10 Alpha Lipoic Acid Rich Foods & Sources

Foods that are rich in alpha lipoic acid can have a benefit to your overall health and wellbeing. Alpha lipoic acid is not classed as a vitamin but has some very powerful antioxidant effects within the body, including supporting the activities of major vitamins.

This is a compound that has only recently been shown to present antioxidant and protective abilities in the body. Alpha lipoic acid has quickly become one of our favourite antioxidants.

Some Benefits of Alpha Lipoic Acid

Alpha lipoic acid rich foods can provide a healthy dietary source of alpha lipoic acid, which in turn will replenish levels of vitamins such as vitamin C and E. Through these activities, alpha lipoic acid might stimulate collagen production and improve skin appearance.

Alpha lipoic acid is almost as powerful as glutathione as an antioxidant and will support cleansing activities in the body, such as liver detoxification and removal of harmful free radical molecules. Lipoic acid has remarkable abilities to scavenge for harmful and highly energy electrons.

One major duty of alpha lipoic acid is to support with the protection of the healthy fatty acids in your cell membranes. Not only are these crucial to maintain core cell functions, but this sort of activity assists with the reduction of cancerous events in the body.

ALA is also an assistant to mitochondrial energy production, this is where alpha lipoic acid is stored and used most after absorption from food. Alpha lipoic acid has also been heavily linked to healthy weight regulation and lean body growth. Diets rich in alpha lipoic acid may therefore encourage a healthier body weight.

The only reason alpha lipoic acid isn’t a vitamin is because the body can produce it, in addition to absorbing ALA through nutritionally rich dietary sources. You can read a summary of all the possible health benefits coming from alpha lipoic in our previous article covering ALA.

Our Top 10 Alpha Lipoic Acid Rich Foods

When eating alpha lipoic acid rich foods, you won’t need to worry about if it is water or fat soluble. This is because you can uptake alpha lipoic acid via both water or fat molecules in your digestive system. When eaten, alpha lipoic acid is converted to useable DHLA.

Studies have measured the absorption of ALA in the digestive tract and found it to be highly bioavailable and absorbable. ALA is especially bioavailable in liquid form. This extends to supplementation, where some studies have safely used ALA up to 1200 mg. ALA has extremely low toxicity as well, compared to other essential food minerals or compounds. Let’s discuss our top 5 lipoic acid rich foods that you can easily integrate into your diet.

Ginger Root

Raw uncooked ginger root, as you would add to a homemade fresh juice drink, contains an impressive 22.3µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram of uncooked ginger root. Remember this is a raw amount and not cooked. However, this is still quite impressive. You can find instructions on how to use ginger in a juice from one of our juicing recipe articles. You can find this here.

Broccoli

Another vegetable rich in alpha lipoic acid is broccoli. This vegetable contains roughly 0.9µg per g of naturally occurring lipoyllysine form alpha lipoic acid. Broccoli is very rich in antioxidants and offers a good source of synergistic alpha lipoic acid to go with these. Again, broccoli is very flexible in terms of dietary inclusion and can easily be added to pretty much any meal.

Tomato

Tomato offers about 0.6µg/g of alpha lipoic acid. This is not much, but it gives a good indication of a food with an average amount of alpha lipoic acid that you probably eat a lot of. However, of all the vegetables, tomatoes rank amongst one of the highest in alpha lipoic acid.

This comes in the lipoyllysine form and tomatoes are a staple part of most people’s diets. Remember to ensure they are as fresh and organic as possible for maximising the nutrients available to you.

Spinach

If you are looking for a food rich in alpha lipoic acid that is plant based, look no further than spinach. This plant nutrient superfood contains active natural alpha lipoic acid at concentrations approximately five times higher than some of the other ALA rich foods. That includes vegetables such as broccoli and tomato that we’ve mentioned here.

Spinach was measured to contain 3.15µg/g of alpha lipoic acid, in dried spinach leaves, stamping its claim as the veg champ of ALA. This comes in a naturally occurring form of ALA called lipoyllysine. The only massive drawback to spinach is the oxalate content, which is a calcium binding antinutrient. Otherwise this is a real standout nutrient dense food. Spinach goes with most meals and can easily be integrated into your diet.

Beef

Beef meats are a household favourite and a really good joint of beef will contain 13.4µg of ALA per gram of raw beef. Once cooked alpha lipoic acid levels reduce significantly to 4.2µg of alpha lipoic acid. Beef is a staple meat and easy for most people to integrate into their meals for a diet rich in alpha lipoic acid. It is also useful to know the differences in certain nutrients after they have been cooked.

Carp

If you are looking for a fish source of alpha lipoic acid to encourage an alpha lipoic acid rich diet, then look no further than carp. Cooked carp fish meat contains up to 3µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram of carp. This is an interesting fish to try if you want to improve your dietary intake of fish.

Halibut

Another fish source to encourage an alpha lipoic acid rich diet is halibut. Cooked halibut meat contains 1.8µg ALA per gram of Halibut. This is another exotic fish for you to try out.

Egg

Egg contains one of the highest concentrations of alpha lipoic acid. Boiled egg whites contain 7.2µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram of egg white, while egg yolks have 3.2µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram. This is quite nutrient dense for a cooked food. Egg offers a rich source of ALA and a really easy way to supplement some additional alpha lipoic acid into your diet.

Chicken

Chicken has amongst the highest concentration of alpha lipoic acid of all meats, containing 4.6 µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram of cooked chicken. Cuts of chicken are one of the most affordable meats and can easily be added into your diet. It certainly does help that chickens are generally supplemented with alpha lipoic acid to encourage their growth by farmers. This might be why chicken meats have a higher alpha lipoic acid content, as it allows the levels of this nutrient to build up.

Chicken Liver

In addition to chicken meat, chicken liver contains a large amount of lipoic acid as well. You can enjoy chicken liver as part of a chicken liver pate and this makes a really tasty snack. Chicken liver, that has been cooked, contains 2.7µg of alpha lipoic acid per gram of liver.

Conclusion

Alpha lipoic acid is an antioxidant that is not very well known, but it plays a significant role in assisting the body with protecting itself from damage. Particularly from highly energetic free radical molecules, that will otherwise disrupt the cell structure and possibly your overall health. ALA seems to be important in the conservation of other body antioxidants that we can’t manufacture ourselves, including vitamins C and E.

Alpha lipoic acid is mainly used and accumulated in the mitochondria, where most of your body’s energy production occurs. The body produces some alpha lipoic acid, in addition to the dietary alpha lipoic acid absorbed in the digestive tract.

There are various food sources rich in lipoic acid that are available for you to obtain adequate alpha lipoic acid, or to support a higher intake of ALA.

The major animal sources of alpha lipoic acid include beef, chicken and chicken liver. For chicken, this is most likely because of the supplemental alpha lipoic acid added to their feeds. While raw ginger root and spinach have the highest amounts of naturally occurring alpha lipoic acid of all the vegetables.

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