schultz
Member
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2014
- Messages
- 2,653
Likely cows milk from grazing animals. I haven't seen a study showing the total K2 (all fractions) of milk from animals pastured on green grass, but Weston Price tested (according to himself) over 20,000 samples of dairy from all over North and South America. He was testing for "Activator X", which is now assumed to be vitamin K2. He said that when animals were eating green pasture the amount of Act. X could go up 50 fold.
This study - Vitamin k contents of meat, dairy, and fast food in the u.s. Diet. - PubMed - NCBI - tested a bunch of foods and the whole milk had a level of 2.5mcg of MK4 per cup of milk, or a measly 20mcg per 8 cups of milk. If you were to multiply this by 50 you get 1,000mcg per 8 cups of whole milk. Suddenly milk seems like the best source!
This is a quote from the book...
"It has been shown that dairy products in Hereford vicinity may vary through a range of fiftyfold in a few weeks' time in the vitamin A and activator X content, the range depending directly on the fodder. There is a sharp rise at the time that the green pasturage is added to the ration of the cows."
This topic is very interesting to me and I am surprised it has not been studied more. When my kids were born the midwives asked if we wanted vitamin K injections for our babies. It is generally assumed that human milk contains only trace amounts of vitamin K so babies are generally injected with a large dose of vitamin K after birth. I had already looked into this and found studies showing that mothers who supplement vitamin K have a much higher level of vitamin K and vitamin K2 in their breast milk (duh!). We declined the shot and I said "my wife supplements vitamin K2". Not to mention topically giving a baby some vitamin K2 would probably be a much better way to administer the vitamin (who knows what the shot has in it).
It really made no sense to me that a mothers milk would have no vitamin K yet the baby needs it. It also seemed kind of obvious that you need to get vitamin K in the diet in order to get it in the milk... The same goes for ruminant animals!
Vitamin K is a very expensive vitamin to make and I think dairy operations don't supplement it for this reason, so cows need to get it in their food.
Here is a study showing that supplementing vitamin K1 raised the K1 and K2 in breast milk:
Menaquinone-4 in breast milk is derived from dietary phylloquinone. - PubMed - NCBI
A nice study would be supplementing mothers with 1mg of vitamin K2 a day and measuring the levels. I haven't seen a study like this yet.
I am very surprised that there hasn't been a study comparing vitamin K levels in pastured vs non-pastured cows milk, considering how popular vitamin K2 is now.
This study - Vitamin k contents of meat, dairy, and fast food in the u.s. Diet. - PubMed - NCBI - tested a bunch of foods and the whole milk had a level of 2.5mcg of MK4 per cup of milk, or a measly 20mcg per 8 cups of milk. If you were to multiply this by 50 you get 1,000mcg per 8 cups of whole milk. Suddenly milk seems like the best source!
This is a quote from the book...
"It has been shown that dairy products in Hereford vicinity may vary through a range of fiftyfold in a few weeks' time in the vitamin A and activator X content, the range depending directly on the fodder. There is a sharp rise at the time that the green pasturage is added to the ration of the cows."
This topic is very interesting to me and I am surprised it has not been studied more. When my kids were born the midwives asked if we wanted vitamin K injections for our babies. It is generally assumed that human milk contains only trace amounts of vitamin K so babies are generally injected with a large dose of vitamin K after birth. I had already looked into this and found studies showing that mothers who supplement vitamin K have a much higher level of vitamin K and vitamin K2 in their breast milk (duh!). We declined the shot and I said "my wife supplements vitamin K2". Not to mention topically giving a baby some vitamin K2 would probably be a much better way to administer the vitamin (who knows what the shot has in it).
It really made no sense to me that a mothers milk would have no vitamin K yet the baby needs it. It also seemed kind of obvious that you need to get vitamin K in the diet in order to get it in the milk... The same goes for ruminant animals!
Vitamin K is a very expensive vitamin to make and I think dairy operations don't supplement it for this reason, so cows need to get it in their food.
Here is a study showing that supplementing vitamin K1 raised the K1 and K2 in breast milk:
Menaquinone-4 in breast milk is derived from dietary phylloquinone. - PubMed - NCBI
A nice study would be supplementing mothers with 1mg of vitamin K2 a day and measuring the levels. I haven't seen a study like this yet.
I am very surprised that there hasn't been a study comparing vitamin K levels in pastured vs non-pastured cows milk, considering how popular vitamin K2 is now.