Vegan Nutrition

With all the junk nutritional science among vegan circles, I figured I'd make an attempt to help in this area by discussing some of the nutrients important to look at on a very basic level and provide links to more information. In Vegan For Life by Norris and Messina, they tried to make a point that if you eat a varied diet, you should be fairly well off. Most people who have major problems with their health were on a stricter diets, such as raw food or low-fat diet. Also, craving likely have some meaning. But its likely for nutrients, not for an actual food. So if you crave eggs, you might need arachidonic acid, choline, DHA, or cholesterol (which is discussed below).


Disclaimer: I am no expert in the area and what each person needs varies. The advice given here is for educational purposes only. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified health care provider (something that supplements say you should do before you take them). Or not. Who am I to tell you what to do?

The order is not based on importance.

B12- can only be obtained through fortified foods of supplements.1 2

Calcium- Vegans, on average, have lower intakes. You may want to supplement. Vegan need just as much as non-vegans, despite the claims otherwise. 1 2

Vitamin D- D2 is not as effective as D3, and D3 is normally animal derived. If you are not outside during the day, you will likely need to supplement. D3 supplements are more expensive, so you may want to stick with D2 unless you are having problems. And if you need D3 and cannot afford vegan ones. 1 2

Choline- The amount you need depends on other nutrients you get. Nonetheless, some believe it may be hard to get enough in a vegan diet. 1 2 3

Cysteine- "Dietary cysteine directly affects how much glutathione you generate. If you don’t know what glutathione is, learn today. It’s vital." 1
2 3

Vitamin K2- This nutrient is in natto and possibly some brands of sauerkraut. But otherwise basically absent in plants. Some people will be able to convert enough K1 to K2 and others may not be able to. One thing that effects your K1 absorption is fat intake- fat helps you absorb K1. You may need supplement K2 if you cannot convert enough. 1 2

 Omega 3- The Omega 3: Omega 6 ratio matters. And you should supplement DHA, as it is harder to make, but can easily be made into EPA if needed. 1 2

Protein- Lysine is one protein amino acid the is relatively low in many plant foods. It is found highest in legumes, quinoa and pistachios. According to Norris, if you meet your requirements for this, you will have gotten plenty of protein. However according to NoMeatAthelete, if you get most of your protein from soy, you may need to make sure you are getting enough methionine.   1
2

Taurine- "What I understand about taurine is that we synthesize it from cysteine, methionine and B6 in our diets. This synthesis assumes you have the enzyme Cysteine dioxygenase. I only found one study on vegans, which reveled that they have very low levels of taurine."
"Taurine is not found in plant foods. Non-vegetarians typically eat 40 - 70 mg of taurine per day. Vegans have been shown to have lower blood levels of taurine. It is not known whether this compromises health in any way, but very few vegans supplement with taurine, including healthy teenagers who have been vegan from birth."
If you get enough protein, then chances are you have enough taurine. But, if you have problems converting as effectively as the average person, you may need to supplement directly. Synthetic taurine is out there, and I think it is even in Monster's energy drink. 1 2

Fats- You need to get enough fats in your diet, including saturated fats. Fats help with absorption of nutrients. Don't try to eliminate all fats. 1

Cholesterol- Some people have genetic predispositions for high cholesterol. Some have the opposite problem, which may cause problems such as depression, reduced ability to make vitamin D from from sunlight, cancer, or heart disease. This has not been officially supported by Norris or Messina and is based on Quasi-vegan, who admits that there is not enough information. Anyways, cholesterol is only found in animal products and there is no synthetic supplements that I know of. Does this mean if you have a problem with low cholesterol, you must eat animal products? Not necessarily. From Norris, "Back when it was thought that eating cholesterol caused an increase in blood cholesterol, people with high cholesterol or heart disease were warned away from eggs. But then it was found that while some people’s cholesterol levels rise significantly from eating cholesterol, most people’s do not. " So other factors, such as saturated fat intake have an effect on your body's production of cholesterol. If you need a dietary source of cholesterol, try bivalves (particularly oysters) because they lack a central nervous system and therefore are similar to plants as far as ethics are concerned. According to Cox, "Since so many oysters are farmed, there's little danger of overfishing. No forests are cleared for oysters, no fertilizer is needed, and no grain goes to waste to feed them—they have a diet of plankton, which is about as close to the bottom of the food chain as you can get. Oyster cultivation also avoids many of the negative side effects of plant agriculture: There are no bees needed to pollinate oysters, no pesticides required to kill off other insects, and for the most part, oyster farms operate without the collateral damage of accidentally killing other animals during harvesting. (Relatedly, although it's possible to collect wild oysters sustainably, the same cannot be said for other bivalves like clams and mussels. These are often dredged from the seabed, disrupting an entire ecosystem. For that reason, it's best to avoid them.)" So oysters are environmentally friendly and harm less animals than most plant food. Even if you don't need them for nutrition, eat them if you want. It shows the diet is less restricting than many think.   1
2 3

Jack Norris recommends getting tested for B12, D, Calcium, Omega 3s, Iron, and Iodine 1

Phytic acid- I couldn't find much info on Norris or Messina's vegan nutrition page, but it is discussed in their book Vegan For Life (which I do not have access to at this time) including how to reduce intake. So this is based on reading from the book a few months ago. This reduces the absorption of minerals such as iron and zinc. You can reduce it by preparing your food certain ways, such as soaking nuts. Some people take phytase, a digestive enzyme, to  reduce phytic acid.

For more info:
http://quasi-vegan.blogspot.com/
http://www.vegan-supplement-checklist.com/
http://jacknorrisrd.com/
http://www.veganhealth.org/
http://www.theveganrd.com/

Click 2 Donates and more

If you do not know, a click to donate is when your click causes money to be generated by sponsors and ads. The money, or some of the money, raised is used for some cause.

One good site for a list of these, and links to other methods of helping, is http://clicks4charity.webs.com/

In case you do not want to go through looking at everything, some of my favorites links that are on there plus a few that may not be on there:

goodsearch.com You can register and choose from a large select of charities. Every search you do through them donates 1 cent. Using their search engine, which is powered by yahoo, is an easy way to give some free money to a cause you care about. They also allow you to donate through your purchases. For information on choosing an effect charity: http://thelifeyoucansave.com/organizations

http://tabforacause.org/home.htm - Install this add-on, and then you donate to a charity of choice every time you open a new tab.

http://www.joinmyvillage.com/- This page donates $1 for various actions. Liking their facebook page donates a dollar. And liking any of the status updates donates $1. The money goes to helping women in India.

givebackmail.com -  You can import your existing email if you want or make a new one. Whenever an ad is loaded (which happens when you perform actions such as send an email, check your mail, delete mail, or even refresh the page), they donate money to a cause of your choice. This is fairly new, so the list of charities may expand. You can use it with multiple emails accounts and social networks. Last month, the amount donated per "donation" was about 6 cents, about 3.6 times higher than last month. Not sure what the rate will settle on in the long run. June was about 7 cents each.

charitii.com- You play a word game and it donates to a cause of your choice. This site is not blocked at my school, like most game sites and I give to charity:water, but there are others.

dogoodeveryday365.com- Daily ideas on ways to help. I've noticed they are pretty good about finding facebook pages that donate when people like the page.

www.cliquealimentos.com.br/site/ - This is a click-2-donate, but you can click every 15 minutes instead of every 24 hours. I normally keep this open when I'm on my computer. It donates 1kg of food every click.

folding.stanford.edu/ - This program by stanford runs in the background, performing tasks that "help scientists studying Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and many cancers."

http://www.charitymiles.org/ - app for iphone or android that raised money when you bike or run.

To make click-to-donates easier to do, I have created a .bat file that opens many of the click-2-donates. Below is the text I use. If you want to steal mine, simply copy/paste it into notepad and save as  "name.bat", putting whatever you want to use as name. sleep is not actually a command, but it still slows it down enough so that it opens all of them in one window. I suggest using google chrome, since it is the fastest of the main web browsers.
Note: before using it, I suggest going through the list on http://clicks4charity.webs.com/ 1st, because some of the sites are in foreign language and it may be difficult to figure out what you are suppose to click. To add more sites just add "explore " and the web site url. Depending on your computer and internet, you may want to divide it into multiple .bat files. I'm not sure if you need to have "@echo Off" or not.

@echo Off
explorer http://www.e-inclusionsite.org/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.noe.jx-group.co.jp/csr/click/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.buildaschool.org/index.cfm
sleep 1
explorer http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_donate_species.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_donate_us.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_donate_pol.html
sleep 1
explorer

http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_donate_rainforest.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donate1click.com/donate-for-cancer.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donate1click.com/donate-for-food.html
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donate1click.com/donate-for-education.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donate1click.com/donate-for-rainforest.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donate1click.com/donate-for-health.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.twowings.com/de/spenden/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.bhookh.com/
sleep 1
sleep 2
http://www.fandonation.com/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.polskieserce.pl/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.craigresearchlabs.com/cancer.html

sleep 1
explorer http://www.redjellyfish.com/rj-thankyouJGI.shtml
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.hungrychildren.com/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clickbokin.ekokoro.jp/139.html
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.klimatbalans.se/klicka.html
sleep 1
explorer http://cannecy.free.fr/waste/
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.inochinobokin.jp/
sleep 1
explorer http://wapnavi.net/click/template/pc/index.html
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.donarsindesembolsar.net/
sleep 1
explorer http://click.hospitalitynet.jp/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.diewaldseite.de/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.kyokueikoumu.co.jp/ctoc/click.html
sleep 1
explorer http://www.racefortherainforest.com/
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clicktogive.com/Breast-Cancer.aspx
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clicktogive.com/Feed-the-Poor.aspx
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clicktogive.com/Stop-Child-Abuse.aspx
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clicktogive.com/End-Homelessness.aspx
sleep 1
explorer http://www.clicktogive.com/Sponsor-Children.aspx
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.cosmo-oil.co.jp/kankyo/charity/
sleep 1
explorer http://actuanimaux.com/cause/minnie/
sleep 1
explorer http://actuanimaux.com/cause/arlequin/
sleep 1
explorer http://actuanimaux.com/cause/apolot-2/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.greinermaltz.com/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.habitat.pl/en/aktualnosci.aspx
sleep 1
explorer http://www.chintai.net/contribution/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.porloschicos.com/
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://cannecy.free.fr/solar/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.hungerfighters.com/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/global-warming/
sleep 1
sleep 1
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/primates/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/oceans/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/children/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/violence-against-women/
sleep 1
sleep 2
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/breast-cancer/
sleep 2
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/big-cats/
sleep 1
sleep 2
explorer http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/rainforest/
sleep 2
explorer http://www.pah.org.pl/nasze-dzialania/8/pajacyk
sleep 2
explorer http://cannecy.free.fr/iforest/en/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.cliquesemiarido.org.br/eng/default.asp
sleep 2
explorer http://www.marzenia.bphtfi.pl/
sleep 1
sleep 2
explorer http://www.tree4life.com/ingles/ingles.htm
sleep 2
explorer http://solvepoverty.com/
sleep 2
explorer http://www.tchforegon.org/
sleep 2
explorer http://www.clickforyourcharity.org/
sleep 2
explorer http://www.okruszek.org.pl/
sleep 1
sleep 2
explorer http://www.landcareniagara.com/
sleep 2
explorer http://kakaku.com/donation/index.html
sleep 2
explorer http://bokinpark.com/
sleep 1
explorer http://www.noe.jx-group.co.jp/csr/click/