#237 Minerals You Can't Get From Animal Foods and More - Dr James DiNicolantonio Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. My name is Siim Land, and today we have a live Q&A with Dr. James DiNicolantonio.

In this episode, we talk about minerals, electrolytes, and our new book, The Mineral Fix. You can get The Mineral Fix from Amazon. All right, James, welcome back to the show.

James DiNicolantonio (0:17)

Thanks for having me, Siim.

Siim Land (0:18)

Yeah, it's glad to talk with you again. And yeah, we should we definitely should do like a follow up stream or a Q&A about the minerals, like people have been reading the book and we got a lot of positive feedback from that.

But there's also like a lot of still like some questions left left in the air. So we can just address address them in this short of the live stream today.

James DiNicolantonio (0:40)

Yeah, let's do it.

Siim Land (0:41)

Sounds good. And I did take some questions from my Instagram as well from people. And yeah, we'll start with those. And afterwards, you can just start asking your questions in the chat.

So the first question is going to be, you know, animal foods. What would be some animal foods high in magnesium and you can't eat salmon? What would be like some alternatives to that?

James DiNicolantonio (1:03)

OK, well, yeah, that's funny. That's mostly animal foods that are high in magnesium are typically fish.

The problem is, is that overfishing is really a tremendous damage to earth. So essentially, when you kill the fish, you're taking away the phytoplankton, which actually gives us 85 percent of our oxygen on earth. Most people kind of look at it as rainforests, but it's really the health of our oceans. And so I'm starting to eat a lot less fish. I mean, if you're going to eat a fish, salmon probably is better than like eating tuna or because the bycatch, when you go and eat fish and you're killing all the sharks and turtles and all that stuff, it's just so damaging. So, you know, it's hard to get magnesium on an animal based diet, which is why I supplement the diet with mineral waters, because I don't think you can get an optimal amount eating just purely animal foods.

I'm trying to think of besides fish, what else, what other animal foods have magnesium? What comes to mind for you, Siim?

Siim Land (2:10)

Yeah, like liver has a little bit. So I think three ounces of liver has like 40 to 50 milligrams of magnesium, which is, you know, not a lot compared to like salmon that has a lot more. And like say pumpkin seeds, which are like 150 around there. So, yeah, like you would be better off by maybe I could take drinking some magnesium rich water.

Also, like, you know, beef and chicken also have, but it's even less than liver. So, yeah, like, ideally, you would want to like either take like a supplement or drink a lot of like these mineral waters.

James DiNicolantonio (2:45)

Yeah, exactly.

Siim Land (2:47)

And yeah, like magnesium itself is again, like one of the biggest kind of deficiencies. Or it's also very hard to get, like even the plant foods are relatively low in magnesium.

James DiNicolantonio (3:00)

Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people don't really like the taste of plant foods. So I kind of force myself to try to also include things like spinach for the magnesium and the potassium and also the nitrates, right, to boost nitric oxide.

Because animal foods are fairly low in magnesium, it's probably slightly more bioavailable. So what's interesting is the bioavailability of magnesium from cal is about 35, 36 percent, which is pretty good. Spinach goes down a little bit because the oxalates, it's about 25, 26 percent bioavailable. But spinach has a much higher amount of magnesium compared to cal. So from a serving basis, spinach is actually a pretty good source of magnesium.

Siim Land (3:49)

So is the oxalates the biggest, like these phytonutrients that reduce the magnesium of lupine or are there like other ones as well? Like does fiber in general have that effect?

James DiNicolantonio (4:00)

Right. Yep, exactly. Fiber will reduce the absorption of magnesium. Phytates will also reduce the absorption of magnesium a little bit. They primarily reduce the absorption of iron, which in some cases is good.

You know, we actually think that some of the potential benefits of like unrefined whole grains are actually due to the phytic acid and the phytates, which on their own singular compounds have been shown to have anti-cancer effects. So there's this balance, like if you're if you're eating an overall bioavailable nutrient diet and you add in phytic acid, which can bind free iron in the body, maybe that's potentially beneficial, which is which is why I do I do consume a little bit of unrefined whole grains. I consume probably two slices of Ezekiel bread per day for the manganese, also the magnesium, Ezekiel bread is pretty high in magnesium too, so yeah.