I don't eat dairy, eggs, natto, or significant organ meats so I'm guessing my vitamin K2 intake is low? If we assume that I don't get any K2 from the bacteria in my gut, how much would I need to consume per day from supplements in order to maintain strong bones? Also, any recommendations on supplements?
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You nearly eliminate all possibilities of K2 intake in your first sentence, but all that aside, I would recommend High Vitamin Butter Oil, made by Green Pastures. You can get the butter oil by itself, or choose the mixed variety with the Fermented Cod Liver Oil. They call it Royal Blend. That's the one I take, and Cinnamon Tingle is the best flavor there. If you don't want to get the HVBO, then your best sources will be pasture butter, grass fed ghee, and you may get a bit from eggs laid by chickens raised on pasture. Natto is also rich in K2, but most don't find it very available and/or palatable. As for how much you need, that is a bit of an unknown. I've never heard of any particular amount. I think it's appropriate to say... as much as you can get. I do not believe there is a toxicity possibility with K2, and it's best to get adequate A&D in conjunction with K2, as those 3 fat soluable vitamins work synergistically. Chris Masterjohn did an amazing post on this on the WAP website. I encourage you to read it. Here is some more information on the butter oil and some of it's benefits. http://livesuperfoods.com/x-factor-high-vitamin-butter-oil.html Here's is Masterjohn's article on the subject of K2: http://www.westonaprice.org/abcs-of-nutrition/175-x-factor-is-vitamin-k2.html |
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If you are truly a suvivorman, I would point you to another of Chris Masterjohn's postings regarding eggs and organ meats...specifically liver.... It seems that our ancestors, to survive, ate the organ meats of the animals they consumed for their nutrition and they ate bird eggs. They did not know they were getting a very necessary ingredient, choline, from their eggs a liver they ate. But they did survive. http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2010/12/meeting-choline-requirement-eggs-organs.html All I want to do is eat optimally paleo and for me to survive optimally, eggs and liver are an essential part of my program to live as optimally as possible with a good quality of life. I screwed up the first 55 years of my life with the ignorance of consuming neolithic foods...Now I'll eat anything that furthers my goal of a good quality of life. |
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Survivalmachine, Actually, almost all beef is started on grass and then when they weigh about 700#s they are sold to a feed lot to be finished on grain. There are no booths....just open pens. True, I don't eat veal because of the inhumane raising of calfs in confinement. If you were to take a drive out into the back country of Conn and look for cows and steers in pastures and you go an ask that farmer if he would ever consider selling a half a cow or steer to you, he might surprise you. That way you could get grass fed beef direct. When I last checked, farmers would sell their animals live on the hoof for about $1.90 per pound standing weight plus or minus few cents. The animal will yield about 55% usuable meat. Most animals finished on the farm are slaughtered at about 1200 pounds. He might be ready to slaughter an animal and split it with you. He would get it to a USDA licensed slaughter house and you would have to pay for the cut and wrap and ageing. You would also have to get a used 20 cu ft freezer. With these figures you would get 600 plus pounds of meat for around $1200-1400. About 2.50 bucks a pound or a little more for all the prime cuts as well as what you had ground into ground meat....as well as delicious organ meats plus the brains. Not a bad price. And if that is not practical, there are usually meat share cooperative groups that band together and purchase beef from local farms. There is even one in New York City. Check around your community and on the internet. |
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You've pretty much eliminated the best sources of Vitamin K. The bacteria in your gut produce quite a bit, usually enough to synthesize necessary blood clotting factors. If you're wondering about the other functions of K, for example bone health and arterial calcification then your needs may be much higher. It's kind of hard to determine how much you actually need, but a study found that 1000 mcg of K1 per day was needed to maximize amounts of functional osteocalcin which is one of the main proteins affected by Vit K and involved in bone health. K2 is much better absorbed so you would probably need less than that. I've written about this here: http://www.kriskris.com/what-is-vitamin-k You could eat a lot of K1 containing green vegetables and hope that enough of it gets converted to K2 to be effective, or maybe you would prefer to supplement. I use Thorne Research Vitamin K2 drops and I take in about a drop per day, around 500mcg. I mix them in with my cod fish liver oil. I'd recommend these drops, the bottle I bought has lasted for longer than 6 months and there's still a lot left in it. I also get some through all the high-fat dairy I eat. |
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Does our body make K2 from K1? I can't seem to get a consistent answer on this. |
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