Fat Soluble Vitamins
The key to good animal husbandry is simple.
We need to know what our animals need.
We need to know what is in the diet we are giving them
If the diet contains too much of an undesirable element we need to take steps to avoid that factor.
If the diet is deficient in an element we need to be certain that factor is included in the diet.
This is the reason for a testing laboratory and the reason for the our purpose in telling you about the lab is the way we can change your farm profits
When we look at the new green grass in the spring and expect that is one of the most beneficial things we can feed our livestock we are sometimes disappointed. The purpose of this letter is to explain how several factors can have a negative influence on not only this grass but also other crops we raise.
The purpose of plants it to produce food. The pant is a solar collector that converts the energy from the sun into Carbohydrates and Proteins.
The raw materials of food production are Carbon Dioxide and Water. CO2 and H2O
When the plant builds Carbohydrates, (CHO) the plant also releases Oxygen.
Animals utilize plants and the waste products are Water, H2O and CO2.
The production of protein (CHON) is similar, the source of the N is ultimately from the atmosphere but the metabolism of Nitrogen is a complex study. This treatise will attempt to explain why sometimes the lab reports we see are not exactly what we think we are getting in our grass and other crops.
When the laboratory analyzes for protein it measures for Nitrogen. The report of many labs for protein content is simply a computed figure and the result is called protein. In many cases this is not a true protein and instead is an incompletely metabolized Nitrogen factor in the plant and may be Nitrates or other forms of non-protein nitrogen.
These compounds are necessary for the manufacture of protein by the plant and of course the plant must absorb nitrates from the soil in order to have the raw materials for protein manufacture.
The first requirement is light and heat from the sun. Wet cloudy days are NG for protein.
In order for the plant to manufacture food or the animal to utilize the food there needs to be a machinery in the body of the plant or the animal to manipulate the C, H, O, and N in the foods we call carbohydrates and proteins.
The soil is the plant’s stomach and the minerals in the soil are absorbed into the plant in order to make the plant’s operating machinery. These same minerals are then part of the plant and when the animal eats the plant the minerals in the plant are available to the animal so it can use these same minerals for the machinery in the body to manipulate C, H, O, and N
There are over a hundred different kinds of elements in the world. The elements necessary for life are only a small part of the total.
The body of plants and animals use only a small percentage of these elements.
Foods also contain these minerals in addition to the CHON.
Major Minerals are P, Ca, Mg, K, and Na
Minor minerals are S, Fe, Co, Cu, Mn, I, Zn,
There are a few other minor elements and we discover more all the time.
The manipulation of food elements depends upon two other types of compounds we call Enzymes and Vitamins. This is the session we attempt to talk about Vitamins
Vitamins
Definition: A general tem for a number of unrelated organic substances that occur in many foods in small amounts and that are necessary in trace amounts for the normal metabolic functioning of the body.
They may be water-soluble or fat-soluble.
The fat soluble Vitamins are A,D,E, and K. They are absorbed along with dietary fat and are not usually excreted in the urine. This means they may be stored in the fat in moderate amounts. This is why they do not need to be eaten on a daily basis.
The other factor is the word moderate.
If doses of these vitamins are injected or fed in amounts exceeding the body’s ability to absorb or assimilate, the excess is either excreted or in some cases can be toxic.
Read the label.
Fat soluble vitamins are A,D,E, and K
Point to remember about this character of these 4 vitamins. They are absorbed with the fat in the diet. Or there must be some fat in the diet. If there is no fat there is no absorption. Fats are CHO or energy. Low energy diets may preclude vitamin intake.
The water soluble vitamins are all the rest after we exclude A,D,E, and K.
If you want a comprehensive discussion of Vitamins that are available on the market there is an excellent web site in the Internet. Roche Vitamins Inc. who is the world leader in vitamin nutrition publishes it. This company got its start in Switzerland by a clever and curious chemist who recognized the similarity between Acetylene gas, the same gas we use in our gas welders and carotene. He was the man who was the first to synthesize vitamin A from carotene.
Check out the web site at http://www.nutrafacts.com
Now for the advice of Doc Bob the cow doc this is the rest of the story.
Most of the vitamin A our animals get comes from a compound called carotene.
The definition of carotene according to Dorland’s medical dictionary:
Carotene comes from the Latin word, carota, meaning carrot.
It is one of four isometric pigments, alpha , beta, gamma and delta carotene having colors from violet to red to red yellow to yellow. It is found in many dark green, leafy and yellow vegetables. (eg. Collards, Turnips, Carrots Sweet Potatoes and Squash).
And yellow fruit, (eg. Apricots, Oranges Peaches and Cantaloupes).
Some carotene is also found in many green grasses.
The carotenes are fat-soluble aliphatic hydrocarbons that are converted into vitamin A in animals by an enzyme in the intestinal wall and the liver.
Beta-carotene is the major precursor or provitamin in humans, although it is less well absorbed than is retinol. See also in retinol equivalent under equivalent.
Beta-carotene is the isomer of carotene (qv) and is usually written beta-carotene although some texts use the Greek letter beta.
{USP} a preparation of beta-carotene administered orally to reduce the severity of photosensivity in patients with erythropoetic protoporphyria.
Just after this definition is a notation, beta carotene `15 15 –dioxygenase [ED 1.1311.21] an enzyme of the oxidoreductase class that catalyzes the oxidative cleavage of beta carotene in the intestinal mucosa, forming two molecules of all-trans retinal. This is what we normally think of as vitamin A.
Carotene yields vitamin A.
Now after the scientific definitions and complicated explanations allow me to attempt to explain why we see health problems in animals on the beautiful new lush green grass.
There is no doubt that green grass contains carotene that is the substance, which contains Vitamin A. Each molecule of Carotene contains two Vitamin Amolecules.
When we examine the physical characteristics of the structure of these vitamins the reasons why the animals never get the Vitamin A we can be understood.
The Carotene molecule is like two long skinny molecules similar to a shoelace. If you would tie the two shoelaces together it is obvious that they cannot be used to put in a shoe. The Carotene molecule is of no value unless it can be split into the Vitamin A.
This splitting is the work of an enzyme. Enzymes are manufactured by the body and they are protein in nature. The body actually takes proteins and remanufactures them into specific other proteins. Proteins that end with the letters ase are enzymes.
Unless the body has access to wholesome proteins, it cannot manufacture enzymes. Non protein nitrogen compounds are not wholesome protein.
The enzyme that splits carotene is a member of the oxidoreductase class which means it can split the cleavage or connection or the knot between the two shoelaces.
Once it is split we have a long skinny molecule very much like a shoelace. There is a tip on most shoelaces that enables us to insert the lace into the eyelet in the shoe.
Everything we absorb into the blood circulation must first be absorbed into the cells in the wall of the intestine. The holes into the cells in a way are similar to the eyelets in the holes in the shoe where we insert our shoelaces.
In order to absorb the long skinny Vitamin A molecule the body puts an enzyme on the tip of the Vitamin A. In a way it resembles the plastic tip on your shoe lace. Until and unless the tip is there the ability to put the lace into the hole is diminished.
This is one more instance where too much non protein nitrogen or NPN is a hazard.
The enzyme tip on the Vitamin A molecule is a protein in nature. If that tip isn’t there the ability of the animal to get Vitamin A from that grass is almost eliminated.
If the enzyme that splits or divides the Carotene into vitamin A molecules is absent there is no more absorbtion of the Carotene.
The absorbtion of vitamin A then, depends on 2 factors.
The fact that some of our grasses have very high protein levels if we look at the lab reports should be a red flag to our critical judgement of the quality of that grass for food.
A good portion of the protein reported in this way is not protein at all but is the raw materials the plant could use if it could finish the process of converting NPN or non protein nitrogen into Protein.
This is the real reason some of our green grasses in Australia and New Zealand are not only poor sources of Vitamin A which has been one of the errors in management but they actually contribute to disease problems in spite of the beautiful appearance of lush green grass.
The obvious next question then is, why doesn’t the grass convert the raw materials in to good protein?
That question is a good place to start in our next letter.
Believe in yourself with all your might
Doc Bob