Do vegans need supplements? Do you take any? Which do you take?

[Artichoke47]

The answer to your question would obviously depend upon your diet. If you are getting plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes (and are knowledgeable about the nutrients available and needed from such foods), then just make sure you are taking some form of B12, such as from fortified soy, rice, or oat milk; nutritional yeast; or a supplement.

[Tigerlily]

I take a multivitamin supplement every morning and every other day when I feel like I haven't been eating enough B12 fortified foods (like my soymilk), I take my B12 supplement.

Also, try to eat a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. I love fruits so much sometimes I don't eat enough vegetables. Gah.

[boywonder]

Hey, im sure people are getting annoyed but i have'nt being getting a straight answer from anyone.. in order to keep up my vegan lifestyle my parents say i have to start taking vitamins, and i am new to this so i have no idea of what to take. i am 17 years old and am 190 pounds and am wondering if anyone has any ideas what to take.. please help a vegan in need

[kriz]

I take a vegetarian multivitamin daily and alternate with a B12 vitamin (under my tongue twice a week). I take flaxseed oil and drink fortified soymilk or juice.

[Seaside]

boywonder, if your parents claim that you are missing vital nutrients by eliminating animal products, and that therefore you MUST take vitamins, your parents are wrong. I have been vegan for 20 years, and I do not take vitamins on a regular basis because of "deficiencies" caused by eliminating animal products.

Nutrients Contained in Animal "Foods"

Beef............Eggs............Milk............Fish

B2..............A.................A...............A
B3..............D.................B2..............D
B6..............E.................B12............calcium
B12............B2................D...............iron
iron............B3................K
zinc............B6...............calcium
selenium......B12.............potassium
.................folate...........iodine
.................magnesium
.................iron
.................zinc

Animals foods do not provide the full range of vitamins or minerals necessary for health. ALL of the above nutrients are found in plant foods, along with other vital nutrients like phytochemicals, trace elements, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, etc.

The nutrients most often used to attack diets based on plant foods alone are Vitamin B12 and Omega 3 fatty acids. We have an excellent fund of information here on all the different sources of B12, so I will refer you to our B12 sub-forum, except for the following: Vitamin B12 is produced by bacteria. Cows, pigs, lambs, etc. do not get their B12 from eating meat, either (at least, not the free range animals). ALL people, regardless of diet, may suffer reduced ability to absorb B12 as they age. My personal, untested hypothesis on this is that people who rely on animal products for B12 lose their ability to produce their own from healthy gut flora, just as people who rely on artificial laxatives lose their ability to move their bowels on their own.

Omega 3 fatty acids are the reason why so many people include fish in their diets. They are ignorant of the fact that Omega 3 oils are DESTROYED BY HEAT! Do you want to eat raw fish or take a spoonful of flax or hemp oil? There are no disgusting and life-threatening parasitic worms in seed oils. Eggs, and now apparently milk, with added Omega 3 oils as a selling point, will not provide you with Omega 3 nutrition unless they are taken RAW.

If you are truly uninformed of vitamins necessary for health (and I don't mean just you, boywonder, but anyone who might read this thread), you may not notice a crucial vitamin missing from animal foods. VITAMIN C! Did you know that of all the animals that exist in the world, human beings and guinea pigs are the only ones who cannot produce their own vitamin C, and therefore MUST obtain it from the diet. You MUST consume fruits and vegetables to get Vitamin C. You CANNOT get it from animal products. People die much more quickly from Vitamin C deficiency than from Vitamin B12 deficiency. The fact that Vitamin C is completely missing from animal foods, and is a vital nutrient for human beings, is such a huge indictment of animals as food, that the so-called lack of B12 in plant foods pales in comparison.

I can't educate anyone here about all of the vitamins and minerals necessary for health. I do not take vitamins on a regular basis. I do take supplements when I am ill, injured, or I am affected by a minor skin complaint. I take Ester C in the spring and summer to protect my skin from sun damage, as I work out-of-doors and do not use sunscreen. After 5 years of doing this, women younger than I am still come up to me and say they would "kill" to have my skin, so I think what I am doing is working. When I feel a cold coming on, I take Vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea, and I put loads of hot red pepper paste in my soup. When I am injured (actually, right now I am recovering from a serious eye injury that happened a few days ago and required a visit to the emergency room) I take Vitamin C, silica, and homeopathic arnica (topical gel and pellets in the mouth). I do not, however, intend this information as recommendations to others. It is just what I have learned works for me.

If you eat a diet of varied whole foods, you are getting plenty of nutrients, including those which have not been discovered yet. If you are eating lots of veggie convenience and processed foods, you may need supplements. If you are worried, or your parents are worried, go ahead and take them. They won't hurt you. If people are arguing that your vegan diet is deficient from lack of animal products, I suggest you challenge them to the following: You will eat nothing but plant foods for the next three months if they promise to eat nothing but animal products for the same span of time. See who comes out healthier!

[Korn]

Hi,

the only way a vegan or a meat eater can find out if he needs supplements, is to take blood tests.

One reason I'm against general advice is that while some vegans live for many years on a vegan diet without taking supplements and see no symptoms of any deficiency, others are deficient in essential nutrients the day they start on a vegan diet, and should ideally have started dealing with this before going into the process of becoming vegan.
Also, both meat eaters and vegans can be deficient in various nutrients for a while before notice any deficiency.

I can still try to provide some general info about nutrients (which may or may not be relevant to you personally).

Most of all, it's not a question about what pills to take, but about what kind of life to live. As an example, people who stay indoor all day while the sun is shining, and go out of their homes/jobs/schools only at night may take Vitamin D to compensate for the lack of vitamin D we get as a result for being exposed to the sun. Intuitively, I think most people will agree that it's better to get some daylight than to stay indoor all day and eat vitamin D2.

For various reasons, some areas/some soil has low iodine levels. Farmers who know what they are doing, know the iodine levels in the soil, and as you might know, animals in factory farms are often given supplements as fortified food to compensate for various potential deficiencies. They also put cobalt into the soil used for growing animal food if needed, because if they don't, the animals will get too little cobalamin in their diet (cobalamin = B12).

If you live in an area with little iodine in the soil, and don't eat anyone who has taken iodine supplements to compensate for that, you might want to make sure you get enough iodine, for example by taking small amounts of seaweeds (or an iodine supplement). Iodine is usually added to normal table salt. I have never taken any iodine supplements myself, and use only unfortified sea salt, but – like most people (and unlike most factory animals) I regularly eat plant based food imported from many different countries, and it's not very likely that all these plants come from areas with poor soil. But this doesn't mean that you (or your meat eating family) are not iodine deficient!

Some people are concerned about selenium, for the same reasons as they are concerned with iodine: the possibility of seleinum deficient soil. Plant foods are the major dietary sources of selenium in most countries, so this (or the iodine-issue) is not an argument against plant foods: if the soil in an area is short in a certain mineral, it will affect both plant eaters and meat eaters, unless the plant eaters or the animals take supplements.

A main concern for both vegans and meat eaters nowadays is homocysteine, which isn't something you get from food, but which is produced by the body.

Homocysteine levels are associated with heart disease (and many other unhealthy conditions), and your levels might say something about how long you will live. Lacto-vegetarians, who have lower homocysteine levels than meat eaters, are known to live longer than meat eaters, but still, people who die form stroke or other heart related reasons, are known to have higher homocysteine levels than the average population.

Search for homocysteine (search in titles only) on this site, and you'll find more info. In general: too much homocysteine is not good, and homocysteine levels in your body are affected by many things, like stress, suppressed anger, salt-, tea-, coffee-, alcohol and tobacco-consumption, high blood pressure, and your levels of B2, B6, B9 (folic acid), B12, zinc, magnesium, and the so called 'methyl donors' TMG and SAMe. The combination of vitamins C and E may be an antidote to homocysteine, and one that works more quickly than traditional treatments. While they don't actually reduce homocysteine, they seem to protect the blood from clotting.

Don't give up yet! There's plenty of B6 and B9 in plants (read more about B12 below), so if you actually eat plants, and not vegan junk food, you'll get a lot of nutrients in your body daily. Your mother might want to look at this study, showing that the plant eaters that were tested were deficient in calcium, iodine and vitamin B12: it will give her an overview of what some people are most concerned about re. a plant based diet.

Make sure she doesn't only read the beginning of the article, but also this part: 'Using the same standards, though, the standard American diet are deficient in 7 nutrients! The diet of your average American is not only ALSO deficient in calcium and iodine, it's deficient in vitamin C, vitamin E, fiber, folate, and magnesium as well.' This sentence is a bit tricky, because it' forgets' B12....

By the way, it is not difficult to get calcium from a plant based diet, but – just like with meat eaters – we need to know a little about nutrition in order to get the nutrients we need.

The main focus when discussing the difference between eating animals and eating plants, is always vitamin B12. We have four forums dedicated to B12, so for a change, I won't repeat myself. Check these forums!

If you are a little more confused now than before you read this post, I have succeeded! There are no simple answers to your question, and there are no simple answers too a similar question about what meat eaters should do in order to get all the nutrients they need either.

Eat a lot of green, leafy plants, raw ones included. Get some sunlight. Pay attention to B12 levels. Both fortified food and multivitamins may contain the highly debated 'B12 analogues' (also to be found in animal based 'food'), so if you need B12, I'd recommend a B complex supplement taken with some calcium and a little vitamin C (preferably from food, not pills). Some people who have been eating animal products for a long time have large B12 reserves in their bodies, but studies have also showed that 39% of all meat eaters are either B12 deficient or in the 'low normal range', so you never know.

Also, your possibly very high B12 levels (due to earlier consumption of animal products) might not be a good idea at all. (We have a thread about taking too much B12 here: http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169 )

In my humble opinion, the best solution is to change your lifestyle, and not treat symptoms. And remember, health is not only about diet.

Important: Make sure you learn to make varied vegan food that you really like, otherwise you might not keep eating vegan food for long!

You write that 'in order to keep up my vegan lifestyle my parents say i have to start taking vitamins'. Now, what would you require that your parents should do for you to allow them continue eating a non-vegan diet? There are a lot of health risks associated with eating meat and dairy products!

PS - we have a list of vegan protein sources here.

[Korn]

Thanks for that post, Seaside. You know that I strongly agree that it's important and interesting to find out why many vegans who don't take take vitamins on a regular basis seem to do so well without them.

My personal, untested hypothesis on this is that people who rely on animal products for B12 lose their ability to produce their own from healthy gut flora, just as people who rely on artificial laxatives lose their ability to move their bowels on their own.

There is some info here: http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=555 , indicating that meat eaters need more B12 than vegans. Maybe they both produce less, absorb less, need more and also reabsorb less. For sure, people with a healthy lifestyle need less B12 than those with a 'B12-killing' lifestyle.

The fact that Vitamin C is completely missing from animal foods, and is a vital nutrient for human beings, is such a huge indictment of animals as food, that the so-called lack of B12 in plant foods pales in comparison.

Most meat eaters might comment that since they eat both meat and plants, they don't need to be as worried about vit. C levels in meat as vegans who don't eat meat need to be about B12 levels in plants. And, for a change, I agree with them...

Since vegans eat less B12 than those who eat meat, we are more vulnerable for B12 deficiency in soil and water, more affected by mercury, amalgam, chlorinated water, overcooking, tobacco, coffee, sugar, pollution and other vitamin killers.

Our growing list of possible vegan B12 sources contains a lot of plants most people never eat, like bladderwrack, pear cactus or Ming Ri Ye. Other plants are more available, but there are a few important things to be aware of:

1) How many microgram B12 we can expect to find 'pr. serving' of each of these plants.
2) How much of this B12 that is active/effective/useable for the body
3) How often do people eat these plants, and in which quantity
4) How much people who eats these plants (and the plants) are exposed to B12 'reducers'
5) to which degree the sources we have posted in the 'Vitamin B12 in Plants?' forum are correct.

It's also relevant to know how fresh these plants are when eaten.

Most of this info are from non-vegan sources, from people have no interest of giving a false impression that 'B12 is never a problem for vegans'. But as always, I suspect a certain amount of all research and documentation to be wrong, and some to be right. It's normal to find that info which seems correct is shown to be wrong a few years later.

Humans in the western world have focused on eating animal products. We know far too little about nutrients in the ten thousands of plant species that have never been tested for ie. B12. We know there's B12 in for example in oak bark and in leaves from wych elm trees, but we have hardly started to learn about all the possible nutrients we can get from plants.

[boywonder]

Hey,Thanks alot.. i have learned so much in such a little time..(seaside, im going to challenge my dad ) but im going to get my blood tested this week.. and im going shopping for food in the next week too and after the test i will see what is up.. most likely nothing since i have been doing this for 5 days and have more energy then i have had before, but thanks alot everyone for the most support in my decision. THANKS

[Seaside]

Posted by boywonder:

(seaside, im going to challenge my dad )

Blood tests are a very good idea if you are concerned about vitamin deficiencies. Anyone can get them; diet is a factor, but so are a lot of other things!

[snivelingchild]

In a couple of days I'll be going to a job fair for Whole Foods and I applied to work in the "whole body health"/supplement/herb/hygeine section. I want to do some research so I can become more familiar with suplement brands and where they derive ingredients to have a better knowledge of what is suitable for vegetarians and vegans, but so far I've come up dry. I want to be able to say I can offer more for veg customers than hunting around for little V's on bottles. Does anyone know of any links that might help me out?

[spo]

That sounds like it could be a great job, Sniv.
This business about vegan friendly supplements could be a problem, because the brands that Whole Foods carries may not be the sure-fire vegan ones. They are listed on the vitamin sections of these two websites: www.veganstore.com and
www.veganessentials.com.

If Whole Foods does not carry those brands, you could still help your customers out because, I do believe, Solgar is very veg friendly, although I'm not sure of their vegan status. Whole Foods does usually carry Solgar.

I hope that helps??
spo

[snivelingchild]

Thanks! That helps alot!

[tails4wagging]

Try Solgar they have a website. Dorwest herbs. (which do dog/cat suppliments).

www.dorwest.com

[feline01]

There's also a line called Veg Life that Whole Foods might have. Also, they sell Rainbow something or other which are sometimes vegan. And their own brand has some vegan varieties, I found their CoQ10 is vegan and cheaper than Solgar.

[foxytina_69]

now im taking lots of things:

-3 calcium/magnesium/vitamin d supplements a day
-multivitamin
-1 tbs hemp oil

and i get my b12 from nutritional yeast (well aswell as the multivitamin)

[eve]

Hi Korn, you refer to homocysteine, and say it isn't something you get from food, but which is produced by the body. Yet you then go on to say that lacto-vegetarians have lower homocysteine levels than meat eaters. So what's the connection?

But as you also say, we can't generalise, and the only way a vegan or a meat eater can find out if he needs supplements, is to take blood tests.

[Korn]

Homocysteine isn't found in food, but what we eat influences the homocysteine levels in the body. We have a thread about homocysteine here.

High homocysteine (hcy) levels are linked with a lot of health problems - not only heart disease. However, there are at least two big questions that are being discussed:

Is high hcy levels just a symptom, a result of a bad health condition - in other words, could it be meaningless to try to reduce the high hcy levels if one doesn't remove the cause of the bad health condition? Example: If eating too little leafy, green vegetables cause too low levels of folate, and folate also has the effect that it is reducing hcy-levels, it won't help much to eat a pill that only adds folate if it doesn't have the same health effects as leafy, green vegetables. Your hcy-levels might drop, but if you still live on junk food, your health condition might not improve much.


Look at this (not specifically written for vegans), from http://www.healthandage.com/PHome/gm=20!gid2=1613

Picture is still incomplete


The authors of this study admit that the major limitation in their prediction model is the lack of decisive clinical evidence that lowered homocysteine levels will result in a reduced incidence of heart disease. They know that elevated homocysteine has been linked to heart disease. They also know that serum homocysteine can be lowered with therapeutic doses of folic acid and B12. (Based on a literature review, the researchers estimated that supplementation with 1 mg folic acid and 0.5 mg B12 would lower serum homocysteine levels by 33% in those with starting levels of 12 micromoles/liter.)


What is still unclear is whether elevated homocysteine is a cause of heart disease, or is the result of damage already done. This question of cause-or-effect is what is holding up some scientists' decision on whether or not to recommend routine homocysteine testing as a standard procedure for all those at risk for heart disease.


While this question remains to be answered, the authors of this study point out that vitamin therapy is inexpensive and well tolerated. They suggest that health professionals consider folic acid and B12 supplementation for men over age 45 and women over age 55 as a cost effective way to lessen the burden caused by heart disease.

When discussing folate supplements, it's important to be aware of so called 'masking'-issues. For example, if you have low B12 levels, eating a lot of dark, leafy green vegetables will increase your folate levels, and/but this might remove some of the problems associated with low B12 levels. resulting in that a person could have low B12 levels without noticing it, due to ie. eating folate supplements, because the folate supplements masks the B12 deficiency. That's why it's normally recommended to take B12 with folate. This raises two questions:

Maybe the B12-related symptoms weren't supposed to be treated with B12 at all, but by eating more leafy green vegetables, meaning that the RDA for folate are too low (adjusted to the diets of meat eaters, who normally eat way less plants of all sorts than vegans)?

Maybe adding homocysteine-reducing pills, or even B12, in itself is a major masking operation, which masks the fact the most people eat unhealthy food and live unhealthy lives? Maybe the only, function solution is to change our lives AND the way we treat our food, water, soil and air?

Homocysteine causes blood clotting, which again causes problems for the heart.

B6, B12 and folic acid can lower homocysteine levels over the course of a few weeks. In contrast, vitamins C and E can act within hours. While they don't actually reduce homocysteine, these vitamins appear to protect the blood from clotting. Could it be that high hcy levels are not as dramatic for people who have good levels of antioxydant vitamins?

Just to avoid possible misunderstandings, I do NOT think that high hcy-levels should be ignored, or suggest that reducing hcy-levels alone is not a good thing in itself.

I would recommend to have a look at this article, written by Christina Bolander-Gouaille. She has written one of the books I have on homocysteine. It is not at all written from a vegan perspective, but she seems to be a lot more well-informed than the late (anti-vegan) Victor Herbert, often used as a source for B12 info.

[catmogg]

I don't like eating seaweed so i take a kelp supplement to keep up my iodine intake....
p.s. i love the film amelie and this actress is also in Dirty Pretty Things, which is another of my favourites!!

[andesuma]

I have sort of a strange question, I am hoping some of you wonderful vegans can help me out with...


I've been vegan for a long time(9 yrs. now), and just recently started taking a multi-vitamin..(I've never been deficient in anything until recently.. I became anemic because of my lack of iron..) so, I started taking:
EarthSource Multi-nutrient, made with whole foods..(it's a 3 a day)

So, anyhow, bluntly my question is... should my urine be so strong and yellow?? Am I losing nutrients from my body?
Why does this happen??

thank you in advance!

[DianeVegan]

Your urine is so strong and yellow because some of the water soluble vitamins get filtered through the kidneys - not all of the vitamins in the pills are used by your body so it gets rid of the rest. That wasn't very scientific but I hope it helps!

[eve]

In other words you don't need so much, that is why you excrete the excess. Just think about all those others in the same situation, plus women taking HRT or 'the pill', etc, and other medications that all go into the waterways of our countries, meeting up with the horrible excretions from the abattoirs. You may find that eating iron-containing foods, without blocking the benefits by drinking coffee or alcohol, may deal with your anaemia.

Perhaps one a day of those tabs would be sufficient, andesuma?

[JHE]

I have sort of a strange question, I am hoping some of you wonderful vegans can help me out with...


I've been vegan for a long time(9 yrs. now), and just recently started taking a multi-vitamin..(I've never been deficient in anything until recently.. I became anemic because of my lack of iron..) so, I started taking:
EarthSource Multi-nutrient, made with whole foods..(it's a 3 a day)

So, anyhow, bluntly my question is... should my urine be so strong and yellow?? Am I losing nutrients from my body?
Why does this happen??

thank you in advance!

Drink your urine! Vegans get a better response with urine therapy than meat eaters!

[tipsy]

Drink your urine! Vegans get a better response with urine therapy than meat eaters!

ewwwwwww

[foxytina_69]

theres a reason urine comes out of you, and it should stay out of you.

[StmpyElephant]

It's hard to find a multivitamin..only B complex's etc...

I am considering taking spiralina, which like you are involves a few capsules a day.

However, the iron, calcium and protein benefits just look too damn good.

Plus, is vegan!

[eve]

Don't be conned StmpyE. B complex is sufficient and it does include B12. As for the rest, spirulina, iron, calcium etc - well they may look damn good in the advertising literature, but you'll only be putting your hard earned cash into the deep pockets of the supplement manufacturers. There's plenty of everything in normal food that is not boiled to blazes.

[andesuma]

It's hard to find a multivitamin..only B complex's etc...

I am considering taking spiralina, which like you are involves a few capsules a day.

However, the iron, calcium and protein benefits just look too damn good.

Plus, is vegan!

_____

Maybe just get it in powder form, and put some in a morning fruit smoothie??

I try and have a berry smoothie in the mornings, with flax oil & hemp oil, sometimes almond butter, and a banana.., I've been thinking of more things to add to it though..and Spirulina is definitely a good option!
Also, I've contemplated rice protein powder, because I am pretty athletic and need to start increasing my protein consumption...

[Kevster]

A new vegan society multi vitamin product...

http://www.vegansociety.com/catalog/...roducts_id=239

[Pob]

I wish they would have put some iron and calcium in it

I know that I don't usually eat enough dark greens, so I take a multivitamin with those in.

[Michael Benis]

There is calcium and iron in so many foods, I really wouldn't worry too much.

Cheers

Mike

[Michael Benis]

I have sort of a strange question, I am hoping some of you wonderful vegans can help me out with...


I've been vegan for a long time(9 yrs. now), and just recently started taking a multi-vitamin..(I've never been deficient in anything until recently.. I became anemic because of my lack of iron..) so, I started taking:
EarthSource Multi-nutrient, made with whole foods..(it's a 3 a day)

So, anyhow, bluntly my question is... should my urine be so strong and yellow?? Am I losing nutrients from my body?
Why does this happen??

thank you in advance!

Do you know why you weren't getting enough iron? It's in many foods - apricots, beans, cabbage, green leafy vegetables, dates, figs, lentils, millet, molasses, nuts, parsley, prunes, pumpkins seeds, quinoa, raisins, sesame seas, tofu and wholemeal bread etc. You're probably be better off upping these foods than taking supplements. The yellow urine is from the B vitamins in your supplement.

Cheers

Mike

[Hemlock]

I just found this thread! I totally freaked out today because my urine was bright fluorescent yellow, I thought I was dying
Anyway looked up the causes on google and they said b vits cause this, I just started taking vit b complex yesterday
Oh the horror of it all.

[Hemlock]

Anyway, dying of yellow disease aside
Today's Daily Mail has an article on a wondrous new pill that combats prostate cancer. called Zuflamend it is available from health food shops for the princely sum of £25.00.
It is based on the premise that studies show vegetarians are HALF as likely to get it as meat eaters.
The supplement is based on olive oil and 10 different herbs.

Can anyone see the flaw in this Ff's if people are too feckin' lazy to cook with a bit of olive oil and chuck some herbs in - even when I was an omni I ate loads of olive oil, herbs and veg.

Presumably this means that Mr Average doesn't have to bother about horrid things like vegetables and herbs and foreign food like olive oil, he can just take a couple of pills and go dine on crap at mcDonalds as usual

[harpy]

Presumably this means that Mr Average doesn't have to bother about horrid things like vegetables and herbs and foreign food like olive oil, he can just take a couple of pills and go dine on crap at mcDonalds as usual

Stoopid, isn't it? On the plus side, some people may manage to read past the rubbish and work out that it would make more sense to go veggie than buy the pills...

Hope the "disease" is better!

[SeaWillow]

Good morning Lovelies!

Can anyone recommend a good multivitamin I can gift to my 23 year (vegetarian-not-yet-vegan) daughter? I take Nature's Choice (without iron; I'm 49) her needs are different.

We're both concerned about her possible lack of enough protein too, but that's for another thread.

Thanks for ANY suggestions.

Jean

[RedWellies]

Can I ask why she needs a multi-vitamin? A healthy diet should give all she needs if she is veggie.

[herbwormwood]

Can I ask why she needs a multi-vitamin? A healthy diet should give all she needs if she is veggie.

I agree, a healthy vegan diet should not need to be supplemented with anything, and certainly should not be low in protein!
However certain vits and minerals *may* be lacking if she does not have fortified foods:
Iodine;
Vitamin B12;
Vitamin D.
Check out
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/
for more info on all these.

[Tigerlily]

Maybe you can take your daughter to the doctor's to get bloodwork done so they can see what she is low in.

[SeaWillow]

Thanks, TigerLilly. I have suggested the same last night and learned she recently had a complete work up and when asked about the results, she was told she's "the picture of health." They couldn't find any problems. She says she doesn't feel healthy. You can imagine her frustration.

Jean

[Tigerlily]

Could it be depression?

I could eat the most healthiest meals ever, take my multi vitamin, make sure to get all my nutrients, but if I'm depressed, I still feel crappy.

[insubordination]

The vegan essentials website has some good ones - if a little pricey. I was always very careful with my diet making sure I got the RDI of everything but an excess of this can cause a deficiency of that (zinc/copper for example) so a multi is a good idea. Make sure it includes iron, B12 and iodine and calcium as they were my main problems.

I've heard Omega 3s can help with depression though I haven't done any research.

[ScottHughes]

Does anyone know about or have a link to an article that explains the vitamins and minerals that a vegan needs to intentionally consume, as compared to non-vegans. Obviously, there's certain vitamins and minerals that tend not to be in vegan food, but are regularly found in a non-vegan diet. Thus, non-vegans don't have to think about those minerals and vitamins much.

I think I might get a multivitamin supplement, so I would especially want a list to verify that it has everything I may of which I may have a deficiency as a vegan.

[RedWellies]

Here's a great page which lists all the vitamins, etc humans need. You can click on the individual vitamins to find sources (not all vegan unfortunately) and amounts needed. I don't see why we would be deficient in something just because we're vegan.

[Korn]

Obviously, there's certain vitamins and minerals that tend not to be in vegan food, but are regularly found in a non-vegan diet.

Why is that obvious? Remember, people who eat meat eat animals who basically get their nutrients from... plants (or from supplements added to the diet of the animals they eat).

Look here: Nutrient deficiencies more common in meat eaters than in vegans

[ScottHughes]

There are vitamins and minerals that humans get from meat and dairy, and are rare or humanly indigestible from plant sources. I want a list of those vitamins and minerals so I can make sure to get them.

Thanks,
Scott

[Soul Rebel]

From what I've read the most important ones that we should somewhat worry about are B12, D, and omega-3 fat. The cereal I eat every morning is fortified with B12, D, and contains flax seed oil so it also covers omega-3. Therefore, I don't take any supplements.

[ScottHughes]

From what I've read the most important ones that we should somewhat worry about are B12, D, and omega-3 fat. The cereal I eat every morning is fortified with B12, D, and contains flax seed oil so it also covers omega-3. Therefore, I don't take any supplements.

What cereal is that?

[Soul Rebel]

Health Valley Brand Organic Golden Flax Cereal in which I add Cascadian Farm Purely O's.

[j&k]

The vitamins (and EFA's) most commonly lacking in a vegan diet are:

(1) Vitamin B-12
(2) Vitamin D - if not living in a place close to the equator or not getting sufficient exposure to sunlight
(3) DHA/EPA
(4) Zinc
(5) Selenium
(6) Iodine (in some countries)

Hope this is helpful.

Best,
Josh

[Vagetarian]

My wife and I both had blood tests drawn recently. I'm vegan and eat very healthy, she is not vegan, although she eats healthier than the average person (because I do most of the cooking). She was found to have low B12 whereas mine was fine. My Omega 3 index was a little low as is for most people who don't eat a lot of fatty fish or supplement. If you're new to veganism read the book Becoming Vegan. It will explain a lot about vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. After all the research, reading and blood tests I've decided to take a vegan multivitamin food supplement called Vitaforce and a liquid DHA supplement. I use to be in the camp that believed that no supplementation was neccessary with a good varied diet. But because I'm not perfect, live in a temperate climate where vegetables and fruits grow in seasons, I think to be in optimal health I should supplement with healthy food dirived supplemets.

I'm also taking Hemp Protein and Brewer's Yeast because I want to bulk up a little, but that's completely unnecessary for good health and I would never recommend taking protein supplements unless you are into weight lifting.
HOpe that helps, Mike