Guest guest Posted October 10, 2000 Report Share Posted October 10, 2000 I posted this letter on Friday, but it never got posted to the group. I was just wondering what happened to it - did it get rejected? -- Visit the garden: http://www.leenasgarden.com " Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. " - Frances Moore Lappe " All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? " - Buddha Yes, At the world vegetarian congress this July, Brenda Davis, RD, author of Becoming Vegan and Becoming Vegetarian spoke extensively about this. I talked to her afterward about it, as I was 4 weeks pregnant at the time and obviously curious. A few studies have shown vegan mothers to have lower blood levels of DHA, and lower levels in their breastmilk. DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) has been shown to be very important in optimal brain development for the fetus and infant, and the suspicion is that the reason formula fed infants have been shown to perform less well on IQ tests or other intelligence tests as compared to breast fed infants is that formula (soy or cow milk based) does not contain DHA. I think there is maybe one formula now on the market supplemented with it, but before there was none. So even a vegan mother's breastmilk contains more DHA than formula. DHA is only found in animal products, like fish or eggs, or microalgae. The precursor for it and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) is omega-3 fatty acids. There are good vegan sources of o3 fatty acids (walnuts, flax, hemp, pumpkin seeds, among a few others I can't remember) but according to Brenda, it goes deeper than that. The more common fatty acid, omega 6, appears to compete with o3 for enzymes in the breakdown process which forms DHA and other important compounds. So even as a vegan if you consume enough o3 in your diet, if you get too much o6, you may not form enough DHA. As a nonpregnant, nonnursing, vegan, I wouldn't worry about this issue, except that you should insure some source of o3 or o6 for heart and general health (good fats.) This can be achieved with a balanced and varied vegan diet easily. However, I think it's a valid issue for pregnant or nursing vegans to concern themselves with. Brenda has a very good chapter on this in her book, Becoming Vegan, and I would urge anyone who wants a more detailed explanation of all these things to read it. There are a variety of reasons why o3 is less available to us in our food supply these days, having to do with processing of foods, shelf life, etc, and reasons why we are getting too many o6 in our diet. The ratio of these two is what's important, and it may be difficult to get the correct ratio. Vegans tend to consume even more o6 relative to o3 than vegetarians or non-vegetarians. The optimal o6 to o3 ratio is between 2:1 and 4:1. Vegans typically get 14:1 to 20:1. while lactoovo vegetarians get 10:1 to 16:1, and non-vegetarians get 7:1 to 14:1. Now, if you do choose to supplement, as of a few months ago, here are your options, according to Brenda. Two companies, OmegaTech and Martek sell cultured microalgae, rich in DHA, but low in EPA. However, it's sold in gelatin caps. You can squeeze it out of the caps and put it in your food as a liquid supplement, and thus not ingest any gelatin, but of course, you'd still be buying gelatin caps. Currently, there is no dried version, which could be packed in vegan packaging, but OmegaTech is working on this and should hopefully have one soon. Seaweed could be a good source as well, but generally only in places where people consume large amounts of it (some parts of Japan and Asia.) Otherwise, you're not really going to get much DHA from it, though you will get more EPA from seaweed. There is a lot more detail to go into here, but let me also say this. I know many vegan mothers, with grown vegan children, who never even heard of DHA or omega 3 fatty acids, and thus did not do anything other than have a balanced diverse variety filled vegan diet. Their children are healthy, intelligent, and doing fine. However, as is often the case in questions of nutrition, we're talking about OPTIMAL diet/nutrition/conditions. If you choose not to supplement, you're not doing anything irresponsible (as opposed to not insuring a good source of, say, B12 for your child), but it's just a question of what will provide the BEST possible nutrition for my infant. I would read Brenda's chapter and other information on it, and then decide. If the supplement were totally vegan, I think there'd be no real harm in taking one - that amount of DHA is certainly not going to hurt. But because there isn't a totally vegan one available, I think it's up to each mother. This is a very very new area of research, not one your obstetrician is going to know much about, so I think you have to do the reading, talk to experts in vegan nutrition (not to your average dietitician/doctor who is ignorant about nutrition and looking for any opportunity to blindly put down veganism), and then make a decision that works for you. I hope that helps! Leena tasroe wrote: > Hello, > > Some of the books I have been reading have mentioned pregnant vegans > taking a DHA supplement. Does anyone have any information about this? > > Summer > > For more information about vegetarianism, please visit the VRG website at http://www.vrg.org and for materials especially useful for families go to http://www.vrg.org/family. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 10, 2000 Report Share Posted October 10, 2000 Hi Leena and all, > I posted this letter on Friday, but it never got posted to the group. I > was just wondering what happened to it - did it get rejected? I posted your message this morning. I am the only moderator and it came in after I left Friday afternoon. I wasn't able to get to much email yesterday and wasn't able to catch up until this morning. This is why the list is so quiet on the weekend, unless I am at the office. Sorry for the delay! Davida -- vrg http://www.vrg.org The Vegetarian Resource Group / Vegetarian Journal P.O. Box 1463 / Baltimore MD 21203 US (410) 366-8343 The VRG is a educational non-profit group providing information on vegetarianism & veganism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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