What vitamins do I need if I'm a vegan?

Question

I just became a vegan a while ago and I don't know what vitamins I need to take for substitute of the foods that I've given up that are dairy and meat.

Answer 1

There have been vegan Olympic gold medalists and a vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis
http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML_(Draft).htm

A well planned vegan diet DOES NOT require supplementation but a responsible vegan always studies the subject of their own health and how to keep their body completely provided for in every sense. http://www.veganhealth.org/sh
To neglect their body is to define a plant-based diet as unhealthy and is the opposite of helping the animals.

A balanced plant-based diet includes grains(breads, pasta, rice,cereal), legumes(soy, beans, peas, lentils), fruit and vegetables.
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/food_groups.html
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/eating.html
Being vegan can be an art, one whose challenge is to take things that involve the suffering of the innocent and change them into something free of cruelty.

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I'm vegan and these are some of my favorite things to eat:

Breakfast: bananas, cream of wheat with brown sugar and soy butter, cereal, pancakes or french toast with real maple syrup, vegan "sausage" patties, smoothies.

Lunch: VEGAN "SAUSAGE" SANDWICHES, sandwiches with vegan deli slices(Tofurkey is the only one that's kinda funky), fruit, dinner leftovers, couscous salad, vegan sushi, potato or pasta salad.

Dinner: sloppy joes, "sausage" and gravy with homemade biscuits, Spaghetti and Trader Joe's "meatballs" or TVP, lasagna, Thai pad see ew, pad khi mao(drunkard's noodles), pad prig king, tofu+eggplant with basil sauce, yellow thai curry with tofu or vegan chikn and veggies and jasmine rice, Indian dal with homemade roti or dosai, channa masala, aloo gobi, vegetable or minestrone soup, pizza, STEAMED "PORK" BUNS with potstickers or spring rolls, sweet&sour/orange/lemon chikn, vegan pho or wonton soup

I use these sites to find recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com
http://vegweb.com
http://www.recipezaar.com

Answer 2

You really don't need vitamins unless you have a pre-existing medical condition. Vitamin B12 (among other things like riboflavin) which seems to be most people's concern is found in cereal and Silk soy milk. Just try having a glass of soy milk a day that has an adequate amount of most essential vitamins and if you still feel you're not getting everything you need, see your doctor and have them run a blood test to see if you're really missing out on anything. Until then, try not to get warped up in the idea that you have to take multivitamins to be healthy if you have a well balanced diet.

Answer 3

You need the same nutrients as before you were vegan.

Protein--as far as I know, kwashiorkor is pretty much unheard of in the U.S., so you don't need to worry about protein. As long as you eat a variety of foods, you should be fine. In fact, too much protein, not too little, is the problem, even among veg*ans.

Calcium--societies which consume dairy products have HIGHER rates of osteoporosis than societies that don't. Excess protein causes you to lose calcium. There are plenty of vegan foods that have calcium without the fat, cholesterol, hormones, and antibiotics in milk.

Iron--since vegetarian sources of iron are non-heme, you will want to consume something wtih vitamin C with your iron foods.

Vitamin B12--pick up some Red Star Nutritional Yeast, which has vitamin B12, and/or fortified soy milks. We need very little vitamin B12 and our bodies store excess. Most multivitamins have far more than we need.

Vitamin D--depending on how light your skin is and the latitude at which you live, about 10 to 20 minutes of sunlight on your face, arms, and chest, will help your body produce vitamin D. Darker-skinned people or those at higher latitudes may need more time.

Still, it can't hurt to find a vegan multivitamin (one that doesn't have propolis or lactose or gelatin). Many health food stores have vegan vitamins, and you can also get them at either www.veganstore.com or www.veganessentials.com.

Answer 4

Vitamin B12 is a biggie.

If you don't have enough B12, you develop pernicious anemia. It's called "pernicious" because if you have enough folic acid in your diet, all the symptoms are masked until you've had serious nervous system damage.

Another big problem is calcium, although it's not a vitamin, but it is related to Vitamin D. Calcium deficiency is fairly common in the US, even among those who eat meat, because so many people don't consume milk, and because processed milk isn't as good a source as raw milk.

Cholesterol is yet another issue - not a vitamin, merely an important nutrient. It's found only in animal fat. Your body uses it as a precursor to produce Vitamin D, and to produce a number of hormones. This may be the reason so many vegans develop the physique of prepubescent boys.

Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) may be an issue, but it's one easily addressed with a multivitamin, especially if you don't look too closely at the source of the various vitamins.

Answer 5

Well balanced and varied diets have no need for supplements.
Meat consuming or not.

As mentioned vitamin b12 is the only thing that you may have trouble getting, everything else is perfectly obtainable from a completely vegan diet and even that is debated.

It has been proven that a healthy and alkalized digestive tract can produce many of the vitamin B complexes.

the absence of proof for the situation of b12 and other B complexes does not prove the negative or the posative.

Answer 6

It depends on your diet. If you plan your diet well and eat perfectly you will only need a little B12. If you're like most people (vegan or otherwise) a vegan multivitamin will do the trick. You might find you need extra iron if you're female, but wait and see if the multivitamin is enough first becuase iron pills can have nasty side effects.

Answer 7

Every vitamin imaginable, because you cannot force a vegan diet to be balanced. Period. But seriously, if you must be a vegan, pay close attention to calcium and vitamin D, because you get Vitamin D from milk, which you can't drink as a vegan.

There are books on vegan diets; I'm sure they can tell you way more than I can, but just know you're seriously throwing your balance off by becoming a vegan.

Answer 8

Vitamin C and Iron, in conjunction, as the Vitamin C helps with the absorption of the iron. As someone who has dated a few vegetarians, I've found broccoli (and other leafy, dark greens) to be the vegetable of choice since they are high in both.

Answer 9

Paleo diet its a diet based around eating real food unprocessed

Answer 10

You need to take any kind of multi-vitamin
try going here www.peta2.com it will give you alot of information about everything.