Edit: The other thing I wanted to say is 1 tbsp of flaxseed has 2.4g of ALA and that the adequate intake of ALA is 1.6g and 0.3g of DHA/EPA. If we assume a 10% conversion rate for both (depends on many factors and a tad high), you get 0.24g of DHA/EPA. So, 2 tbsp of flaxseed and you're good. I put it in my smoothie in the morning.
Therefore this study is also one of the many which have shown that the human body has only a limited capacity of converting ALA into DHA and EPA, so that the nutritional supplements with DHA and EPA are beneficial for vegans (e.g. from oil of Schizochytrium, a non-plant non-animal unicellular living being, which is falsely named as "algae" by vendors, to sound more like a vegetable to vegan ears, if the cheaper fish oil is deemed to be unacceptable).
This study certainly does not support your claim that "a completely vegan diet, which has no DHA, is completely sufficient to sustain the body".
Yes, it is enough to have ALA in your food to avoid a quick death, but ALA is not enough to ensure a good health and a long life.
You seem to be implying here that Schizochytrium is not a vegan product, even though "non-animal" is completely sufficient to meet that criterion.
Nevertheless, I find it funny that the vendors have felt the need to use the word "algae" for marketing this product.
It is true however that while "algae" is incorrect, there is no appropriate word to name them that would be easily understood by the general public.
At most they might be called "protists", as in many biology manuals, which is a word that I strongly dislike as meaningless.
("Protists" means "the first", but among which and according to what ordering criterion? "Protist" is a word normally used with the meaning "unicellular eukaryote" a.k.a. "unicellular nucleate", but one should better use the words that are meant.)
They say this and then don't address the elephant in the room: the huge fall-out rate concerning vegans going ex-vegan.
Additionally, "completely sufficient to sustain the body" is about the lowest barrier to entry one can set. People aren't interested in sustenance alone, even if you take away cultural factors.
I have also transitioned to a vegan diet, but only after studying very carefully all the available information, so besides food made from vegetables I take 10 chemical substances about which there is reasonable certainty that they are either necessary or beneficial for vegans, because the plants either do not contain them or they contain them in too small quantities, and the human body either cannot make them or it can make them only in too small quantities.
DHA and EPA are among those 10.
Just as you say, there is evidence that it is beneficial in certain circumstances, e.g. for increasing the capacity of anaerobic effort of the vegans who train for sports competitions, but it is not clear if it is beneficial unconditionally.
Moreover, for substances like creatine, which can be produced in limited quantities by the human body, like also for DHA, EPA, choline or taurine, there may be large differences between individuals. Some people might not need supplements for one or more of these substances, at least when they are young, while for others supplements may be indispensable, at least when they become old.
In general, it is much more prudent to take a supplement, even when its necessity is not certain, than to not take it, because in the first case if your choice was wrong it just does not have any useful effect, while in the second case if your choice was wrong it could cause serious health problems.
I have already thought that I should try sometime in the future a creatine supplement, to see if I notice any change, but for now I cannot not see any cognitive differences between present and how I was before switching to an 100% vegan diet.
The literature is abundantly clear on this.
All these have been shown to have significantly lower levels in the body of the vegans who do not take the corresponding supplements.
Especially the need for a calcium supplementation is often overlooked, which leads to a higher risk of fractures.
now about calcium intake, if you really take a look, most of the claims are hypothetical and require further studies to comprove, as well some findings like this; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19350341/
A vegan does not need a large amount per day of calcium supplementation, but all the studies, including this one, demonstrate that a small amount of additional calcium is necessary to reduce the risk of bone fractures to the same level as for omnivores.
it is like the argument of omega-3 content of flaxseeds and chia being poor translated into useful chains of acid like DHA… all you have is to increase your intake on the ballpark of 160% rather than 100% from animal sources… which translate in having to eat the enormous amount of 3 tbsp of chia per day, so you can overcome the “inefficiency”
plus not even getting into who are the vegan people being researched on osteoporosis rate. there is vegans who survive out of pasta and soda (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who eat a superb healthy varied diet; plus vegans who do not exercise (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who do ETC.
Those numbers are ridiculously high when considering institutes are starting to push veganism but conveniently skip the fact veganism is difficult to maintain even for upper middle class people with almost everything available to them.
It's like the Scrum/Agile debate all over again, but in the form of diets. Yes, that means the diet itself may not be the problem, but good luck changing the environment.
There is also a sex-linked difference between ALA conversion to DHA/EPA, with women, and women who are pregnant or brestfeeding converting significantly more ALA to DHA than men. Men were converting far less than 10% while women were converting more than 10%.
Massive claim with only one little study for a source. You are behaving like the strawman vegan right now, making ludicrous claims on nitpicked data; you are not furthering your cause by spreading disinformation online.
I don't think taking a step and claiming you just walked to the hill top counts as "effort".
>I don't see why you should go through the trouble of contradicting it without providing any sources yourself.
You don't see that pointing out the lack of adequate sourcing for a claim does not in itself require a source - because it is not a claim.
You don't see - oh yes.
The key thing about the ALA conversion in women is that you're not going to OD on it. Having too much DHA gives you insomnia (though, that is not such a bad thing if by circumstances, you are already sleep deprived).
I havn't seen any papers on it, but my personal experience is that the ratio of DHA to EPA is also important for mental health. EPA seems to help with smoothing out burnout and protect against spiraling into depression.
I think this comment conflates health arguments with vegetarian morality arguments which is unfortunate. The article is specifically talking omega 3s something the vast majority of vegetarian and vegan diets are low in (no Flax seeds don’t count). Morally speaking maybe Vegans should consider farmed oysters twice per week, they are high in Omega 3 and have no central nervous system or brain to stress out about their delicious end.
Fish oil, either from oily fishes or from cod liver is by far the cheapest. In Europe, a typical price is around $0.20 per gram of DHA+EPA.
Krill oil is much more expensive than either fish oil or oil of Schizochytrium, so it is a choice that does not make sense.
The oil of Schizochytrium qualifies as a vegan oil. When it has appeared on the market some years ago, it contained only DHA and a negligible quantity of EPA. Some vendors still sell this old kind of Schizochytrium oil. Then it seems that either other strains of Schizochytrium have been discovered, or they have been genetically modified, and an improved oil of Schizochytrium began to be produced, with a proportion 2:1 between DHA and EPA.
Now the only remaining disadvantage of the oil of Schizochytrium is the price. However, in the last 2 years the price of the fish oil has remained constant, while the price of Schizochytrium oil was reduced by more than 2 times, so it can be hoped that in a few years improvements in the cultivation methods might cause the price of the Schizochytrium oil to match the price of the fish oil. In Europe, the price of the Schizochytrium oil is now around $0.80 per gram of DHA+EPA, sometimes a little less than that.
Whoever buys omega-3 nutritional supplements, regardless of what kind, should better take care to always compute the price per gram of DHA+EPA. There is a huge number of shameless supplement vendors whose products have similar prices with the good products, but which contain very low concentrations of the active substances, so that the effective price per gram of DHA+EPA may be even 10 to 15 times higher than at the decent vendors.
I have selected vendors just by using Amazon and searching for "Schizochytrium" and also for "vegan omega 3", and then studying the specifications and computing the prices per gram of DHA+EPA.
After eliminating all those with outrageous prices and those where the exact content of DHA and of EPA were not specified, for the remaining I have also checked the Web sites of the producers to see if they are credible, e.g. if they show detailed chemical analyses of their products made by independent laboratories.
I prefer to buy pure oil (in bottles) instead of capsules, and that is usually a little cheaper than capsules, while also having no useless excipients.
Even if someone does not like a faint sea food flavor, the oil containing omega-3 can be mixed with another cooking oil, e.g. with olive oil, and added to a salad or any other food that is not heated after the oil is added. In that case any flavor will be masked.
Examples of brands available in Europe (which have similar prices, of about half of the $1.63/g that you pay): SinoPlaSan, Norsan, Arctic Blue, Spoon of Change.
Your supplement appears to be the old kind of vegan omega-3, including only DHA and negligible EPA. Now there are better vegan supplements where EPA is about half of DHA, which is a good ratio.
Aren’t there mercury contaminants in even high quality sources?
Crops are sprayed with glyphosate and all the commercial formulations include animal tallow.
Glyphosate doesn’t make vegetables non-vegan, the animal fat used in its sprayable formulations does that. Vegetables and grains come with a slight coating of animal fat that is then mixed in with whatever food is made using those ingredients.
"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable"
The important part being "as far as is practicable". Nobody is a perfect vegan, as that is close to impossible, but you can get very close and prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering and lower your carbon footprint.
The environment will thank you.
A certain percentage of soil is made up of decomposed animals, so anything grown is not vegan by some arbitrarily strung out standard. Where do you draw the line?
organic usually do not have any regulation and they use pesticides and herbicides and fungicide etc. plus the vast majority of organic farms underpaid labour that is a whole new treat to discuss! [0] not even their efficiency on large scale to feed a 7 billion human population
[0] i volunteered for about a year in programs like WWOOF
edit: and ah, huge farms are using fertilizers from rocks for the vast majority of the time, it would be a big treat to spread manure over thousands of hectares/acres and not even considering the secondary treat of having to shake it from time to time so it can be good absorbed in soil… and regarding organic farms using manure etc. please, i prefer you eating meat than supporting organic farmers overexploiting poor people thinking they have sacred asses that are helping the planet that is heating less than ~1 degree Celsius each 10 years with humans at full rage in industry :]
2ndEdit: not that i am happy or not caring about global warming; i am fine being vegan for years now and my options of cycling and using the public transport, not having children etc. but it is just about a short time (i hope) to politics roll laws about sustainability and the stuff can be more green again. as hoping on citizens being is just suicide. people are too static on their conformity of modern life, you know… what a disgrace changing excessive meat intake for some beans and 4 seat cars for some cycling and unpleasant fun on trains or buses
It’s inaccurate and misleading to group red meat and oils together.
Beef, and grass fed beef in particular, is generally 5:1 ratio. Or less. Chicken has more omega 6 than beef. And seed oils (not all oils) have many times that. Some >50:1. Thanks for the vegan propaganda though.
Those statements are in two separate sentences. Now please, finish your attempt at a thought. Is it a conspiracy theory that cows eat grass?
May I ask what problems there are with eating fish?
Some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_fishin...
What kind of problems do mean? Environmental? Or health-related problems?
Fish can't be the final solution