All About Zinc

Let’s talk a little bit about nutrition, right? So, there are so many things; there are two main supplements that everybody’s promoting: vitamin C and zinc. We’re going to talk about all of it, but today I want to talk about zinc. What is the deal with zinc? Zinc was used to treat the common cold because it could actually stop the virus from replicating.What does that mean? So replicating is like when we reproduce right. We produce more of us, right? More babies, and so zinc can actually stop the viruses from producing babies. Because we don’t want virus babies, virus babies cause more problems, okay, and so zinc can actually stop that.

It’s usually treated for the common cold; is it going to be, you know, effective for the coronavirus? Nobody knows, okay? But, you know, it can stop viruses from replicating. It can stop them or inhibit them, so it’s a vital nutrient that you need. What are the options you have at the health food store? You can pick up some zinc capsules, or what we promote at Achieve Integrative Health is that we like to get our nutrition, vitamins, and minerals through food.

Where can you get zinc? Right, so one of the things that you can get zinc from, which is rich in animal protein, Now you’re probably saying, “Oh, but Jimmy, you just said in another post that you need to decrease animal protein because animal protein increases acidity in your body and increases inflammation, right?” That is also true, so I’m not saying go out and just, you know, eat a 12-ounce steak every single day. I’m saying you do need animal protein. I’m not saying you have to be vegetarian.

We all need animal protein; that’s why we have four canines, right? Our canines are used to tear meat, right? If you remember the post that I did about the number of teeth we have, you do need zinc, which you can get from animal protein. You can get it from shellfish. Actually, this evening my family and I had some lobster and some lobster tail, so you can get it from shellfish.

You can get it from shrimp, so yeah, let’s all go to, you know, actually the restaurants are closed; you can’t get it, okay? Well, we actually ordered it to go for pickup so you can get zinc from animal protein. You can get zinc from shellfish. Okay, you can. Most people are going to love this.

You can get it from dark chocolate, yeah, so let’s start holding some dark chocolate right now and sending our blood sugar through the roof, but you can get zinc from dark chocolate. Okay, other things that you can get zinc from are seeds and legumes like lentils and beans. Okay, you can get those if you like them. I typically don’t like them, so I don’t eat them.

You can get them from seeds, though you can also get them from nuts. This is why we encourage our patients to eat lots and lots of nuts, like quinoa. Any type of nut you can get zinc from, so just snack on nuts and you will get some zinc.

The last one is something that is, you know, a category of food that people these days are saying don’t eat. This category of food and its grains are right. I mean, all the diets that are coming out say no grains. People have been eating grains for three thousand years; grains weren’t the problem and aren’t the problem.

`We encourage that we achieve integrative health; we do the opposite. We’re not like the paleo diet; we’re not like the diet, which is grain-based. We encourage people to eat grains even if they have Hashimoto’s or an autoimmune disease right now.

I’m not saying that’s across the board; some people are sensitive to grains, and we have to remove them temporarily, but grains are rich. This is a whole other topic, but grains are rich in zinc, and in the Chinese diet, the Asian diet, you know, grains are our staple right now. I’m not talking about white rice that has no nutritional value at all; that’s just all sugar.

I’m talking about complex carbs like brown rice with black rice or just kind of using wild rice; these rice are high in zinc, okay? If you eat those, then that’s going to help boost your immune system. It’s going to help you fight the viruses; any type of virus is also consumed by the coronavirus that we forget.

here’s also the flu that’s going around, and the flu has multiple strains. The flu virus evolves. I know we’re not talking about it, but, you know, that’s more of a concern. So even people are getting common colds because, just thinking about the coronavirus, we get sick, right? We haven’t even talked about the viruses that we actually carry in our bodies, right?

How many of us got chickenpox right? And you know, I’m curious to see what’s going on with the shingles outbreak, because the shingles outbreak is basically the chickenpox virus coming out and playing right. But again, that’s another topic I wanted to focus on today: what we can do to boost our immune system. Let’s increase our zinc—okay, increase our zinc through food.

I mean, if you need it through supplements, then take it through supplements, but I highly recommend you get it through food, right? So, get some animal protein, get some shellfish, get some seeds, some nuts, legumes, let’s get some grains, and everybody’s favorite, let’s get some dark chocolate, all right. Let’s start increasing our zinc so that we can start protecting our bodies.