much fitter. I seem to recover much quicker, and relax much much easier. Since I went paleo and added butter oil (approx eight months of paleo and maybe four on butter oil), the bp has dropped from a consistent 150/90 all the way down to a consistent 110/70 in the last month or so. You can imagine how much my general stress level has decreased as well.
Anyway, good stuff Scott. I like how easy you make it absorb info like this. I’ll be sending links to family and friends.
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Thanks (again) Scott for all the hard work you do writing these blogs for us. You’re a great source of reliable information. This last series is another such case in point. Excellent!!!
Dave
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Hi Scott,
I’ve read the same stuff from both Chris & Stephan, but it was a LOT of info to condense, you’ve done a great job at that and I plan to link to this in a post soon.
Thanks for doing all that work!
Kelly
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Hi Scott, I’d like to point out that there are other good sources of Vit E, animal as well as plant. My diet is mostly meat with a little veggies and nuts, and according to FitDay (which I use every day) Vit E in my diet usually ranges 30-50% (unfortunately, FitDay only lists mg as round numbers, not decimals, so if something is less than 1 mg, it shows as zero, even if it were 0.9; and 1mg could actually be anywhere from 1.0 to 1.9 mg).
For example from my diet today, three large eggs provide 2 mg (11% of RDA), half an avocado has 1mg, 2 oz cream cheese has 1mg, 3 oz canned salmon has 1mg…. and these are for grocery store products. I’ll bet grassfed and organic (most of what I eat) would be a lot higher in Vit E, as well as in other vitamins.
I love your blog… lots of useful info here!
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Fantastic post — you and Stephan from Whole Health Source make an awesome pair for thinking and learning about diet.
I’m very curious about reformulating the vitamin content of food as micrograms per 100 calories, rather than a pure weight ratio. I don’t think that we can fairly compare butter to milk on a per-100g basis. I might drink a pound of milk, but only eat an ounce of butter, at dinner.
If I have time, I might reformulate the vit-K table on a per-calorie basis and post it here.
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Good conclusion to your post Scott. Although I still have a some way to go I am eating a lot more real foods (unprocessed animal products, fruit, vegetables etc). I think a lot of people could benefit from doing the same.
The only gripe I have (and I noticed this when I did my own articles on the fat soluble vitamins) is that liver is a particularly rich source for most of them. I can do butter and carrots for my vitamin A, cod liver oil and salmon for my vitamin B, spinach for my vitamin E and eggs and milk for my vitamin K…but liver is one food I have never managed to stomach.
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Tom, I can relate to your inability to get liver down. Until recently that is – I actually found a way I like it – in some grass fed Braunsweiger. (I wrote about it here: http://www.kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/11/couple-healthy-meat-stories.html)
Kelly
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Great site you have here.
I was wondering if raw cream would have the same amount of vitamin A that butter does.
Thanks
James
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Joe, no particular reason. I am trying to finish up a jar I’ve had for awhile and will probably get some more. I just shifted more to lard and coconut oil for cooking. Again, no real reason other than the coconut oil is much higher in saturated fats.
Leniza and Josh, that’s very interesting about the eyes and makes sense. I find it funny that we’re told things like “the bones stop adding calcium after age 20″ and such, as if there’s no improvement beyond that age and nothing you can do about the body. I think the body has an incredible ability to heal itself given the proper fuel.
Ed, have at it. mg per 100 calories is the way I found most of the numbers, so I converted the others as best I could.
Tom, there are lots of good ways to eat liver that can sorta mask the taste. Liver and onions isn’t the only option. It goes well with apples and bacon. These might help out too: Liver chili and liver in El Pato.
Kelly, hmmm….liver braunsweiger. That sounds tasty!
James, not sure about the raw cream. A raw milk person would know more than I would.
Cheers
Scott
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Hi there, I’ve been involved with selling both goat and cow’s milk for ten years, and so maybe can help, though I’m not sure if James is asking if raw cream has the same amount of Vitamin A as pasteurized, commercial butter, or just raw cream to raw butter?
Either way, it can be complicated. First of all, artificial Vit. A is added to commercial butter/cream, whereas raw milk and cream naturally contain beta carotene which your body converts to Vit A. Other than that, there’s about twice as much vitamins, calories, etc. in butter as cream, owing to the water content of cream.
There’s also the cattle breed aspect: Holsteins (about 90% of dairy herds) have been bred to produce a LOT of milk, up to 15 gallons/day (using Monsanto’s rBGH hormones), with a low butterfat of 3%. Guernseys and Jerseys both produce much less milk, but with a 4-6% butterfat content, thus their milk is richer and more flavorful than other breeds. Their milk also contains much more beta carotene which colors their milk yellow, particularly when grassfed, and especially in the spring when the grass is growing like crazy. Spring milk of Jerseys and Guernseys is especially high in Vit K and other vitamins, per Weston Price’s observations. My Jersey cow’s cream varies in color from a pale creamy yellow in winter to a deep yellow in June… her butter and cheese made in the different seasons are likewise colored. Nearly all commercial cheese and butter have coloring added, either natural or artificial, because Holstein milk makes a fairly white butter, almost like lard, which would be very disconcerting to consumers.
By the way, beta carotene also colors the fat of Jersey steers, one reason why Jersey bull calves are practically given away at birth ($10-20 vs $130+ for Holstein calves) and why full-grown Jersey steers are usually discounted at the sale barn…. consumers expect beef with white fat and would distrust yellow Jersey fat as “weird”. But those who’ve eaten Jersey steers swear that no better beef exists because of this yellow fat. Makes sense to me… yellow fat has more vitamins, and thus more taste, than does the pallid white fat of feedlot grainfed beef. Guess I’ll find out for myself soon… my first Jersey steer will be processed in January.
Finally, there’s the species aspect: Goats convert all their beta carotene in grass and browse to Vitamin A, one reason why goat milk, cheese and butter are always stark white; this preconversion means there is much more bio-available Vit A in goatmilk products than in cow’s milk. Also, due to their preference of eating deep-rooted weeds, trees and shrubs (rather than all-grass), goat milk has a higher mineral content than that of even pasture-fed cows.
Well, this probably is far more information than anyone really cares to know… hazards of esoteric dairy knowledge, I guess. LOL
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Thank you Jenny. You can never know to much, especially about important things like foods.
I only wish I could find some raw goat butter.
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[...] Swiss chard, completely ignoring even better sources, namely animal foods. I pointed out in this fat-soluble vitamins series, that vitamin K2 is at least as important as K1 and showed some great sources like egg [...]