Water-soluble nutrients called carotenes are not true vitamin A. Carotenes are found in foods like carrots, squash, and green vegetables. Fat-soluble vitamin A is retinol and is only found in animal fats. When we are healthy our bodies can make the difficult conversion of carotenes into retinol. Depending on the fat-soluble vitamin A status in your body, you made need to consume 10-20 times more carotenes to create the same amount of true vitamin A.
Vitamin A is a family of fat-soluble compounds that plays an important role in vision, bone growth, reproduction, cell division, proper prenatal development and cell differentiation. Vitamin A is important for healthy bones and together with vitamin D stimulates and regulates bone growth.
Vitamin A lowers blood serum calcium. This is an indication that vitamin A is helping your body utilize calcium. Vitamin A increases growth factors, which stimulate bones and teeth to grow and repair.
Large doses of vitamin A can be toxic. However, any negative effects of vitamin A seem to be blocked when sufficient vitamin D is in the diet. Therefore, if you eat a lot of liver from land animals, make sure you are getting plenty of sunlight or vitamin D to prevent vitamin A toxicity.
In examining this list, you will see that liver is the most concentrated source of fat-soluble vitamin A:
[table cols=”Food; Vitamin A Amount in IU” data=”Blue Ice™ fermented cod liver oil; 1 teaspoon 7,500-25,000; Turkey Liver;3.5 ounces 75,000; Duck Liver;3.5 ounces 40,000; Beef Liver;3.5 ounces 35,000; Chicken Liver;3.5 ounces 13,328; Eel;3.5 ounces 3477; Hard Goat’s Cheese;3.5 ounces 1745; Soft Goat’s Cheese;3.5 ounces 1464; Duck Egg;1 egg 472; King Salmon;3.5 ounces 453; Ghee;1 tablespoon 391; Butter;1 tablespoon 350; X-Factor Gold™ high vitamin butter oil;1 teaspoon 200-450; Egg Yolk;1½ yolks 333; Whole Milk;1 cup 249″ separator=”;” /]
Vitamins A and D from Foods
In a modern diet, many people are highly deficient in vitamins A and D. As a rough average as established by Dr Price, one should aim for least 2,500 IU’s of vitamin D per day, and at least 6,000 IU’s of vitamin A.
One can obtain these fat-soluble vitamins either from food, from cod liver oil, or from both.
When vitamins A and D are taken together they are not toxic. The most potent and easy way to consume the fat-soluble vitamins A and D together is cod liver oil. One teaspoonful of good cod liver oil has the vitamin A equivalent to 5½ quarts of milk, or 1 pound of butter, or 9 eggs.
Dr. Price described an experiment that shows the potency of cod liver oil in remineralizing teeth which was reported in The New Zealand Dental Journal. In a group of sixty-six native girls the thirty-three with the best teeth were used as a control group. The remaining thirty-three were given the additional fat-soluble vitamins A and D in the form of two teaspoons of cod liver oil per day. The diet of both the control group and the test group was otherwise the same.
In six months’ time the group taking cod liver oil was 41.75 per cent more resistant to tooth cavities than the previously more immune control group not taking cod liver oil.
We will examine the miracles of cod liver oil in detail in the next articles.