What “Take With Food” Really Means

I have many patients caught in a conundrum. I recommend supplements that say “take with food,” while at the same time—either at my advice or on their own—they follow a restricted eating window. This means that no calories are consumed except during an eating window that is typically six hours, or some even restrict it to four hours. Personally, I often don’t eat my first bite of food until 5 p.m. or later in the day.

What to do, then, when various nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin K, Coenzyme Q10, phosphatidylcholine, and many others specify on the label to “take with meals”? How can you take a morning dose if your first meal isn’t until noon or later?

Usually, it means “take with fat”

Most commonly—but not always—the advice to take a supplement with food is telling you that it contains one or more nutrients that are fat-soluble. Those nutrients will be very poorly absorbed if there is no fat or oil consumed at the same time as the supplement. The workaround is simple: don’t eat a meal; just take a dollop of oil with morning supplements.

I have a pretty standard morning routine, and my morning supplements are part of that. Several of them are fat-soluble, so they need fat for absorption. I go one of two routes: I scoop out a heaping teaspoon of grass-fed ghee and let that dissolve in my mouth, or I pour myself a tablespoon of organic olive oil. With either one, I swish it in my mouth while standing at the counter dispensing each individual supplement. That constitutes a brief session of oil pulling, an Ayurvedic practice dating back a few thousand years.

Once I’ve got my morning supplements ready to go, I swallow the oil, put a small handful of supplements in my mouth at a time, and gulp them down with a swig of DDW. Not only do I get a dose of healthy oils, but my fat-soluble nutrients can hitch a ride on those oil droplets and be optimally absorbed. No meal necessary. The bonus is that a dollop of pure oil won’t take away from the physiological benefits of the morning calorie restriction, since it provokes no insulin production at all.

Important exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. Zinc, for example, doesn’t necessarily need food to enhance absorption, but causes nausea for some people when taken on an empty stomach. There are other minerals that can be absorbed better when taken with a meal, but that is due to the increased stomach acid that meals provoke. It is the acid, not the food, that is doing the work.

There are other nutrients that are specifically suggested to be taken away from food, such as some enzymes or amino acids. Fortunately, the oil trick doesn’t violate the “away from food” instruction for those either.

If you’d like some guidance on how to best time nutrients around your eating times to optimize absorption and get the most benefit from what you’re taking, let’s have a conversation. You can schedule online, email drnigh_info@gregnigh.com, or call 503-719-4806. Patients in Rhode Island can schedule with me through rhodeislandnaturopathic.com.