 Just about everyone, especially vegans, are convinced that their vitamins are coming from fruits and vegetables. Whether it's vitamin A, B, C, D, E, F, also known as omega-3s, vitamin K, people have an understanding that these fruits and vegetables are where the nutrients are coming from. But if that's the case, why did every single group of our ancestors, indigenous people, hunter-gatherers have a diet based around quality animal foods that, in many cases, was absent of both fruits and vegetables? The answer to this is that there are both plant and animal forms of vitamins. Unfortunately, the plant form of the vitamin is not available to the body in most cases compared to the animal form. For vitamin A, the animal form is retinol and the plant form is beta-carotene. The USDA is allowed to label beta-carotene as vitamin A on plant foods, which is very misleading considering that beta-carotene has incredibly low and questionable conversion rates in the body. This study claims that carotene has a 28-to-1 absorption rate in most vegetables and a 14-to-1 absorption rate in some high-carotene vegetables. But some people can't even convert it due to certain gene polymorphisms. Even if they can convert it, it needs to be in the present of fat. And fat can only be obtained from animal foods at all times of the year. Those avocados and coconuts aren't growing on the East River in the Bronx, ladies and gentlemen of New York City. Not only that, these plant foods that contain carotene also contain other substances that inhibit the enzyme that allows your body to convert carotene to retinol, the more available animal form of vitamin A. Beta-carotene is a more complex molecule than vitamin A, and it needs to be broken down in the body by this enzyme. Beta-carotene-15-15-dioxygenase is an enzyme responsible for providing vertebrates with vitamin A by catalyzing oxidative cleavage of beta-carotene at its central double bond to two molecules of retinol in intestinal cells. Flavonoids and flavonones, both found in these plant foods, were inhibitory in this enzyme. There are also a bunch of other substances that aren't really studied too well. One thing we know for certain is that they also have inhibitory effects on this enzyme that allows our body to convert carotene to retinol. It's very safe to say that plant foods are not a reliable source of vitamin A. In regards to supplementation, there are forms of retinol esters like retinol palmitate that have been shown to cause liver damage, and if you actually look up vitamin A toxicity, it has all occurred from the supplemental forms of vitamin A. So there is definitely no safe way to supplement vitamin A. Of everything we're going to discuss today, this is one of the glaring issues in a vegan diet that they are convinced they are fine with. Vitamin B12 is inherent to animal foods, and a vegan would have you believe that the dirt or the soil is actually where the B12 is contained and that the only reason that animal foods contain B12 is because there is dirt on the grass that the cows are eating or something of that sort, which is absolutely not true. Cows and rumen and animals have specialized gut bacteria that actually ferment these plant foods and convert it into vitamin B12. For those of you who are curious, I did a vegan day of eating video, I believe it was my second one, where I put some dirt in a date smoothie, and if vegans were able to eat dirt for B12, believe me, they would have been doing it already. Most vegans decide to supplement B12. Unfortunately, supplementing B12 and increasing your serum B12 is not necessarily an indicator of functional tissue levels of vitamin B12. Functional B12 and folate deficiencies have actually been detected when serum levels are normal. Another study shows that serum cobalamin, aka B12, is not accurate in detecting diminished functional B12 stores. Even veganhealth.org suggests that serum B12 levels are not reliable and that a methyl myelonic acid test is more accurate for seeing how much active B12 is in your system. This is where we start crossing a line where we can say, okay, if we need a laboratory to follow a diet to make supplements, maybe we shouldn't be following the diet. Vitamin C is something that more people are familiar with, and the first thing that they tend to bring up when you suggest an all-meat or carnivore diet is, oh, aren't you good and get scurvy? No. Contrary to popular belief, meat contains vitamin C. Any fresh product has anti-scorbidic properties, whether it's a plant or an animal food. The issue with vitamin C is from preserved foods, and the reason people don't know that meat has vitamin C is because of some very foggy nutrient data testing in the United States. Here is a German database where if you put in foods like liver, spleen, raw milk, dairy products, fish eggs, caviar, they have a vitamin C content present. And to say that this isn't a significant vitamin C content would be very inaccurate. What's interesting is there are a plethora of wild plant foods that our ancestors used to consume that were dozens to hundreds of times higher in vitamin C than any foods that we consume now. So it's interesting that whether you eat plant foods or meat, it's very likely that we're not even getting a fraction of the anti-scorbidic foods, the high vitamin C foods that our ancestors used to consume. Vitamin D is best obtained from the sun, but the only way we can obtain it outside of that is from certain animal foods. It's worth noting that very high quality animal foods, particularly fatty fish like mackerel, have a considerable vitamin D3 content. The main issue with a vegan diet is the lack of cholesterol, as cholesterol is the precursor to synthesizing vitamin D3 in the body. As much as vegans like to claim that they produce enough cholesterol and that the body produces cholesterol if it's not present in the diet, the synthesis of vitamin D starts in the stomach with the oxidation of cholesterol from food or bile to pro vitamin D3, which is then transported to the skin, indicating that there is a specific enzymatic reaction in the bowels that requires you to be consuming cholesterol, and cholesterol is only found in animal foods. By the time a vegan diet makes you deficient in vitamin D, your body is not making enough cholesterol. Taking a supplement at this stage is dangerous because it will deplete your cholesterol even further. You may fix your vitamin D3 deficiency, but you will also not be able to produce sex hormones, you will suffer from adrenal insufficiency because of your body's inability to produce cortisol and aldosterone as well as bile acids. Vegans can say whatever they want in regards to vitamin D, but within a few weeks I will be analyzing the vitamin D blood levels of approximately 20 vegans, and I hate to break it to you guys, but saying that vegans don't need cholesterol when every single vegan on YouTube has abysmal D3 levels isn't going to be too convincing. Vitamin E, just like vitamin C, is present in both plant and animal foods, although it tends to be higher in plant foods. The reason for this is because polyunsaturated fatty acids, unstable omega-6 fats are higher in plant foods, and these require antioxidants like vitamin E for stabilization. But because animal foods have low amounts of omega-6 and there's no real oxidation concern with animal foods, they don't inherently have high amounts of vitamin C and vitamin E. Although foods like liver and spleen, in the case of vitamin C, are particularly good sources, vitamin E is usually found in fatty, high quality animal foods like bone marrow, fat, brain tissue, eggs are an excellent source of vitamin E. Eggs are probably the most approachable, highest source of vitamin E. Cheese has excellent amounts of vitamin E. Moving on to vitamin F, omega-3s are usually associated with fish consumption, but plant-based dieters tend to convince people that they can convert flax seeds, the alpha-linoleic acid in these high omega-6 plant foods, into EPA and DHA in the body. And although it's been shown that if you consume something like flax seeds or flax seed oil, the body can convert it at very low rates into EPA, there has never been a study demonstrating that a whole food source of ALA can convert in the body into DHA. The other issue with this is the conversion rate is so low, even in the best case scenario, approximately 5%, at this rate you would have to literally chug a cup of flax seed oil to get the equivalent amount of EPA of one serving of fatty fish, and I mean you probably poison yourself at that point. If the ALA is actually isolated into a more absorbable chemical supplement, conversion rates are actually 5% in a high-fat diet, so if we have a laboratory that can isolate the alpha-linoleic acid into a more absorbable ester, then the body can actually convert it into DHA. Fortunately, vegans can use algae supplements, although there are probably more toxins in those than any fish you will ever eat. Vitamin K occurs in the form of vitamin K1 in plants, and conversion hasn't actually been studied too much in humans. Vitamin K2 occurs in both animal foods as well as any fermented food, so vitamin K2 in the form of MK4, which is found predominantly in quality animal foods, is associated with calcium metabolism in the blood vessels, in the organ systems. Vitamin K2 in the form of MK7, which is found in any fermented food, even fermented soybeans like natto, sauerkraut, as well as animal foods like cheeses, have vitamin K2 in the form of MK7. This is associated with calcium metabolism in the skeletal structure. So both of these vitamins are very important for calcium metabolism, and although people will claim that, oh, you can get vitamin K2 from eating fermented plant foods, you're not getting the MK4 form of vitamin K2. So there is some concern there, outside of the logical fallacy of needing a laboratory to make supplements to survive on your diet, what about all of the transportation that is needed to fly in these 15, 20, 25, I don't know, dozens of different vegan foods that these people eat on a daily basis? How impractical is this? Modern transportation, modern agriculture, this world that we're living in now allows unnatural access to plant foods, whereas 50, maybe even 75, 100 years ago, it would have been impossible to follow a vegan diet. Those avocados, those coconuts, hey, as I said earlier, they're not growing on the East River in the Bronx. It doesn't make any sense that these vegans are flying all these foods in from around the world and saying that, oh, it's a practical diet, it's the healthiest way of eating, it's good for the environment. So let me get this straight. You think that flying in 30 different foods is better for the environment than me going to a local farm in Pennsylvania and having one animal slaughtered? Okay, you can believe whatever you like. I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you. So if I've convinced you that plant foods are not good sources of vitamins, where can we actually get these vitamins? And the answer is any high-quality animal food. The way the animal was raised dictates the amount of vitamins in the food. So farm-raised fish is not going to have the vitamin content than wild quality fish is. And in some cases, conventional eggs or really low-quality conventionally-raised meat is going to have no vitamin content whatsoever, whereas grass-fed meat or very high-quality wild game meats are going to have a significant nutrient content. If you guys want to know more about the nutrient content of animal foods and why these vitamins are important, I will link some videos at the end of this. Thank you guys for watching. Please like, subscribe, and share the video. Down below, you guys can check out my Amazon shop, which has things like vitamin D3 supplements, cod liver oil, ways to incorporate nutrient density into your everyday diet. If you guys do want personalized questions to be answered, you can support me on Patreon and post on there. Or you can reach out to me for one-on-one consultations via email, frankatefinoeatgmail.com, in regards to improving your overall health, whether it's diet, a vitamin D3 protocol, the type of water you're drinking, exercise, even sleep. In addition to that, guys, I am on Twitter, I am on Instagram. If you want to see me argue with people on Twitter, check it out. If you want to see me on my live streams, I'm doing some every day this week at 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Instagram. Outside of that, you guys enjoy the rest of your week.