 People are always asking how to get electrolytes, mainly potassium and magnesium, especially on a ketogenic or carnivore style diet. Electrolytes maintain cellular fluid, hydrate your body, they help regulate muscle contractions, control the pH, as well as many other things. To sum this up briefly and quickly, these electrolyte minerals are synergistic and consuming them exogenously, aka artificially, outside of foods in supplemental form or unnatural ways can cause imbalances and issues in the body very quickly, some of them to a dangerous extent. We can tie a lot of these things back to our indigenous ancestors, hunter-gatherers, and how the presence of electrolytes wasn't really there outside of some high sodium foods, as well as uniquely high mineral, wild plant foods that we don't really access today. There are four primary electrolytes that are most popularly discussed, sodium, typically in the form of sodium chloride, sodium bound to a chloride molecule, potassium, usually potassium citrate, potassium bound to a citric acid molecule, this is what typically occurs in foods. Sodium torate or magnesium oxalate, so magnesium in animal foods is bound to an amino acid torene and magnesium in plant foods is bound to oxalic acid, some people might be familiar with oxalates. The form of magnesium in animal foods is multiple times more available to the body than the form of magnesium found in plant foods, so keep in mind some people might be bragging that they're getting so much magnesium on their plant-based diet, reality is the input is not necessarily what is absorbed, that's something we always have to keep in mind with minerals and elements is the bioavailability of the chelation, a chelation is when a molecule is bound to another molecule and depending on what that molecule is bound to it could be incredibly available, like potassium citrate has I think 90% plus availability or magnesium where most forms of magnesium don't really have an availability above 30 or 40%. Calcium can occur in several different chelations, the form that's in water is calcium fluoride and we don't really absorb it, but consuming calcium in excess is not natural and it is dangerous to our bodies, it is one of the primary causes of heart disease due to calcification, I have addressed this in several videos and I will link it at the end, under no circumstance should you be supplementing calcium powders or going out of your way to consume dairy to get your calcium intake. The other electrolytes are chloride which as we said is typically bound to sodium, then you have bicarbonate and phosphate which are found in small amounts naturally occurring in water, these are not electrolytes that you need to go out of your way and try to obtain. Now I have experimented and researched on electrolytes far too much over the course of many, many years since like 2012, messing around with every single mineral powder possible. I spent probably hundreds of dollars on different chelations of minerals, seeing how they taste, seeing how they combine, testing the bioavailability, I've also messed around with many high electrolyte foods, juicing certain things, looking at many nutritional databases to figure out which plant foods have the best availability of certain electrolytes and I can safely say that everything you have been told whether it's snake juice, no salt, mineral supplements are not necessary and will generally not result in any improvement whatsoever. The only thing you should ever have to add as an electrolyte to your diet is plain sea salt. Both magnesium and potassium are dangerous in supplemented forms. This is because the availability of the supplemental form of electrolytes is drastically higher than food. We absorb food slowly over a period of many hours, sometimes days, sometimes food takes a day or two to go through your small intestine and absorbing these electrolytes and fluids from foods at natural rates is what our bodies are meant to function on. When you start using mineral powders, this creates an artificial amount with dangerously quick absorption. I have taken an amount of potassium and an amount of sodium that naturally occurs in a food such as spinach for example and when I have combined that electrolyte powder with proper ratios with proper bioavailability considered and I consume that electrolyte mix, it will still cause potassium overdose or magnesium overdose because the rate at which you digest these minerals is different and it's a tune to food digestion, it's not a tune to these highly available powders. So this potassium or this magnesium hits your stomach and the body absorbs the potassium or the magnesium far quicker than the sodium and these symptoms can be heart palpitations, low blood pressure, lethargy, muscle weakness, diarrhea, tingling and extremities. Another problem that occurs has to do with the antagonistic and synergistic properties of electrolytes. When you consume potassium it depletes magnesium, okay so consume some magnesium, yes but then when you consume magnesium it will deplete your calcium stores, okay so then take some calcium, calcium depletes zinc, this goes on and on and on until you're supplementing every single electrolyte possible and that gets really crazy. You're going to get to some type of dead end where you're depleting a mineral and you're not getting more of it in a supplemental form. This is why we need to consume foods that have natural electrolyte ratios because you cannot balance these electrolytes with supplements properly. There are some mineral and electrolyte mixes that look good on paper but I have seen reported issues of kidney stones as well as the pollution of certain heavy metals so they are best avoided for those reasons. You can do your individual research on every single one of these things but it becomes very subjective and you have to have a very broad and general knowledge of a lot of things to understand whether a product is dangerous or should be working or anything of that sort. So how do we get our electrolytes? Eat high quality animal foods, have some steak, eat some shellfish, salt your food a little bit more with natural sea salt. If you're still lacking energy you might want to address your vitamin status, especially vitamin D, you might have to alter the macronutrient energy ratios in your diet, favoring more carbohydrates or fats as opposed to protein. There is one food that I do deem acceptable for electrolytes and it is arguably the healthiest plant food, not just a food that's great for electrolytes. Seaweed is the highest source of potassium and magnesium out of any plant food I am aware of. Seaweed does have some downsides, it does contain anti-nutrients and a problem that I don't see mentioned is that when you consume high amounts of potassium and magnesium especially from seaweed it can contribute to gut dysbiosis, bacterial imbalances in the stomach like SIBO and Candida. This is because the electrolytes in seaweed can create an alkaline environment whereas pure salt favors stomach acid production through the chloride and the sodium. I know it sounds simple to just add more salt but it's important that we dispel the myths of using these other electrolyte minerals as they are not effective and can be dangerous in some contexts. People generally look at the wrong solution for their problem. If you're having an energy issue and you do take electrolytes, you should notice an immediate fix or an immediate difference. If you're taking electrolytes and you don't notice any changes and this applies to anything in health. If you do something and you don't notice a difference, stop doing it because it's not working. Thank you guys for joining me today. If you could please like the video, subscribe, hit that bell icon and share the video. If you can, I do have some seaweed on my Amazon shop if you want to check that out down below and if you guys do want to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations pertaining to your diet, health, nutrition, fitness, whatever it may be, you can email me frankatufano at gmail.com. Recently we have launched Frankies Free Range Meat providing you guys with high quality nutrient dense animal foods at the most affordable price online. Go to frankiesfreerangemeat.com. We're looking to do things like raw dairy, grain-free, soy-free eggs in the future, wild game meats. You guys want it, we will get it for you. Again, frankiesfreerangemeat.com. I've also recently launched Frankies Naturals, minimal ingredients, minimally processed hygiene and cosmetic products. Go to frankiesnaturals.com. If you want to be chiseled out of marble, thank you guys for joining me and enjoy the rest of your day.