Now that bug season has arrived we take a few extra steps to make sure that we are as healthy as possible. It’s funny because when you’re vegan everyone suddenly seems really interested in your diet and making sure you get everything you need even though you’re just as likely to be deficient in vitamins and minerals as a non-vegan.
One thing we start taking at the end of the summer is vitamin D, I actually read that most people should supplement this purely because we don’t get enough sun in the winter months here. I did actually ask Google a few weeks ago whether you can absorb vitamin D through windows because I work near mine but unfortunately you can’t so we take a liquid supplement. I have to say that it’s made such a difference to my happiness levels too. You have to be careful when you’re vegan because a lot of vitamin D is sourced from animal products, like sheep’s hair. We have this one by Viridian which is vegan.
We generally have a pretty healthy diet and make sure we eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables but having logged everything we eat into Cronometer (a fab app which shows you a nutritional breakdown of everything you eat) it’s still quite hard to meet 100% of the fats, vitamins and mineral levels so for that reason we also take a few other supplements. I find it harder to drink smoothies in the winter and that’s where I would put linseeds / hemp seeds etc for my omega 3 intake so I supplement this, Matt doesn’t as he still has a smoothie each day and gets more than enough in that. We also have bioacidophilus which is full of live bacteria and a multivitamin which has B12 in it, that’s the one vitamin you need to make sure you either supplement or intake through fortified foods as a vegan. We got these from Biocare, they have a vegan tab so you can search vegan products.
I forgot to put the kid’s vitamins in this photo but they take these ones by VegLife.
Another important thing is to stay hydrated, I find this a lot harder when it’s cold as I don’t feel as thirsty. The kids also drink less so I end up making them juice which tends to have a lot of sugar in. A good switch for that is this cactus water, it has no added sugar and the natural sugar levels are much lower than juice. Cherry loves it and describes it as water with a hint of strawberry flavour. You can buy it here. It makes a nice change from plain water.
Thanks to True Nopal and Biocare for sending us some samples.
