MEAT a good source of vitamin C?
- Subject: MEAT a good source of vitamin C?
- Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:43:15 -0400
- Yahoo! Message Number: 70679
- Onibasu Link: http://onibasu.com/archives/nn/70679.html
In correspondence on another list, Ray Peat said that all meat is a
decent source of dehydroascorbate, which is the oxidized, more
lipid-soluble form, of vitamin C, the presence of which is not
reflected in assays testing for the reduced, water-soluble form,
ascorbate. Presumably this is only the case in raw or rare meats, as
vitamin C is, to my understanding, heat-labile.
He also provided several studies showing the adsorption of
dehdyroascorbate into cells to be much greater than the adsorption of
ascorbate into cells. Dehydroascorbate is then rapidly converted into
ascorbate inside the cell. So obtaining a dietary source of
dehydroascorbate would be a much more effective way to increase
intracellular ascorbate than obtaining a dietary source of ascorbate
itself.
So the take-away, somewhat baffling point, would appear to be that raw
or rare meats are as good or possibly a better source of vitamin C
than most fruits and vegetables!
I've so far been unable to find an analysis of *amounts* of
dehydroascorbate in foods. It could be that a serving of meat has
just a few mg, but with much more effective delivery.
But any case this is a shocker to my long-held paradigm in which
vitamin C was essentially a plant-associated nutrient.
Chris
Onibasu Link: http://onibasu.com/archives/nn/70679.html