 meat, fish, eggs, dairy. All of these animal foods have key nutrients that we cannot obtain from plant foods. Every single human throughout history, from our grandparents to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, consumed these animal foods for their fat-soluble vitamin content. This allowed them to attain optimal health and development through various stages of life. I'm going to go over what nutrients are specific to these animal foods, the role they play in the body, as well as where we can get them. The most important thing to consider here is that the quality of the animal food correlates directly to the nutrient content. A farm-raised fish is not going to have nearly as high of a vitamin content as wild caught fish. And in some cases, it might actually be missing vitamins that a wild caught fish is supposed to have. The vitamins we're talking about here are vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin K2, vitamin D3, omega-3 fatty acids, as well as various minerals and elements. Starting with vitamin A. And its true form can only be found in animal foods as retinol. Although carotene can be converted into retinol at rates to prevent deficiencies in some people, a portion of the population can't actually make this conversion. It also requires fat to be converted. And where would we obtain fat outside of animal foods in all climates, regions, throughout the whole year? Most people might be familiar with retinol in its role in eye health, the retina of the eye being named, correlating to this process. Pigs that don't get enough vitamin A during pregnancy are born without eyes. You have people suffering from night blindness as a result of vitamin A deficiency. But the most important role of vitamin A is in creating cells. Vitamin A in the retinol acid form plays an important role in the regulation of gene expression. Retinol in animal foods is taken up by the cell and oxidized to retinol. Retinol can then be oxidized into retinol acid, the form that is available to the cells. Retinol acid binds to different receptors to initiate or inhibit gene expression. Through the regulation of these genes, retinol acid plays a role in cell differentiation, the specialization of cells for highly targeted physiological activities, whether your body needs a white blood cell for immune system function or a red blood cell. This literally means that vitamin A is a precursor for any cell being made in your body. If you can make a list of important factors of what a food can do in your body from most important to least important, cell differentiation and gene expression is at the top of the list. If a nutrient is a precursor to literally how every single cell is made in your body, how can anything be more important than that? Because a lot of these vitamins are precursors to very important processes, there's a lot of overlap. In the case of vitamin A, it plays a role in immune system health, maintaining integrity and function of mucosal cells throughout the body. It's essential for embryonic development, both deficiency and excess vitamin A can cause birth defects. It is necessary for the development of stem cells into red blood cells and vitamin A also facilitates the mobilization of iron from storage cells to red blood cells. This is an explanation of why certain meat products not having the natural vitamin A present are linked to colon cancer. This can also explain why vegans, despite consuming large amounts of iron are not absorbing it into their body. There's no real way for a vegan to get a high retinal content in their diet as there is no supplemental form and it's only obtained from animal foods. So although this isn't really widely known, it can definitely be a good explanation to anemia developing in various vegans and vegetarians. Vitamin A is unique in two ways. One, that it's not really being talked about right now in regards to its importance nearly as much as the other vitamins. And two, that it can only really be obtained in large amounts from liver. And yes, although all quality animal foods contain some vitamin A, the amount in liver far eclipses any other food source and we're talking hundreds of times the amount of vitamin A. The RDA of vitamin A in a steak might be two to 3% whereas liver is literally like 2,200%. But this vitamin and the importance of it is something that I think will be discovered in the near future. Just like how doctors now are prescribing vitamin D3, vitamin K2, high liver oil, I think is gonna become more and more popular. And this is literally a food that when people eat it, they almost immediately feel the difference. When people eat liver, when people eat these high vitamin animal foods, particularly ones that are high in vitamin A, they notice an immediate difference in how they feel. So moving on to vitamin B12, which we won't talk on too much, but its primary role is in methylation. B12 in the form of methylcobalamin is required for the synthesis of methionine, which is required for the synthesis of the methyl group donor. And this is used in many biological reactions in the human body. Methylation in general is a chemical reaction that occurs in every cell and tissue in the body from helping your body detoxify to make sure enzymes are working efficiently. And by detoxify, we don't mean the BS detoxify, we actually mean helping liver function. Vitamin B12 also plays an important role in the production of energy from fats and proteins, as well as the synthesis of hemoglobin, allowing red blood cells to carry oxygen optimally. B12 overall contributes to normal red blood cell formation, normal cell division, energy metabolism, immune system function, neurological and psychological function, bone health, maintenance of teeth, hair, skin and nails. And when I say these things, it's really hard to place value in every single thing I'm saying, because when I say, oh, it's good for energy metabolism, oh, it's good for immune system function, this is literally the difference between you feeling like you can run through a wall when you get out of bed and not getting sick. This is the importance of these vitamins that cannot be overstated. I can list benefits up and down all day, but when people start consuming a high quality animal food diet is when they really feel and understand the effects of these vitamins. B12, of course, can be obtained from just about every animal food. Some foods are particularly higher in B12, like liver and oysters. And yeah, the general population is fairly deficient in B12. B12 might actually be near the bottom of these vitamins and priority, although everyone should really be consuming more vitamin B12. The other vitamins that we're gonna talk about today are usually present in much smaller amounts. Sometimes people really don't get any significant source of vitamin A, D3, or K2, whereas people are getting some vitamin B12 in a normal standard American diet. Vitamin K has gotten a lot of mainstream attention recently, particularly with vitamin D3 and their role in calcium metabolism. But we need to understand the different forms of vitamin K. K1, which is from plant foods, which has a pretty low availability and requires fat to be metabolized. Vitamin K2, which occurs in the form of MK4 from animal foods and MK7 from fermented foods, these are the forms that we can utilize best in our body. And vitamin K2 being known predominantly for calcium metabolism, it helps prevent kidney stones, calcification of the arteries, which can lead to heart disease. It also helps this calcium enter your bones and teeth, increasing bone density and resistance to cavities. The importance of vitamin K in calcium metabolism also ties into improved blood clotting. In addition to calcium metabolism, vitamin K2 helps the body produce insulin, it can increase testosterone in men, regulate hormone levels in women, improve exercise performance through increased energy metabolism, and it protects against cancer by suppressing genes that make cells cancerous. So vitamin K2 is obtained from any quality animal fat. The foods that most people have access to that have large amounts of vitamin K2 are egg yolks, as well as fermented cheese. Cheese because dairy products inherently have a vitamin K2 content and then the fermentation process adds a vitamin K2 content to the cheese. To me, the calcium RDA is so high because we are deficient in vitamin K2 and vitamin D3. It doesn't matter how much calcium you have flowing through your body. If you don't have vitamin K2 as well as vitamin D3 to regulate that calcium metabolism, it doesn't matter. This is why I've been on a carnivore diet for six years now and I have never gotten even close to the calcium RDA. I'd be surprised if I get to even five or 10% of the calcium RDA every day and my calcium levels are still in the high range of normal. To me, the calcium RDA, the lack of vitamin K2 and D3 in human diets right now is one of the most glaring health problems. Vitamin D3 is a hormone that can be obtained from the sun but is also present in high quality animal foods, particularly wild caught fatty fish. This is because if the animal is not on summer pasture and getting sun exposure, there's not going to be a significant vitamin D3 content in the food. It's important to know that our bodies require cholesterol and other fat soluble vitamins in order to metabolize vitamin D3 properly. This is why vegans, despite supplementing and getting plenty of sun exposure, tend to have low levels of vitamin D3. It plays a huge role in calcium metabolism. It stimulates the production of a hormone that increases the absorption of dietary calcium in the digestive tract, the reabsorption of calcium in the kidneys. This mobilizes calcium from bone when there is insufficient dietary calcium. D3 also plays a role in the differentiation of cells, placing an importance on it, having an active role in overall cell function and health, just like vitamin A. This is why it ties into immune system health and a wide range of other things such as insulin secretion. I'm sure some of you taking supplements have noticed that vitamin D3, K2, calcium combinations are more and more common. And although calcium isn't necessary in high amounts, most mainstream nutrition is recognizing the importance of these vitamins. And the vitamin D3 RDA is actually based on a statistical error. The 400 IU D3 RDA was supposed to be over 9,000 IU per day. So although I will do a video touching on vitamin D3 in the future, how much we should be getting and things like tanning beds, do a lot of research and understand what your D3 levels are supposed to be. Now, as I mentioned, the quality of the animal food determines the vitamin D3 content, but if we really want to obtain an ideal amount of vitamin D3, we either have to sunbathe for several hours a day at PQV or supplement. There's no real food option that contains a large enough amount of vitamin D3 to reach the amount of IU that we can get from sun exposure. I don't really think I need to sit here and explain the health benefits of omega-3s when I think half of the United States is taking fish oil. The benefits are widely known for maintenance of normal blood pressure, blood triglyceride levels, heart function, brain function, normal vision. And one really interesting thing is that breast milk DHA levels per eye from 0.1% to 1.4% where a minimum of 0.8% is deemed optimal for children. In most cases, it's recognized that DHA is crucial for proper visual, neurocognitive and immune development. There's a really great book called The Eskimo Diet which goes over the heart benefits of consuming high omega-3s. It actually has a thinning effect on your blood similar to aspirin. It makes the platelets more flexible and allows blood to flow smoother in general. In regards to obtaining omega-3 from non-animal foods, the conversion rates of ALA in something like flaxseed is 3% at best in the context of a high fat vegan diet. That means you would have to consume one cup of flaxseeds to get the equivalent EPA and DHA of one bite of mackerel. This is completely crazy and unrealistic. And yes, vegans do have algae supplements but that's not really the focus of this video. The focus is the importance of what vitamins are specific to animal foods. And of course, if you want to obtain a high amount of DHA in the diet, fish, wild caught fish is the best source, particularly fish eggs, although wild caught fatty fish is just as good. Brain tissue is really the only source on ruminant animals where DHA is in its preformed version. Now, if the animal was on high quality pasture, it does have little egg and little inic acid which can be converted in the body. So just by consuming large amounts of ruminant flash and fat, you can convert some DHA in your body. And I guess one of the most approachable foods for DHA would be egg yolks. And I think this needs to be mentioned more often as eggs are such a great source of nutrition. If you consume six to a dozen eggs per day, you're eclipsing the DHA intake that you would have gotten from a serving of fish. Omega-3s are definitely a nutrient. A lot of people are lacking on the standard American diet and maybe even carnivore diets in particular. Not only are people typically deficient in Omega-3s and they're not getting enough of them in their diet, the Omega-6 tends to be high. So we need to address the issue of consuming more fish to increase the DHA content in the diet and the EPA content. And then we need to reduce the inflammatory Omega-6 fats. Most people don't view meat as a great source of minerals but the forms of minerals that occur in meat are much more available to the human body than other foods. Especially considering that many plant food sources are high in oxalates and phytic acid, greatly impairing absorption. Some by up to 100%, like calcium oxalate. Heme iron I guess would be the main focus in meat as it is needed for the normal function of red blood cells and hemoglobin, normal oxygen transport, energy metabolism, cognitive development and function as well as cell division. The only thing I really wanted to touch on in this video is the bioavailability of minerals in plants versus animal foods. The collation of the mineral, whatever the mineral is bound to, dictates how well the body will absorb it. So magnesium in the presence of oxalates in plant foods is much less available to the body than the form of say magnesium glycanate. Magnesium bound to a glycine molecule. So although on paper you might be saying, oh well you're only getting 200 milligrams of magnesium from your carnivore diet, that 200 milligrams of magnesium from meat is probably two to three times what you would be obtaining on a plant food diet when bioavailability is considered. The easiest way for people to understand the importance of these vitamins is really just to consume them in their animal form. Although these animal foods do contain vitamins E, C and various other nutrients, most people are more familiar with plant-based sources and I didn't really see the point of isolating them to meat but it is worth mentioning that yes, meat does contain every single vitamin and mineral your body needs. So if you're asking about where do you get vitamin E, it's contained in every high quality animal fat, eggs are a great source, where do you get vitamin C, all fresh meat contains vitamin C. So there are by no means a lack of nutrition from consuming an only animal foods diet. Now for the general population, all of these nutrients are definitely of concern and in extreme need. In the future, I will do several related videos, definitely one touching on vitamin D3 and tanning beds, definitely one on how to have a healthy pregnancy, maybe I'll do one on vitamin K2. In regards to a carnivorous or a ketogenic diet, a lot of people will actually be deficient in these nutrients inherently. Consuming grain-fed muscle meat and only grain-fed muscle meat is not going to get you any of these nutrients in particularly high amounts, although it will remove inflammation in the diet. So if you guys would like to support the channel, please subscribe and share the video. I will put a bunch of resources pinned in a post down below in addition to that. You guys can see my Patreon, my Amazon shop where you can buy nutrient-dense foods like Calaver oil, vitamin D3 supplements. And if you guys would like to reach out to me, check out my email in that comment or the website and you can reach out to me through the contact form on frank-tofano.com.