Fat Soluble Vitamins and Healing Tooth Cavities

The reason why vegan and sometimes vegetarian people have problems with tooth decay is due to a lack of fat-soluble vitamins in the diet.

What is a Vitamin (non-scientific answer first)?

What really is a vitamin? It is some cut-apart fragment of material reality. We take a whole food, and then dissect it into terms that we think are important. I like to think of vitamins in terms of whole foods. There is an apple vitamin, an orange vitamin, a liver vitamin etc. Nature gave us whole foods, and we should look at them in those ways.

Scientific Answers, What is a Vitamin?

Vitamins are required for metabolic processes (like cellular division), maintenance and health. They make our body work. Vitamins are divided into two categories: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins dissolve in water. The body is about 70% water. Fat makes up the membranes of our cells. The fat-soluble vitamins dissolve into fat. Urine is salt water. Oil doesn't mix with water. These vitamins don't come out in urine that quickly.

Any discussion on vitamins, especially fat-soluble ones, should take into consideration that there are likely thousands of vitamin factors in foods, and that there are many forms and varieties of each vitamin, known and unknown.

Fat-soluble Vitamin A

Fat-soluble Vitamin A is needed for vision, to maintain healthy skin and mucous membranes, tissue repair, bone growth and development of fetuses. Vitamin A also protects the body from damaging substances. There are two key types of vitamin A. Provitamin A, also know as carotene, is also a strong antioxidant. It is found in all yellow, red, orange and dark green fruits and vegetables. Some examples are: mango, papaya, carrot and pumpkin. Vitamin A from plant sources is different to that from animal sources. A very large amount of beta-carotene would be required to have the same activity as retinol, the vitamin A from animal fats. And in my opinion, it is completely different. One cannot expect the body to convert vegetable vitamin A into retinol, the fat-soluble vitamin A, although there is a claim that if there is enough carotene in the body, it can be converted into retinol.

Fat-soluble vitamin A (the kind we need to stop tooth decay and other diseases) is found in liver from grassfed or wild land and sea animals, raw milk from grassfed cows, egg yolks from free-range chickens, sea foods, and fish livers. This vitamin A is preformed (retinol). When you eat these foods from animals not well treated, not eating their natural diet, then there will be a lower amount of the important fat-soluble vitamin A. The fat-soluble vitamin A will be of a lower quality. Again, sources of preformed vitamin A (called retinol) include butterfat, egg yolk, liver and other organ meats, seafood and fish liver oils.

Fat-soluble Vitamin D

Fat-soluble Vitamin D is necessary for your body to absorb calcium and phosphorous. In its natural form, it will help prevent fractures from osteoporosis and prevent rickets and osteomalacia (diseases that cause weak bones). The body makes hundreds of natural antibiotics. Weston Price showed how the vitamins from foods can prevent all types of disease. Children with rickets get lots of infections. That is because they lack vitamin D. So there is a connection between fat-soluble vitamin D, and immunity to different diseases.

In April 2000, Dr. Anu Prabhala reported the treatment of five patients confined to wheelchairs. Blood tests revealed that they all had vitamin D deficiency. All of them became able to move on their own within six weeks of vitamin D supplementation.

In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price found that native diets all over the world were much higher in fat-soluble vitamins than our modern diet. This includes vitamin D.

NOTE: VITAMIN D IS NOT IN PLANT FOODS

The animal's body will create vitamin D from plant food. But humans cannot, as far as I know, create vitamin D from plant foods. So we need to eat the animal foods that have the vitamin D in them.

Cod Liver Oil, Lard, Atlantic Herring, Eastern Oysters
Catfish, Skinless Sardines, Mackerel, Smoked Chinook Salmon
Sturgeon Roe, Shrimp, Egg Yolk, Butter, Lamb Liver, Beef Tallow
Pork Liver, Beef Liver, Beef Tripe, Beef Kidney, Chicken Livers
Small Clams, Blue Crab, Crayfish/Crawdads, Northern Lobster. Not listed here are insects; some are very high in vitamin D. (I say that in case you are hungry and don't know what to eat.)

Fat-soluble Vitamin E

Vitamin E: Vitamin E describes a family of eight antioxidants: four tocopherols, and four tocotrinels (those toco names describe the chemistry of the vitamin substance). This fat-soluble vitamin E is needed for circulation, tissue repair and healing. Fat-soluble vitamin E intercepts free radicals (waste products). It seems to help in the treatment of fibrocystic conditions, sterility, PMS and muscular dystrophy. It seems to slow down the aging process. A vital role of vitamin E is the deactivation of free radicals. This powerful antioxidant works together with trace elements, in particular, selenium and zinc, to clean out the waste products in our body. Increased ingestion of polyunsaturated oils (cheap vegetable oils) requires greater amounts of vitamin E in the diet. Fat-soluble vitamin E is found primarily in butter, wheat germ (oil), palm kernel oil and organ meats. Lesser amounts are found in grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and dark green leafy vegetables. (Don't eat wheat germ oil it can be toxic.)

Vitamin K: dependent proteins have been isolated in the bone protein matrix. In other words, you need it to have strong bones. Deficiency includes bleeding gums, blood in urine and things like that. (I do not advise a vitamin K shot.) Vitamin K is essential for blood clotting. MK-4 is not produced in signficant amounts by bacteria. MK-4 is found in organs. MK-4 is mentioned as this is just one special aspect of vitamin K that may be related to tooth mineralization

The MK-4 version of Vitamin K is found in goose liver paste, hard cheeses from grassfed dairy, soft cheeses from grassfed dairy, egg yolk (Netherlands), goose leg, curd cheeses, egg yolk (United States), butter, chicken liver