Meat, copper, hyperT

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In a message dated 3/5/00 11:52:24 AM Pacific Standard Time,

debspiritwalker@... writes:

<< ,

Why the white meat comment?

Deb >>

Hi Deb and Everyone,

Lately I've been thinking about how all our diets seem to have changed in

the last few years. It seems that we're eating less red meat and more white

meat like chicken and turkey breast. Because of the color I suspected that

the white meats are lower in copper. I looked it up and this is correct.

Turkey dark meat has three times the copper and twice the zinc of turkey

white meat. This means that the copper to zinc ratio is more favorable for

hypers. Red meat from beef is about the same as dark meat from poultry.

It's not that the amount of copper from white or red meat is so high, but

the ratio is better. I'm glad that you asked this question because it made

me look this up. The information is interesting, particularly for hypers who

are trying to build up copper.

Meat is generally a better source of zinc than copper. The zinc to

copper ratio of dark poultry and beef is about 26:1 (4 mgs of zinc, .15 mgs.

of copper, for 3.5 ounce serving), while the ratio in white turkey meat is

50:1 (2 mgs of zinc, .04 mgs of copper, for 3.5 ounce serving).

The reason this is especially interesting is that I had always assumed

that eating red meat would be a good way to rebuild copper, but the opposite

is true. Eating any kind of muscle meat is going to be a net increaser of

zinc and a net depleter of copper. Remember that healthy women need about a

5:1 ratio of zinc to copper and men about 10:1 ratio. Recovering hypers need

a lower ratio, probably anywhere from 1:1 to 3:1 depending on the stage of

recovery.

Eating meat that has a Zn/Cu ratio of 25:1 to 50:1 is definitely going to

make the situation worse for hypers, so it looks like hypers should limit

their consumption of meat rather than increase it. Liver has a high copper

content, but most meats are going to deplete copper because of the high zinc

levels.

If you look at the Zn/Cu ratio for beans, the ratio averages around 4:1

(2 mgs of zinc, .5 mgs of copper, for one cup of beans). This should result

in a net gain of copper, because of the ratio of zinc to copper. All the

legumes are relatively high in copper.

Among the seafoods, lobster is the best with a ratio of 1.5 while crab is

a distant second at 6:1. Chocolate has a ratio of about 2:1, but because of

other ingredients like caffeine and sugar, may not be a good copper source

for hypers.

While we're talking about zinc and copper, remember that you can get

eventually get too much copper and too little zinc. You'll know when this

happens because your heart rate will get too low. Most of you probably won't

get there for awhile, but I've been there myself. You need both zinc and

copper and if you run low on either it can cause problems. As long as your

heart rate is high, keep supplementing copper and limit your zinc intake.