What food supplements do you need as a vegan? And which nutrients should you supplement with a plant-based diet? These are questions that are now being asked more and more frequently. This much in advance: what the ideal food supplement for vegans looks like depends entirely on what foods you eat regularly. So there is no ONE perfect Nutritional supplements for a vegan dietthat works for everyone. Instead, the intake of vegan food supplements should always be considered on an individual basis.
This article will help you to adapt your necessary nutritional supplements to your personal needs and circumstances. First of all, the question arises as to whether you need a dietary supplement at all. The answer is a resounding YES. There is at least one nutrient that you should cover with a dietary supplement when following a vegan diet. Here you can find out which nutrient is involved and what you should always bear in mind when supplementing your diet as a vegan.
Here is another short Table of contents for you:
- Critical nutrients
- Necessary nutritional supplements
- Criticism of multi-nutrient supplements
- Closing words
Which nutrients should you pay closer attention to in a vegan diet?
The German Nutrition Society (DGE) describes the following nutrients as potentially critical in a vegan diet: Iron, Zinc, Calcium, Iodine, Selenium, Omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, Vitamin B2 and Vitamin B12.
Potentially critical means that they may or may not be critical. With a balanced and well-balanced vegan diet, the requirements can also be met through food intake. We will now go through which food supplements are really advisable with a vegan diet.
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Vitamin B1215 € -
Vitamin D315 € -
Omega 324 €
Selenium, iron, zinc and calcium
The need for selenium, iron, zinc and calcium can easily be met through food intake, if your own diet is balanced. If this is not the case, these nutrients can be potentially critical in any diet.
Iodine
Iodine is a nutrient that can also be critical in a mixed-food diet. Many people cover their iodine requirements with fish. However, fish get their iodine from algae. Therefore Algae a good option to cover your daily iodine requirement. For example, if you integrate dulse algae and iodized salt into your regular diet, it should not be necessary to take an iodine supplement. Depending on how consciously you include algae and iodized salt in your diet, it may make sense to use a vegan food supplement for your iodine requirements.
Omega-3 fatty acids
Basically, there are several omega-3 fatty acids and the omega-3 balance is also influenced by the Omega-6-intake. The long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA are rather difficult to obtain from vegan foods. ALA can be supplemented with Hemp seed, Walnuts, Flax- and Chia seeds, as well as Linseed oil are covered. How can vegans consume the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA?
As with iodine, many people cover their omega-3 requirements with fish, especially EPA and DHA. However, here too, fish do not produce omega 3, but absorb the valuable fatty acids via algae. We can therefore simply leave out the fish as the "middle man" and consume algae directly. For this there are Microalgae oil.
You can either use this directly and isolated as a classic Omega 3 food supplement or you can add a little of the microalgae oil to salad dressings and absorb it that way.
You can order the algae oil in a jar online here.*
Which food supplements are necessary for a vegan diet?
After the critical nutrients, I would now like to introduce you to the few nutrients that you should necessarily supplement in a vegan diet.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is also called Sun Vitamin is a hormone. It is actually a hormone whose production is stimulated by sunlight. Strictly speaking, vitamin D has very little to do with nutrition.
Especially in winter, it is necessary to supplement vitamin D in our latitudes. It doesn't matter whether you eat a vegan, vegetarian or mixed diet. If you regularly escape to sunny countries in winter, you may find that the Vitamin D supplementation do not need. It is best to check your 25-OH-D3 level in a blood test to determine the need for supplementation. However, most vegans should supplement vitamin D.
You can order vitamin D supplements online here.*
Vitamin B12
Here is the nutrient that makes supplementation absolutely essential in a vegan diet. It is currently incredibly difficult to cover his B12 requirement purely through plant-based foods. As there are different types and preparations of vitamin B12, the question naturally arises as to which vegan food supplement is best suited to cover the B12 requirement. As you may have already guessed, this must of course be considered on an individual basis. That's why I would like to tell you a little more about the Vitamin B12 food supplement with vegans.
Digression: Vitamin B12 is not produced by animals or plants, but by microorganisms. B12 is only contained in animal products because synthetic B12 is mixed into the animals' feed as a dietary supplement. Of course, you can leave out the animal as the "middleman". Interestingly, we even produce B12 in our own bodies. Unfortunately, however, at a point in the large intestine that is so far back that we can no longer absorb the B12 ourselves. That is why a Vitamin B12 supplementation necessary with a vegan diet.
What vegan food supplements for B12 are now available?
Basically, there are the forms cyano-, adenosyl-, methyl- and hydroxocobalamin. These are administered in various preparations, e.g. tablets, toothpaste, injections or lozenges. B12 preparations tend to be quite high in dosage, as this makes use of passive absorption. An overdose is not to be feared here, as excess B12 is excreted via the urine. If medication is taken regularly, absorption may also be impaired, which is why a high dosage is necessary.
Incidentally, it doesn't matter if you forget to take your B12 supplement for a day or two, because the liver stores vitamin B12 in the body for the long term. It is only important that the store is filled beforehand. It is best to check your B-12 status with a blood count. The holo-TC value, which is somewhat more meaningful than the B12 serum value, is a good way of doing this.
To be on the safe side, you can also use a vegan food supplement for B12 intake that contains several forms (e.g. adenosyl- & methylcobalamin). Whether you use drops or tablets is more a matter of convenience. If you don't like swallowing tablets, drops are of course a good option.
Here are my two recommendations for vitamin B12 supplementation for a vegan diet:
Vitamin B12 lozenges in a jar you get here plastic-free.*
You can get vitamin B12 in tablet form here.*
And vitamin B12 is available as a droplet here.*
Why multi-nutrient supplements should be viewed critically as food supplements for vegan diets
Multi-nutrient supplements are vegan food supplements that combine several nutrients. However, as personal requirements are individual, this means that these types of supplements are not tailored to personal needs. This means that you may get too much of some nutrients and too little of others. In the worst-case scenario, this can even lead to a toxic oversupply of foods that the human body can store.
I would therefore rather recommend to combine few individual supplements instead of taking a multi-nutrient preparation. The best thing to do at the beginning is to have a blood count to check the relevant values. This will allow you to supplement the nutrients you really need.
Optimal nutritional supplementation for a vegan diet
As already mentioned, there is no such thing as the perfect food supplement for a vegan diet. I recommend that you have regular blood tests and adjust your supplementation based on your values. This way you can see which vegan food supplements are really necessary and don't waste your money on supplements that you don't need. On the other hand, you can see which nutrients you still need to improve.
I hope that this article on vegan nutritional supplements has helped you and that you feel a little more confident! If you have any questions about vegan nutrition or vegan supplements, please feel free to leave me a comment!
All the best,
PS.: Feel free to look further in the Vegan Blog to find out more. For more nutritional knowledge, you can read articles on Niacin, Thiamine or Choline look at. Learn, for example, where the Difference between a plant-based diet and veganism lies.
