Vitamins

7 Tips for Sticking With Your New Vegan Diet

Maybe you’ve decided to jump right into a vegan diet or maybe you’re dipping a toe in the water and opting for a gentle transition. Either way, there are lots of things that newbie vegans can do to make their diet feel more practical and sustainable for the long run.

1. Embrace your cooking style.

In their annual click bait story on the “best” diets, US News and World Report suggested that eating vegan means spending lots of time in the kitchen. This is a poorly-informed and limited view of veganism. […]

By Ginny Messina|2017-11-01T17:17:56-04:00January 16th, 2017|Tags: Fat, Nutrition, Omega-3 Fats, vegan transition, Vitamins|13 Comments

Vitamin D Supplements Are Still Important for Some Vegans

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is recommending that healthy postmenopausal women avoid low-dose supplements of vitamin D (up to 400 IU) or calcium (up to 1,000 milligrams) because evidence is lacking for a protective effect and there may be a small increase in risk of kidney stones.

It’s not really clear whether these supplemental doses are too low to have an effect (the evidence was lacking for a recommendation regarding higher doses) or whether it’s just that supplements are unnecessary if your diet already provides enough of these nutrients. The preliminary draft report makes no mention of […]

By Ginny Messina|2012-06-15T11:56:14-04:00June 15th, 2012|Tags: Supplements, Vitamin D, Vitamins|9 Comments

Fat Soluble Vitamins: Do They Stand Between Vegans and Health?

This month, I’m working on a couple of responses to recently published criticisms of vegan diets. Among the issues that are frequently raised is one that focuses on fat-soluble vitamins. Some of the concerns are based on legitimate questions about active forms of these vitamins and their absorption from plant foods, and others aren’t. Regardless of those questions, though, plant foods can and do provide enough of the fat soluble vitamins A, D and K. (Vitamin E, which is also fat-soluble, is not involved in the controversy since it’s found in a […]

By Ginny Messina|2011-06-20T12:33:48-04:00June 20th, 2011|Tags: Nutrition, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, vitamin K, Vitamins|59 Comments

Meeting Protein Needs on a Vegan Diet: The Calorie Connection

People often ask why any adult would need a diet providing more than 5 to 6 percent of calories from protein. After all, human breast milk is around 6 percent protein and it supports health during the fastest period of growth of the entire lifecycle. How could adults need a more protein dense diet than an infant?

Babies certainly have high protein needs for their size. They require almost 0.7 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. Vegan adults need far less—around 0.4 […]