Nutrients
6 Nutrients That Vegans Lack
These six essential nutrients often fall short in a plant-based diet. Learn how to ensure you get all the nutrients your body needs.
Nutrients
These six essential nutrients often fall short in a plant-based diet. Learn how to ensure you get all the nutrients your body needs.
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If you know us, you know that we usually take the middle path. That we don't like to think in black and white or fall into any extremes. This applies especially to the highly polarizing topic of meat consumption today.
On one side, there are the all-you-can-eat schnitzel buffet enthusiasts and bratwurst lovers. On the other side are strict vegetarians or vegans who rely entirely on plant-based food. We see ourselves somewhere in the middle.
Best of both worlds, you might say.
We know that it makes sense to avoid low-quality, heavily processed animal products like the aforementioned schnitzel.
We also know that getting by entirely without animal products is not an option either.
Even if you think that's nonsense—that your omega-3 needs can be met with flax oil, or that you don't need carnitine from meat or choline from eggs because your body can produce them itself—please keep reading. Because that's exactly what we're addressing with these six examples.
6 Nutrients That Fall Short in a Plant-Based Diet
1. Taurine
Taurine is found in abundance in seafood like mussels and crabs, as well as in fish, meat, and dairy products. It's no wonder, then, that vegans have significantly lower taurine levels.¹,² This sulfur-containing compound is an important antioxidant and plays a role in fat metabolism and brain development, and is even considered a possible "anti-aging agent".³
2. Carnitine
Carnitine is found primarily in red meat like beef or lamb. For fatty acids to be burned in the mitochondrium, they need carnitine as a "taxi" to get there in the first place. Those who don't eat meat typically have lower carnitine levels.⁴ The body's own synthesis of carnitine is very low and depends on lysine, methionine, and iron—all nutrients that are in short supply in a vegan diet.
3. Creatine
Essential for energy metabolism in muscle tissue. Creatine helps regenerate ATP, the universal energy carrier, which ensures energy supply during short, intense exertion. Creatine is found, logically enough, in the muscle tissue of animals. In a study of omnivorous women who switched to a vegetarian diet temporarily, creatine stores decreased after just 3 months.⁵
4. DHA
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an essential omega-3 fatty acid that is primarily needed for good brain function and development, but also has very strong regulatory influence on inflammation processes.
It is found only in marine organisms like algae or fish. Its precursor, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), is found in plant-based foods like flax seeds or walnuts.
But here's the catch: the conversion from ALA to DHA is very inefficient and isn't sufficient for adequate DHA supply—that is, for an optimal omega-3 index. Humans therefore rely on obtaining DHA from food or supplements. Studies confirm this, showing low DHA levels in the blood of vegetarians and vegans.⁶,⁷
5. Choline
Since choline is found predominantly in animal foods, especially eggs, vegetarians and especially vegans have a higher risk of choline deficiency.⁸
Choline is enormously important for transporting fats out of the liver (think fatty liver!) and for brain function. Among other things, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is made from choline, and we need it for every single muscle movement.
Choline is especially important during pregnancy. Alarmingly, only 7% of all women achieve the daily required amount of choline. Most omnivores couldn't meet their needs either, and in women following vegetarian or vegan diets, choline intake was significantly lower.⁹
Like many nutrients, the body could theoretically make choline itself. But approximately 50% of all Europeans carry two defective alleles in the PEMT gene (which codes for the enzyme that produces choline) and therefore cannot produce sufficient choline.
6. Iron
In the context of a typical Western diet and metabolic issues, we often warn about too much iron. With vegans and vegetarians, we're more concerned about too little iron.
Plant-based iron has lower bioavailability than animal heme iron. While up to 30% of heme iron is absorbed, only 1–10% of non-heme iron from plants is absorbed.¹⁰ The absorption from plant sources can be improved, by the way, with vitamin C, which converts the iron into an absorbable form by transferring an electron.
Studies show, on average, very low iron levels in meat-free diets, particularly in women. It's not uncommon for vegetarian women to have ferritin levels below 12 µg/L, which corresponds to completely depleted iron stores.¹¹,¹²
For comparison: ideally, ferritin should be at least 50 µg/L, and better yet at 100 µg/L.
From these examples, you can see: even though meeting nutritional needs with a purely plant-based diet seems partially feasible at first glance, in reality you need to consider far more than just nutrient content and your body's capacity for self-synthesis.
Not everything that's in a plant—like zinc or iron—actually makes it into your body (note: inhibitors like phytic acid), and not everything your body can theoretically produce is actually made in sufficient quantities (note: genetic variations, SNPs).
As little as possible, yes. But also: as much as needed!
To ensure you get all the important nutrients on a (strictly) plant-based diet, we offer many vegan supplements and nutrients. Please note: this is not a call to buy an endless list of supplements.
Like we said, we'd prefer if people could cover their needs for key nutrients primarily through their diet. In practice, as we've outlined, this is often not the case. So when in doubt, supplements it is!
