Anonymous says, "In past posts, I believe you have said that Oystermax should be paired with liver
because Oystermax is higher in zinc and liver is higher in copper. However,
looking at the nutritional facts and the container for Oystermax, each serving the Oystermax is 29%
of the daily value per zinc and 32% of the daily value for copper. So would you please confirm or
clarify that taking Oystermax wouldn't necessarily increase the need for copper since it provides
basically the same percentage of the recommended daily amount for both zinc and copper."
Well, I guess, you're making a pretty strong argument that you could just take Oystermax,
but I think if you just take oysters, there are other reasons to balance it with liver.
For example, liver is giving you a lot more vitamin A than oysters are,
and liver is higher in B vitamins. So I don't really think that makes...
I think because there are many other benefits of liver that are relatively more accentuated, rather
relative to oysters, that is still makes sense to also get liver. And then the other thing is
zinc and copper might be well-matched relative to the RDA,
but liver is much more disproportionately a source of copper.
So I guess it's a stronger argument that specifically with respect to zinc and copper,
you would want to balance liver with oysters lest you get too much copper and not enough zinc,
but there are still those other reasons that liver is giving you certain nutrients that oysters are
probably not fulfilling all your needs for. And then the flip side of that would be,
if you are getting liver that's providing you much more copper than zinc. So I do think at that
point it does become relevant to say, you probably need more zinc than you're getting from the liver
and the reason to put the Oystermax in. Another way to look at this would be
relative to the RDA is one thing, but relative to your individual copper needs might be another.
And so if you are doing, for example, blood testing and your copper levels are
specifically low and your zinc levels are not. Then I actually think liver is a better thing to
increase than oyster because oyster is so high in zinc that a lot of that copper is going to
be chelated. So if your zinc levels are very, very good and you increase zinc even further,
you will make that copper less potent, whereas liver's going to really jack up the copper
relative to zinc and is a much better thing to include if you're specifically trying to...
if you're specifically trying to correct a copper deficiency,
I would also note that oysters are going to vary from batch to batch in their zinc-to-copper ratio.
And I think oysters are more reliably a source of zinc relative to copper and relative to liver.
And liver is much more consistently a source of copper relative to zinc and relative to oysters.
And so I stand by what I said in terms of taking into account the variation
in different species of oyster, in different oceans and different batches of oyster products,
but Oystermax does batch testing. And so what I answered you in this particular answer would be
my answer for when you know that the batch of oyster you're getting has roughly equal
zinc and copper. So thank you anonymous for your question, hope that helped.