Special Dietary Issues for Vegan and Vegetarians

Special Dietary Issues for Vegan and Vegetarians

Special Dietary Issues for Vegan and Vegetarians

Do to the exclusion of some food groups from the diet, there are some key nutrients that may be hard for a vegetarian to receive from their diet. This is of a concern for vegetarians because if the body does not get enough nutrients then deficiencies and health problems will begin to occur. The following are the nutrients that vegetarians need to pay special attention to in their diets.
 

Iron:

Iron is an essential nutrient used in the body to form hemoglobin, which is responsible for carrying oxygen to the body’s cells. There are two different types of iron heme (found in animal foods) and non-heme (found in plant-foods). The non-heme iron that vegetarians consume is harder for the body to absorb. One way that you can aid in the absorption of this non-heme iron is to eat foods rich in vitamin C with each meal.

Protein:

Protein plays a key role in growth, the maintenance of body tissues, building red blood cells, and synthesizing
hormones. The most common source of complete proteins the body needs is animal products. Vegetarians can get complete proteins from a few sources such as soy, milk and eggs (if included in the diet). If there are no sources of complete proteins, vegetarians can still meet their daily recommended intake of protein (45 g for women & 55 g for men) by eating a variety of foods that contain incomplete proteins. 

It used to be thought that in order to get all the necessary proteins needed in a day, but recently this has been debunked. It is important that you consume complementary proteins (that is proteins that are by themselves incomplete but when mixed with other incomplete proteins become complete) throughout the day, but you do not need to mix certain foods together at meals to achieve this. By eating a variety of protein rich fruits and vegetables throughout the day you are sure to get all the complementary proteins you need to make up the necessary proteins for your body.

Calcium:

Calcium is also involved in normal blood clotting, muscle and nerve functioning, and hormone and enzyme secretion. The main source of calcium in the U.S. comes from the consumption of dairy products. If you exclude or limit dairy products in your diet you will have to turn to plant sources and calcium fortified foods in order to get the needed amount of calcium. It is recommended that adults intake about 1300 mg of calcium each day.

Vitamin B-12:

Vitamin B-12 is needed by the body for normal red blood cell formation, makings DNA, and nerve function. The problem for most vegetarians is that this nutrient is only found in animal foods. Vegetarians who consume dairy products do not need to worry because they will get enough vitamin B-12 from these sources. Other vegetarians and vegans need to include products that are fortified with vitamin B-12 in their diet daily

Zinc:

Zinc is important for growth, tissue repair, and energy production. The main place that zinc is found is dairy products and eggs. For individuals who exclude dairy and egg products from their diet, some sources of zinc may include: bran, legumes, tofu, seeds, nuts, wheat germ, zinc-fortified cereals, lentils, and green vegetables. Caution must be used when taking supplements that contain zinc, because if they contain more than 100% of the RDA there is a risk of toxicity.

Vitamin D:

Vitamin D plays a major role in the absorption of calcium from the digestive tract as well as incorporating calcium into our bones and teeth. There are few actual foods that contain significant amounts of vitamin D. The main sources are fortified milk, egg yolks, and liver. Vegetarians and vegans who do not consume these products can get vitamin D from fortified soy milk products and sun exposure. Direct exposure to the sun activates your body to make its own vitamin D, but there are other risks involved with too much sun exposure.

Vegetarian Food Pyramid Guide

Vegetarian Food Pyramid Guide

In designing a new food guide for vegetarians, we aimed to
achieve the following goals:

To establish a guide that would meet the needs of people  following different types of vegetarian diets;

To help vegetarians choose diets that would meet the most recent recommendations established
 by the Institute of Medicine;

To include guidelines that focus on specific nutrients of par-ticular interest in vegetarian diets, as
discussed in the American Dietetic Association (ADA) and Dietitians of Canada’s joint position on vegetarian diets in this issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association;

To include a wide variety of foods that are consumed by vegetarians;

To increase awareness about the  availability of calcium from nondairy foods. In addition, we strived to meet the challenge spelled out in the 1981 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education by then US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nutritionist Jean Pennington for an “instrument which converts the pro-fessional’s scientific knowledge of food composition and nutrient requirements for health into a practical plan for food selection by those without training in nutrition”;

Challenges in designing such a guide exist regardless of dietary pattern. Individual food preferences, habits, and choices within food groups will all impact diet quality. Al-though no food guide is completely reliable, a food guide can maximize the chances that consumers will choose healthful diets. The inclusion of “Eight Tips for Meal Planning” (Fig-ure 1) provides additional help to vegetarians in planning healthful diets.

FOOD GROUPS

 

The food guide principle that has been in use in North America since 1916 is based on an approach that classifies foods into groups based on similar nutrient content. We have adhered to this principle, with some modification. In the vegetarian food guide, calcium needs are met through choices from several food groups.

In keeping with familiar and widely used approaches to food guide presentation in North America, we have designed our guide in the forms of both a pyramid and a rainbow; the latter is the graphic used in Canada. Both guides use the same food groupings, specify the same number of servings, and can be used interchangeably.

Foods are grouped as follows:

 

Grains:

 

At the base of the pyramid and in the widest arc of the rainbow, these foods form the foundation  of the diet.

Grains provide energy, complex carbohydrates,fiber, iron,and B-vitamins. Whole grains are an important source of zinc and other minerals. Vegetarians should choose whole grains often, but enriched refined grains can play a role in vegetar-ian diets and may be especially valuable for children.

Vegetables and fruits:

Vegetables have been grouped sep-arately from fruits to encourage vegetarians to choose a va-riety of both types of food rather than to focus on one or the other for most choices. A higher number of servings of veg-etables is specified because of the greater nutrient density and phytochemical content of vegetables compared with fruits.

Legumes, nuts, and other protein-rich foods:

This group includes foods that are good sources of protein, B-vitamins, and many trace minerals. It includes all legumes, including soy products such as soy milk and tofu, as well as nuts, seeds, nut and seed butters, eggs, and meat analogs. In a departure from most existing food guides, we have placed dairy foods in this group as well. This groups dairy products with other foods that offer similar amounts of protein per serving. It makes dairy an available but optional choice for vegetarians, while ensuring that protein needs will be met whether or not dairy foods are included in the diet. Categorizing dairy foods with other protein sources also meets the goal of emphasiz-ing the availability of calcium from all of the food groups. Most of the foods in this group provide iron, which is well absorbed when a source of vitamin C is consumed with the meal. Dairy foods are the exception here, and those vegetarians who consume frequent servings of dairy foods should be advised to ensure that they are including adequate sources of iron in their meals.

Fats:

Vegetarians and others who do not eat fish require small amounts of plant sources of n-3 fats. In addition, re-search suggests that moderate intake of certain healthful plant fats may reduce risk for cardiovascular disease, may improve nutrient intake, and may even aid in weight control. Ideally, most of the fat in vegetarian diets should come from fat-rich whole plant foods such as nuts, seeds, and avocado. To ensure an optimal fat intake and to support a practical approach to meal planning, we have specified a minimum of two servings of fats per day. Figure 1 indicates that nuts or seeds may be used in place of these fats and also directs vegetarians toward choosing the most healthful fats.

Calcium-rich foods:

Adults should choose a minimum of eight servings of calcium-rich foods daily. Each serving also counts toward choices from one of the other food groups in the guide. For example, 1 cup of certain cooked leafy green vegetables counts as a serving from the calcium-rich foods group and as 2 servings from the vegetable group. Placement of the calcium food group adjacent to each of the other food groups allows this concept to be presented in a clear visual way. It also emphasizes the fact that calcium needs are met by choosing a variety of foods from across the food groups. Diets based on the minimum specified servings from each of the food groups provide approximately 1,400 to 1,500 calories per day, which may be an inadequate energy intake for many vegetarians. Because the numbers of servings in the food guide are minimum recommendations, consumers can meet higher energy needs by choosing more servings from any of the food groups. Regardless of energy needs, most food choices should come from these groups, with only moderate servings of sweets and alcohol at most.