by Sasha Reddy
Food not only fills our stomachs but also fuels our lives. While a cupcake may make you feel more satisfied, a carrot provides more essential vitamins, minerals, etc. It’s clear which one’s the better nutritional bang for your buck. However, eating all the right nutrients doesn’t guarantee you’re actually “getting enough” of what you need.
Maximizing the benefits of the nutrients we consume is not merely about what we eat, but also how effectively our bodies utilize them—a phenomenon known as bioavailability. Bioavailability quantifies how much of a consumed compound can be absorbed. Vitamin C, for example, is typically 70-90% bioavailable,1 meaning most of the vitamin C we consume benefits us, while the remaining 10-30% is excreted before making it into the bloodstream. Sounds like a lot of waste, right? Surprisingly, vitamin C is one of the most bioavailable compounds. Things like magnesium can be highly bioavailable or not depending on the form of magnesium consumed. A 2019 study compared different magnesium supplements across 13 different brands. The study found magnesium oxide supplements to be several times less accessible in our bodies milligram for milligram than other forms of magnesium, like magnesium citrate.2
In some circumstances, the bioavailability of a compound can be significantly improved by pairing it with other specific compounds. Here are a few examples:
Eat These Perfect Pairs
Turmeric + Black Pepper
Turmeric, a spice related to ginger, is widely praised as a culinary hero when it comes to fighting inflammation in the body, but by pairing it with black pepper, its anti-inflammatory benefits can be boosted significantly.
Curcumin is the primary polyphenol found in turmeric. It is largely responsible for turmeric’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and
antimicrobial properties.3 Although curcumin has a lot to offer in terms of pain reduction and cancer prevention, it has extremely low bioavailability. This is because, when we eat turmeric, the liver reacts by chemically altering the curcumin consumed to make it water-soluble, i.e., easier to excrete from the body.4 The more quickly nutrients are expelled, the less time we have to absorb them and reap the benefits.
Thankfully, compounds like piperine can disrupt this process. Found most commonly in black pepper, piperine prevents the liver from modifying curcumin when both are consumed in the same sitting. This means curcumin is retained for longer, giving our bodies the opportunity to absorb it. Adding even just a pinch of black pepper to your turmeric rice or other turmeric-infused dish can boost the curcumin’s bioavailability by as much as 2,000%.
Tomatoes + Healthy Fats
Tomatoes are a good source of several types of carotenoids, fat-soluble pigments known to help lower the risk of cancer and other diseases. Lycopene, one of these carotenoids, is found abundantly in tomatoes and is largely responsible for their vibrant red color. Because it is a fat-soluble compound, consuming lycopene in the presence of other healthy fats, such as nuts, olive oil, or avocados, can increase its absorption more than fourfold.5 Lycopene becomes even more readily absorbed as the tomato’s cell walls are broken down. In other words, the simple act of chopping or cooking your tomatoes makes them more beneficial for you! The same is true of other fruits and vegetables. Remember this the next time you find yourself chowing down on a beautiful Caprese salad or a hearty plate of nachos.
Cut Before You Cook
Cruciferous Vegetables
Like tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and other cruciferous vegetables gain some significant health benefits when chopped ahead of cooking. The trick is leaving enough time between cutting up your veggies and heating them for the right molecular changes to take place.
You see, cruciferous veggies contain the compound glucoraphanin and the enzyme myrosinase. The enzyme acts on glucoraphanin and turns it into sulforaphane, a compound that’s been observed to have antimicrobial and anti-arthritic properties, defend against tumors, eliminate breast cancer cells, and many more benefits.6,7 The vegetable’s cell walls must be broken down to initiate this change from glucoraphanin to sulforaphane, but cooking alone doesn’t work. While the precursor compound, glucoraphanin, and the final product, sulforaphane, are both heat-resistant, the enzyme is not. So, when cooking your broccoli whole, myrosinase is degraded before it can do its job, resulting in little to no sulforaphane production. To solve this problem, Dr. Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, recommends the “hack and hold” method: cut up your veggies ahead of time and wait at least 40 minutes before cooking them. This allows enough time for sulforaphane to be produced for maximum health benefits.
Other Notable Circumstances
Calcium and Vitamin D
Osteoporosis, a chronic loss of bone density, is most commonly caused by calcium deficiency. Vitamin D is needed to absorb calcium, so if you’re vitamin D deficient, chances are you’re calcium deficient, too. If osteoporosis is a concern for you, in addition to adding more dairy to your diet, make sure you’re also spending enough time outside to magnify the benefits of that extra calcium consumed!
Iron
We’ve discussed various pairings and methods of increasing nutrient absorption, but what about decreasing it? Sure enough, certain combinations can make the nutrients we need harder to absorb.
The most common vitamin deficiency among humans is iron. Some populations are more susceptible to iron deficiency than others; women are prone to losing iron while menstruating, and vegetarians and vegans often don’t consume enough iron to begin with because their diets lack meat. Several compounds found commonly in plants, such as tannins, have been observed to negatively impact the absorption of iron in the body.8 Where do we get tannins in our diets? Many fruits and veggies contain them, but some of the most notable sources are tea, wine, and coffee. So, it’s worth cutting these drinks from your diet if you’re iron deficient or at heightened risk of deficiency.
If your blood work shows you’re experiencing a vitamin deficiency and having trouble getting yourself back to healthy levels, it’s worth doing your homework. Look at the supplements you’re taking or ways you’re sneaking those nutrients into your diet and research accordingly. Can you prepare your food in a particular way to get the most out of it? Do other things you’re eating need to go? Nutrition isn’t just a food-in-and-waste-out thing; it’s an intricate science, and the better we understand the science, the more we can use it to our advantage.
References:
- Ascorbic Acid – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
- Predicting and Testing Bioavailability of Magnesium Supplements – PMC (nih.gov)
- Curcumin: A Review of Its’ Effects on Human Health – PMC (nih.gov)
- Boosting the Bioavailability of Curcumin (nutritionfacts.org)
- Lycopene – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
- Glucoraphanin – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
- Second Strategy to Cooking Broccoli (nutritionfacts.org)
- Mechanistic and regulatory aspects of intestinal iron absorption – PMC (nih.gov)