 Vitamin K2 is probably the most important fat soluble vitamin that most people aren't getting. That's because it's only contained in high quality fermented animal foods, aka rotten meat, and it's also synthesized by our gut bacteria, if your gut is healthy. More specifically, vitamin K2 is stored in the fat of the animal because as we just said, it is a fat soluble vitamin, so animals have it in their fat stores, not their muscle meat. There are different types of vitamin K2. MK4 being the primary one contained in these animal foods that can be utilized in many ways. You know, your body can use MK4 in different places. MK7 is restricted to bone and there's other forms like MK8, 9, and 10 found in dairy products, which more research needs to be done on. And it's kind of crazy that a lack of certain fat soluble vitamins like vitamin K2 and vitamin D3 are the actual reason we're not as tall, beautiful, and healthy as we should be because those nutrients are so important for bone formation, for skeletal structure. If you don't have enough vitamin K2 and vitamin D3, the calcium can't go where it needs to go and your face is informed properly. How silly is it that the reason you're ugly is because your parents didn't want to spend some money on raw cheese? These fat soluble vitamins are synergistic and antagonistic. Vitamin A, vitamin D3, vitamin K2. Most people have way too much vitamin A, a small amount of vitamin D3, and almost no vitamin K2, which is why my recommendation to most people is to get plenty of sun, take a vitamin K2 supplement, and don't go too crazy eating liver initially until you get your nutrients in balance. You have to make up for 5, 10, 15 years of a lack of vitamin K2 and sun, so don't rush it. Here we see that the vitamin K2 content of a dairy product correlates with the fat content and that non-fermented cheeses are substantially lower in vitamin K2. So Frank, you're telling me I need to eat rotten fat in order to get vitamin K2? Well, it's not that crazy because cheese is the most approachable version of that, but the first-nation Alaskans, a.k.a. Ineodeskimos, eat rotten fish every day. You know, they buried large amounts of salmon under twigs and logs once a year, or they even stuffed a seal skin with some birds. Point is, they ate around a quarter to a half a pound of putrid flesh every single day. And if this rotten meat wasn't present in the native diet, it was replaced with some type of fermented plant food, perhaps a beer or starch. That fermented meat would be bringing bacteria and nutrients into their stomach to be absorbed, whereas the plant foods would be feeding the gut bacteria already present, a combination of both being ideal. So the vitamin K2 content in an animal food depends on what the animal was eating. In the case of beef, the cows need to be on fresh green grass. So winter milk and beef will be substantially lower in vitamin K2 and not ideal for fermentation. It appears that the process of fermentation creates a substantial vitamin K2 content and that some of the vitamin has to be present before fermentation. So feedlot animal products or lower quality will not work. Our past ancestors were consuming wild quality animal foods harvested at the perfect time of year. In the case of cheese, we want the animal to be foraging on that summer pasture, those green grasses, when the milk is harvested to be made into cheese. This is the case with most high quality raw European cheeses. They set strict requirements and standards during the cheese making process, one of which is that the animals are usually only fed grass and hay. Before modern times, indigenous people made sure to do this anyway. They were harvesting their products at peak summer season, whereas now sometimes products are made year round. That late spring and summer grass, forage, wildlife is adding far more nutrition to the dairy products. Now we want to address several things. How much vitamin K2 is in cheese? What forms are there? What cheese is the highest? How much should we eat? The first study is the one that people have been referencing when they've told me that Parmesan cheese has a low amount of vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 concentrations were measured in a wide range of cheeses and the effects of fat content, ripening, and origin of the cheeses were investigated. Moreover, the minnequinone content of cheese was compared with that of other foods known to contain vitamin K2. It was found that cheese and curd are the most important sources of long chain minnequinones in the western diet and, in general, hard cheeses are richer in minnequinone than soft cheeses. However, the actual minnequinone content varies substantially and is dependent on the type of cheese, the time of ripening, the fat content, and the geographic area where the cheeses are produced. Given the fact that poor vitamin K status has been mentioned as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and mortality, while there is no clear evidence for adverse cardiovascular effects of dairy fats, cheese should be considered as a recommendable component in a heart-healthy diet. Cheese as part of a heart-healthy diet? Good luck getting an American to believe that after all the brainwashing, let alone a vegan. So if we look at the data from this study, they've taken a bunch of Dutch cheeses as well as French, British, Greek, Italian, Swiss, and Norwegian to measure the vitamin K2 content. Now, by presumed patchwork quality and country quality, we see results that are fairly expected. Dutch being out in front, followed by France, then Switzerland, with others to follow. There is one major red flag for me, though. This work was supported in part by the Dutch dairy organization. The funding party had no influence on the outcomes of the analyses, the interpretations, and the author's conclusions. It's no coincidence that a study funded by the Dutch shows the Dutch cheeses to be the highest in vitamin K2. To be specific about the Parmesan, they took grana padano, which sometimes doesn't get grass or hay, unlike Parmigiano Reggiano. And judging by the funding from this study, these Dutch people probably chose the lowest quality cheeses to compare their own esteemed Dutch cheese to. What we should also note is that the MK4 content of cheese compared to meat isn't substantially higher. You know, it's only two to three times higher, but dairy products have large amounts of other forms of vitamin K2, especially MK9, and the total vitamin K2 content can exceed 10 times that of meat. Again, we don't really have research on these other forms of vitamin K2, but we know that our ancestors prized dairy products and fermented products that were higher in MK8 and MK9. One interesting thing I noticed was that eel had a very high vitamin K2 content, MK4 at 631, which was five times more than any other food. So I'll definitely be doing a bit more research on eel as a food source. And Spain, you know, the Spanish people are very famous for canned eel products, so maybe I can get some of that for you guys. Now that study says that hard cheeses have more vitamin K2 than soft cheeses, but that's not correct. Those soft, stinky, runny cheeses, the really funky stuff, have the highest vitamin K2 content, followed by blue cheese, but hard cheese is a very close comparison. Having about 70 to 80% of the vitamin K2 content of soft cheese, and it really varies. Some soft cheeses have very little K2, some have much more, but it averages out to be about the same as hard cheese. The problem is that soft ripened cheeses are not allowed to be imported into the United States either way, as they're aged less than 60 days, which is illegal. That means the best choice is going to be one of the higher quality cheeses imported from any country, whether that's Pecorino or Parmigiano from Italy, Fuma de Ember from France, Gouda from the Netherlands, Gruyere from Switzerland, or Manchego from Spain. In addition to that, you want to make sure the cheese is made with raw milk, animal rennet, and salt as the only ingredients, ideally. Sometimes they add enzymes and other things. So cheese is the most reliable source of vitamin K2, and really the only source of K2 in most people's diets. I strongly suggest focusing on vitamin K2 and vitamin D3 supplementing because although cheese has a good amount of vitamin K2, it has a correspondingly high amount of vitamin A and calcium. So even though you're getting K2 from cheese, there's some past lifestyle factors that can make it difficult to balance nutrients. Most stands in American diets have way too much calcium, way too much vitamin A in comparison to those other nutrients. So thank you guys for joining me today. Hopefully this helps you understand the vitamin K2 content of cheeses and which ones you should be incorporating into your diet. Of course we have a variety of them on Prankies for your aged meat, so feel free to try them all out. If you guys can please leave a comment down below, drop a like on the video, and above all, share the video on social media if you can. If you guys want to support me further, you know how to do so down in the description. Thanks again for joining me today guys. I'll see you for tomorrow's video.