So the issue with beta carotene is that many people can't make their own vitamin A out of it. Children, for example, convert betacarotene poorly, and infants not at all. And adults convert betacarotene only if their digestive tract is in great condition, and only if a good amount of fat is eaten with the beta carotene.
Here's a good snippet from the WAPF vitamin A article:
Quote:
Under optimal conditions, humans can indeed convert carotenes to vitamin A. This occurs in the upper intestinal tract by the action of bile salts and fat-splitting enzymes. Of the entire family of carotenes, beta-carotene is most easily converted to vitamin A. Early studies indicated an equivalency of 4:1 of beta-carotene to retinol. In other words, four units of beta-carotene were needed to produce one unit of vitamin A. This ratio was later revised to 6:1 and recent research suggests an even higher ratio.5 This means that you have to eat an awful lot of vegetables and fruits to obtain even the daily minimal requirements of vitamin A, assuming optimal conversion.
But the transformation of carotene to retinol is rarely optimal. Diabetics and those with poor thyroid function, a group that could well include at least half the adult US population, cannot make the conversion. Children make the conversion very poorly and infants not at all — they must obtain their precious stores of vitamin A from animal fats — yet the low-fat diet is often recommended for children. Strenuous physical exercise, excessive consumption of alcohol, excessive consumption of iron (especially from "fortified" white flour and breakfast cereal), use of a number of popular drugs, excessive consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids, zinc deficiency and even cold weather can hinder the conversion of carotenes to vitamin A, as does the lowfat diet. |
That's from this article:
http://dev.westonaprice.org/abcs-of-...in-a-saga.html
Sooooooo...this is for your son, right? So he's not going to convert beta carotenes very well. Can he learn to take pills, and swallow bits of frozen liver? Can he learn to like pate? Can you hide some liver in a fruit smoothie? (isn't there a thread on that around here?)
My son will take the frozen liver "pills", which I'm glad for. He started being able to take pills when he was four -- maybe it's worth a try with your son? Start with something really, really tiny.
) eat any type of fish and you can't have your raw (or any) milk/dairy items.
