Do we need vitamin C?

Humans are one of the very few mammals that do not produce their own vitamin C, and therefore must obtain it through their diet. Why was this the case? Why did evolution choose to remove this function in the human body, while almost all other animals chose to retain it?

And last but not least; how much vitamin C do we really need when we eat pure carnivorous food?

Go to the food list and sources at the bottom of the article

To find out, we need to start by looking at the role of vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, in the body. We also need to find out if the way we live changes our daily requirement. Because mysteriously, you don't get scurvy or any other disease even if you stop eating plants and fruits completely.

On the contrary, people report that they feel healthier than they have in many years, and that they experience having found the very fountain of youth.

What does vitamin C do in the body?

Vitamin C has several functions, but perhaps not quite the ones that most people would think of if asked. The vitamin has been sold as a miracle cure for respiratory diseases, and as a magical booster for the immune system, but this is probably not true at all. A lot of animal urine has been peed out in our modern times!

But some roles have been established:

• Vitamin C is necessary for the body to make carnitine. Simply put, the body needs carnitine to get food energy into the mitochondria, so they can make the energy you can use.
• Vitamin C is necessary for the body to make collagen, which is an elastic protein that is essential for skin, blood vessels, connective tissue and bone mass.
• Vitamin C helps the body absorb non-heme iron, which is a type of iron found in plants.
• Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant, not least in connection with the body's oxidation of carbohydrates that you have eaten. Simply put, something being an antioxidant means that it can give up an electron to "free radicals", which are raging around in the body and causing stress reactions. When the free radicals are allowed to adopt an electron from, for example, vitamin C, they are "tamed".

But are these tasks of equal importance when eating like a carnivore? Let's look at each of them.

The body's need to make carnitine/carnitine:

On a meat-rich diet, we eat large amounts of carnitine. So it is not necessary for the body to make this, and the body is very happy with everything it does not have to do itself. In carnivores, vitamin C's role is thus eliminated when it comes to the synthesis of carnitine. Instead, the body takes the best carnitine it can find directly from food. This is much easier, so that the body can use its energy on more fun things, like music and sports and philosophy?

The body's need to make collagen

On a meat-rich diet, we also eat a lot of collagen. So in this case too, vitamin C's role is lost if we ingest enough directly.

But it's clear; we have to eat the "whole" animal, to get all the building blocks, not just the leanest tenderloin and the whitest chicken breast. For collagen, that could mean frying skin, perhaps from fish and chicken, but also simmering good soups for hours from soup bones and oxtails, and anything you can think of that can be cooked thoroughly, because it won't make a juicy steak.

The jelly you see oozing around the meat when it's all cooled? It's gelatin. Gelatin IS collagen. Voìla!

The body's need to absorb non-heme iron

When you as a carnivore get all the heme iron you need, which is the iron we find in the animal kingdom, then we no longer need vitamin C to help us absorb the "wrong" type of iron that is basically unavailable to the human animal. We can use it in a famine, and that's really cool, but for everyday life it's best to just get the real variety directly.

For us as carnivores, it is completely useless to take extra vitamin C for this process, since we already eat the version our body wants: heme iron.

And since heme iron is what makes meat red, you might automatically think that the redder the meat, the more iron. You see the same thing with deep red whale meat, and with tuna.

Vitamin C as an antioxidant

Vitamin C is highlighted as a so-called antioxidant when talking about the breakdown of carbohydrates/glucose, but has no real direct significance in itself. The processes proceed as they should, completely independent of Vitamin C's presence.

Because vitamin C is more like the teacher trying to calm the class while all this is going on. The students are the “free radicals” that run wild when sugar breaks down; molecules that are simply missing an electron, flying around aimlessly.

Vitamin C has been highlighted here because it can donate an electron to free radicals without causing harm. Therefore, it is an “antioxidant” – it slows down oxidation.

So when you lower, and in our case eliminate, the carbohydrates you eat, it invariably results in a significant reduction in inflammation and oxidation in the body. You no longer have the aforementioned "unruly school class, with all the noisy students" that you have to get used to.

That necessarily means that you need less help to put out all these fires that many people are walking around with in their bodies. You need less antioxidants, less drugs for the noisy students.

So here too, vitamin C incredibly loses its role and necessity on a pure meat diet. A role we easily see the potential importance of, in a diet with a lot of processed food and sugar where inflammation is high.

But vitamin E is also a very potent antioxidant, so "antioxidant" in itself is not a question where vitamin C is the only answer.

Then, as even fewer people are aware of, you have to be careful not to lower your oxidation too low. We need oxidation for healing and energy production.

Humans also have high levels of uric acid in their blood. Although it may sound strange, this acid's role as an antioxidant is important to us. It is not that you get gout from uric acid, but we will link to another article about this when it is available.

One hypothesis is that when we abandoned the old version where we produced vitamin C internally, uric acid took over some of the roles vitamin C had in taming inflammatory conditions.

So what happened? Was it during the nearly three million year long ice age that we stopped producing ascorbic acid, because we got everything we needed in ready-made form, through a diet rich in meat and fish?

Risk of overdose/poisoning with vitamin C

As with most things, you shouldn't have too little and you shouldn't have too much, but the golden mean. For vitamin C, an overdose can mean you get an upset stomach, which is innocent enough. But in worse cases, you can get an overdose of what are called oxalates, which can result in kidney stones, and in painful joints if crystals of oxalates get stuck there. A separate article about this will also be available soon.

Foods from the animal kingdom with vitamin C

Most people think that there is no vitamin C at all in meat and fish. This is completely wrong. Even if we were to forget everything we talked about above about why we don't need as much vitamin C as we think, you can easily get plenty of this vitamin with ordinary foods from the animal kingdom.

This food is also extremely rich in other vitamins and minerals, and contains nothing unhealthy – such as large amounts of sugar and additives, which you will find in orange juice. Just remember not to heat the food too much, as this will destroy the vitamin C, whether the food is from the animal or plant kingdom.

So here is a list of foods that can help you reach your "daily requirement", if you still want to stay within the modern recommendations. The percentage here is the percentage of meeting the "target" 100 grams of food would give you on an ordinary modern diet. Remember you need significantly less when you don't eat factory food.

1. Offal

1. Ox liver – 27 mg (45%)
2. Lamb liver – 28 mg (47%)
3. Pork liver – 20 mg (33%)
4. Chicken liver – 15 mg (25%)

2. Roe/fish eggs

1. Cod roe – 50 mg (83%)
2. Salmon roe – 60 mg (100%)
3. Trout roe – 50 mg (83%)

3. Meat (muscles)

1. Ox – 1-3 mg (2%)
2. Pig – 1-2 mg (2%)
3. Chicken – 0.5-1 mg (1%)

Sources:

Scurvy is largely due to impaired collagen synthesis
and disordered connective tissue

C is for Carnivore

Do You Need Vitamin C on a Carnivore Diet? - Dr. Kiltz

Wild Food Sources Of Vitamin C

Vitamin C and scurvy

Do You Need Vitamin C on the Carnivore Diet? – Nutrition With Judy

Vitamin C On The Carnivore Diet Dr. Ken Berry

Scurvy – Not just a pirate's disease

10 YEAR VETERAN Talks Cholesterol and Vitamin C on the Carnivore Diet: Her 10+ year experience

Can a carnivore diet provide all essential nutrients?

Amber O'Hearn Twitter thread on Vitamin-C and Carnivore

Vitamin C controversy – Amber and Paul discuss

Collagen Deficiency Signs, Causes and How to Treat It

Scurvy – Great Norwegian Encyclopedia

MORE SOURCES

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