Before Starting A Vegan Diet
This is an important section of this article.
Before starting a vegan diet, you must be fully prepared.
A vegan diet, although beneficial, it doesn’t provide you with a reliable source of vitamin b12. I’ve noticed a handful of YouTubers advocating for a vegan diet without a vitamin b12 supplement, but that is dangerous.
The consequences of vitamin b12 insufficiency can be irreversible and critical to your health. If you’re not careful, you can suffer irreparable damage to your nervous system. Even lower levels of vitamin b12 can lead you to depression, confusion, memory problems, fatigue and more.
An early study conducted on vegans found vitamin b12 deficiency to cause nerve damage and dementia. That’s why ignoring this matter will come at great risk for you.
Also, make sure to run blood tests regularly to pinpoint potential deficiencies.
Vitamin B12: What You Need To Know
Depending on age, size, eating habits, and medical conditions, you will have to take a certain amount of vitamin b12. According to medical sources, the dose varies by age, and therefore I will simply cite those.
- Infants up to age 6 months: 0.4 mcg
- Babies age 7-12 months: 0.5 mcg
- Children age 1-3 years: 0.9 mcg
- Kids age 4-8 years: 1.2 mcg
- Children age 9-13 years: 1.8 mcg
- Teens age 14-18: 2.4 mcg (2.6 mcg per day if pregnant and 2.8 mcg per day if breastfeeding)
- Adults: 2.4 mcg (2.6 mcg per day if pregnant and 2.8 mcg per day if breastfeeding)
Despite the overall importance of vitamin b12, these references are easy to achieve. Plus, you don’t have to take supplements daily, you can simply take a higher dose supplement twice or once a week, which makes it easier to manage.
Other than that, ensure you’re getting a vegan b12 supplement. Non-vegan supplements usually include gelatin in their components. They use gelatin as a stiffening agent to shape the capsules, hence search for a vegan supplement that does not.
In fact, I’ve got a resource with my favorite b12 supplements. When b12 supplements are sold for over $7-8, that’s a red flag for me. Typically, vitamin b12 is super cheap to produce, and a good company will always offer you a fair price. The ones I recommend are cheap and will last you a long time.
On the next page, I’m gonna show you how to start a healthy vegan diet.
