William, did you see this?

Hello William, do you read Vinny Pinto's live-food site? Found at:

[health.groups.yahoo.com]

The reason i ask is that i found a post there giving this url:

[wisewitch.blogspot.com]

and the title is, provocatively, "Why meat prevents scurvy". Most interesting article, website promises even more neat stuff. Food for thought, pun fully intended.

PeggyM

Hi PeggyM;

Yes, been reading it for years, and learned a lot from it.

Ther's also the story of Ferdinand Magellan, said to be the first to sail around the planet, who took many barrels of sauerkraut on the voyage. He and his crew never got scurvy.

I wonder if subclinical scurvy isn't maybe a lot more common than we would suspect.

William

"I wonder if subclinical scurvy isn't maybe a lot more common than we would suspect."

'Spect it is, yes. But i was really impressed by the article i cited. Makes all kinds of sense.

PeggyM

Actually the part i mean is this short excerpt:

"In fact, meat not only prevents scurvy because it contains tiny quantities of vitamin C, it prevents it because it bypasses the need for vitamin C.

Vitamin C is required to form collagen in the body, and it does this - despite being described everywhere as an antioxidant - by oxidation. Vitamin C's role in collagen formation is to transfer a hydroxyl group to the amino acids lysine and proline. Meat, however, already contains appreciable quantities of hydroxylysine and hydroxyproline, bypassing some of the requirement for vitamin C. In other words, your vitamin C requirement is dependent upon how much meat you do not eat."

You know how i love explanations, and this is a doozie.

PeggyM

Looked up hydroxyproline and found this:

[en.wikipedia.org]

"Hydroxyproline is a major component of the protein collagen. It helps provide stability to the triple-helical structure of collagen by forming hydrogen bonds. Hydroxyproline is found in few proteins other than collagen.

Proline hydroxylation requires ascorbic acid. The most obvious, first effects (gum and hair problems) of absence of ascorbic acid in humans come from the resulting defect in hydroxylation of proline residues of collagen, with reduced stability of the collagen molecule causing scurvy."