[Welcome to Nina Planck, a friend and author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why. For more of her eyes-wide-opening writing about eating and cooking, visit www.ninaplanck.com]
In 1945, nutrition pioneer Weston Price wrote about a mystery nutrient called Activator X. Highly regarded in traditional diets, it was found in the fat (especially butter) of grass-fed animals, and it cured rickets, tooth decay, and seizures. Price found it powerfully effective combined with cod liver oil.
Now we know the identity of Activator X: vitamin K2. K is the least celebrated of the four fat-soluble vitamins. (The others are A, D, and E.) A few people could tell you that K is found in green vegetables and makes blood clot properly. The blood-clotting agent is actually K1. Its newly-discovered cousin, K2, has an interesting role: it puts calcium where it belongs (bones) and keeps it out the places where it doesn’t belong (soft tissues, like arterial walls). Price found K2-deficient people with deformed faces and rotten teeth. K2 also prevents heart disease, and sperm depend on it.
Grazing animals—cows, sheep—make K2 from the K1 in plants, but we humans aren’t so handy at that conversion, so it’s best to take your K2 neat. Find K2 in the fats and organs of grass-fed animals, especially butter—all foods prized in traditional cultures for fertility and health. If you don’t eat enough calves’ liver and butter, try the butter oil from Dr. Ron.
Modern research also confirms why K2 and cod liver oil are powerful together: fish liver is rich in vitamins A and D, which can’t do their job without K2.
For strong bones, consider another virtue of traditional diets: saturated fat. You need saturated fat to lay down minerals such as calcium in your bones. Polyunsaturated fat (soybean oil) depresses mineralization while saturated fat (butter, coconut oil) stimulates it. That’s why I don’t stint on the butter and never drink skim milk.
- Nina
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I feel so vindicated. I've always hated skim milk, always get whole (or 2% if whole is not available) but just for the taste. I've always intuitively felt that fat in good food (like organic milk and butter) must be good somehow, and I'm so happy to see all these studies lately confirming that.
view mjoe's profile
I'm always suspicous of any nutrition information from someone connected to the Weston Price Foundation. Advice for adults to drink full fat milk goes against anything I've ever heard from sources I trust, such as the American Heart Association or the American Dietetic Association. According to Medline Plus (associated with the National Institutes of Health) vitamin K deficiency is very rare in adults aside from those with chronic malnutrition, alcoholism, or a condition such as celiac disease. Scientists continally challenge, rethink, and change how they view things, and I just don't trust a nutrition discovery from 1945.
view mollyjade's profile
I hear you about being cynical about Weston Price -- very good point.
However I wouldn't discount info just because it comes from 1945. Scientific research often comes full circle. I just want to know what they've learned since then.
view mjoe's profile
I know. I just got a little annoyed when I saw this. I think I actually agree with Nina Planck about most things. She's really into whole foods for instance. But this article on whole milk annoys me because, it seems to say, don't worry about saturated fat, don't worry about eating enough vegetables.
view mollyjade's profile
Wait, how does this say don't worry about eating vegetables? Only if you think vitamin K is the only nutrient in vegetables.
view mjoe's profile
I was raised drinking skim milk, and wasn't aware of any other version of milk til I was about 9: on vacation, we stopped at a restaurant, and the glass of milk I got was 2%. I took one gulp and promptly threw it up all over our table.
So, yes, skim for me from then on.
view nadarine's profile
Not that I'm advocating something that might make you sick, but what we're allergic to changes as we get older. Often, people "outgrow" (or grow into) allergies. Though full-fat or 2% milk might have made you sick at age 9, it's no indication it would make you sick now.
view the cheesemonger's profile
I Love Butter! I love half and half! all in moderation of course. and i always wondered if maybe it wasn't so evil. thank you nina. and vitamin K2.
view amy's profile
I don't know anything about the Weston Price Foundation but I love whole milk from our local dairy, and I don't think it's going to hurt me (or probably help me either) in the quantities I use it--mostly in coffee or in cooking or as the occasional accompaniment to a piece of cake (yum). I am supporting local farmers who don't use hormones, etc., it tastes good and it comes in glass bottles. I can't go back to the awful taste of any milk from a cardboard carton. All things in moderation!
view Charlotte's profile