As a vegan what kind of daily vitamin should i take?!
As a vegan what kind of daily vitamin should i take?
i didn't think i would need any, but i have been vegan for 3 months now and i have noticed i get cold alot easier (used to never get cold, now i feel like an old lady) also when i am cold my skin is blotchy and purple/blueish. also, i bought a multi-vitamin today in the organic section of my grocery store, for SOME reason i forgot to check the ingredients and when i got home, i found out it actually contain some kind of ingredient w/ milk?wtf? what exact brand of vitamin would you suggest?
Answers:
http://veganporn.com/1052272600.html...
http://www.veganforum.com/forums/archive...
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/mult...
make sure you also eat a lot of protein, many different types of fruits and veggies, keep on varying them for both taste and health benefit, and different kinds of nuts too (but only a palmful, its high in fat.) Drink lots of soy milk, or if your allergic, calcium fortified drinks. good luck!
You get almost everything that you need by eating a wide variety of foods from every food group. And I do mean after eliminating all animal products. But you do have to careful that you supplement with some source of Vitamin B-12.
That's easy to get, though. Most soy milks produced in North America are enriched to match the already enriched profile of cow's milk, and that includes B-12. As well, all foods that are made form soy isolates (that's most vegan "meats") are enriched with B-12 as well.
As for feeling cold, well, if you're in North America, it's been COLD. But if you've significantly cut the amount of fat in your diet, you may need to add some back. That's because some vitamins and nutraceuticals require fats in order to be absorbed by your body.
A pure vegan diet is nutritionally deficient by definition. It does not contain an essential vitamin, B12, and very often is quite deficient in iron. The symptoms you describe can be part of iron deficiency and you need to see a physician to rule this in or out.
If you insist on limiting your diet, you must supplement B12 and should consider an iron supplement. Your body is sending you a strong message about the diet you have chosen and you should consider what this implies. At the least, you need to work with a real dietician or nutritionist, not some online vegan cheerleader, to devise a diet that minimizes the risks to your health and recommends the essential supplements. Brands don't matter as much as finding one that meets your specific needs. You also need to be careful about adequate calcium intake.
Any health food store sells vitamins that will be labelled as vegan sourced. "Organic" refers to agricultural methods and has never meant "vegetarian" or "vegan." Beef and poultry can be organically raised.
You likely get cold because vegan food digests easier and more quickly. That's my idea, anyway.
I do not take any vitamins etc. In the winter, I just wear my touque and coat etc. and I'm OK, but yeah, my hands and feet get cold easily in winter, unless I'm exercising, then I'm OK. I think that was the same before I was vegan anyway, so no difference with me.
If you do research on vitamins, you'll find that it's actually impossible to put vitamins into a pill form. Yup. Read your ingredients on bottle, then research them. You'll see that it's not the vitamin it claims to be. You can only get the whole vitamin from whole foods. Vitamins are complexes, therefore, cannot, as of yet, be replicated outside of a natural whole food. Vitamin pills are just a rip off scam. Well, do your own research and you'll see; doesn't take much research to find out either.
Well, I've been vegan for 7 years now and have never had a problem in terms of lacking certain nutrients. For most B vitamins the body will show signs of a deficiency at about 6 years, which can be detrimental but I'm doing fine. The food in stores these days are so enriched and fortified that even B-12 is found in Vitaminwater. If you make sure you eat a well balanced diet with lots of different color (per se the fruits and veggies) you should have no problems. I too get cold easier but then again I don't really have a lot of fat on me...so I take that as a good thing. But you do have to be really really really careful about any supplement or vitamins that you take because a lot of pills use gelatin in the capsules-but if there would be anything to make sure you get enough of would be iron. Just do a quick search to see what foods carry what nutrients and plan a diet from there...these days its a lot easier being vegan thatn a couple years ago with main stream markets like Vons, Albertsons, etc carrying alternative meat/cheese products.