I hope I am not too demanding or annoying here by asking all these questions . It's just so darn confusing when you are trying to be a true vegan.
I think the best you can go by is to trust the labeling as far as you can - With regards to my previous link - the vegan society label doesn't account for animal products used to make the final product i.e. the whole bone char issue. Having said that, the sentence does read as follows :-
the processing aids used in the manufacturing process are vegan So this may account for the products used to clarify sugar and wines etc. in the same way as the statement made by vegan.org.
But then some products that contain the vegan label also contain palm and coconut oil?
There are probably processed products out there that are also vegan but they just haven't bothered to do the certification.
I don't really miss the cheese / margerine spreads anymore so I don't buy them and they are REALLY not very healthy and very easy to get carried away with, but I do still check every now and then if the more popular brands are still using palm and coconut oil but doubt I'll every buy them again anyway for health reasons not vegan reasons.
I couldn't find the cheeze brand mentioned by Shyvas but there is a brand called sheese which uses coconut oil but there is no mention of it's source. This brand is in most of our supermarkets and easy to get hold of. The supermarkets also do their own brands but again they contain mainly coconut oil with no mention of the source.
I'm glad you learnt something new even though it was a bit "off topic" as that was my intention with regards to the oils.
With regards to the feeling tired bit, how long have you been vegan, it could be that your body is detoxifying and maybe causing the tiredness. I very rarely take the B12 but I still try to when I remember. I remember watching a video by Gary Yourofsky who stated that he never takes it but maybe it's best to be on the safe side.
The 'food' industry have been purposely injecting it into animals and supplementing cereals with it which suggests there is some government mandate to do this to keep us sufficient in it (even though we are mainly still not - meat eater or vegan )
Omega 3's can be gained from Ground Chia and Flax seed apparently, I put them in smoothies, I've heard Spirulina is also a source but I heard someone the other day say it has issues and they were recommending Chlorella instead.
Vitamin D - get out in the sun more - if you can. Getting sun through a window has NO effect they say.
I've never been tired as a vegan or before for that matter - I've never experienced an increase in energy as a result of not eating meat but i didn't go vegan for diet reasons and so wasn't expecting to however the process was a bit more gradual for me (over a couple of months), I wasn't ever expecting to call myself a vegan but capitulated when after cutting out various bit's and pieces after learning what was involved, I realised my principles in the end where the same as vegans. I still used to eat vegan junk food but have nearly cut it all out now. Raw food seems to be the way to go from what I've been reading as the enzymes are not destroyed during the cooking process and thus you get more nutrients in you and even need to eat less.
Look up any information about the gut microbiome - it's fascinating.
vegan.org
violifefoods.com
