A Very New Vegan (who Is Still Figuring Stuff Out)

[clarkai]

Hi everyone.

I became vegan because on my quest to find the optimal diet, I decided that I should try sugar-free, processed food-free vegan for a month. That was January of this year. It was so easy, so much fun, and I felt so good that I just decided to stay with it. After that, I realized that I did have an amount of guilt and sorrow over eating animals, and it's really nice to have that relieved.

Currently, I'm looking at the non-food aspect of veganism, and realizing that for other reasons (primarily environmental concern and care for my health), most of my products are accidentally vegan, or were bought second hand. So that's where I am now; trying to find what's left that isn't vegan, and what I'm going to do about it once I use those items up or wear them out.

Speaking of which, anybody have a favorite DHA and EPA supplement brand? Thanks!

 

[KLS52]

Hi and welcome!

 

[mlp]

Congratulations, and welcome!

 

[PTree15]

Welcome to VV.

 

[yakherder]

Regarding EPA and DHA: While it is true that EPA is most abundant in fish, it is easily synthesized from ALA, which is plentiful in just about all kinds of nuts. Flax is the popular one. DHA can be synthesized as well, but the process is extremely inefficient.

So if you're trying to up your omega 3 intake as a vegetarian, DHA is the one you need to plan for. There are two ways to deal with this:
1. Consume ridiculous amounts of ALA rich foods to make up for the inefficiency in converting ALA to DHA.
2. Consume a reasonable amount of ALA rich foods and take a DHA supplement like Neuromins DHA, which is produced using algae similar to that which the fish would get it from. Note that most DHA supplements come in gelatin capsules, so you'll either have to hunt around for one that doesn't or just remove the capsule if you consider that an acceptable option.

Some types of seaweed theoretically contain DHA, but accurate nutrition information is difficult to come by so I wouldn't consider this a reliable option.

Either way, as long as you're getting ALA somewhere your body will synthesize from that the EPA and DHA you need at a bare minimum. How much more than that is ideal is debatable, but to sum it up...

-Get plenty of ALA naturally from your food and take a vegan DHA supplement if you're worried about it.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Welcome to VV!

I take Deva vegan DHA+EPA Omega-3. I can't get them locally, so I order from Amazon.

 

[Freesia]

 

[beancounter]

Welcome to VV!