Plant-Based Diet:
Where do you get your nutrients from?

“But where do you get your nutrients from?”, is one of the questions you get to hear quite regularly once you tell someone you’re vegan. Although it’s true that some nutrients and vitamins are mainly found in animal-based products, a lot of the really good stuff is found in plant-based products. In this post I’d like to talk about the importance of good fats in our nutrition and how I incorporate them into my vegan meal plan:

Our Bodies Need Fat

Since switching to a mainly plant-based diet at the beginning of the year, I did some research on how to establish a healthy eating plan for myself that covers all important nutrients for my diet. Besides taking food supplements such as magnesium, iron and vitamins I also learned about the importance of incorporating good fats into my meal plan.

Over the years, fats have falsely received a bad reputation. Consuming fat has been blamed for causing obesity, increased cholesterol and health problems.  But those accusations are just not true. The purpose of fat in our body is very vital for growth and development, energy, vitamin absorption, protection of our organs, maintaining cell membranes, and also for the beauty of our skin and hair.

In the landscape of fats, it can be quite challenging to distinguish the good from the bad. In general, saturated fats, most of which come from meat and dairy products, raise the amount of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in your blood. By choosing to be vegan, you’re automatically reducing your saturated fat intake. But where do you get your “good fats” from when you’re vegan?

How Can You Access The Benefits Of Healthy Fat Within Your Vegan Diet?

1. Add flaxseed oil to your porridge or freshly squeezed juices.
2. Eat plants with fat-soluble vitamins and healthy fat such as olive oil, avocados and soy beans.
3. Grab a handful of almonds or other nuts that are rich in unsaturated fat after your workout. Your muscles will be less sore thanks to the fat’s ability to reduce inflammation.
4. Keep rice and oat milk in your fridge – they contain little saturated fat and are high in polyunsaturated fat.
5. Drizzle sesame seeds over your dishes – they are high in calcium and iron, two nutrients that are sometimes elusive for vegans.

With the dropping temperatures, one of my favorite breakfasts has returned: The porridge. I love adding two teaspoons of flaxseed oil, which makes it even more creamy. On days I don’t have porridge for breakfast, I usually drink a glass of cold pressed juice made out of carrots, apples, oranges. I always add some flaxseed oil to the juice. Raw carrot juice is rich in Vitamin A and Vitamin E, but these two vitamins are fat-soluble. That means that they cannot be absorbed by our body without additional fats. The added oil helps the body to absorb the vitamins.

I also added Biogena Omega 3 DHA vegan to my food supplement mix. As the long-chain omega-3 fatty acid DHA is otherwise only available in animal-based products, the additional intake of Omega 3 DHA is recommended for vegetarians and vegans, because it plays an important role in maintaining the eyesight and supports the brain functions.

In case you’re interested in finding out which Biogena products would be most suitable for you, check out this link and get your personalized product recommendation.