What You Should Know About Vegan Diets

What you should know about a vegan diet

Nadine Palmetshofer Published on July 22, 2020

Vegan nutrition is subject to the prejudice that it cannot provide all the essential nutrients, which quickly leads to concerns about a lack of vitamins and minerals.

Those who are not very familiar with veganism are often somewhat critical of a purely plant-based diet.

However, these concerns are unfounded, because if you consciously ensure that you eat a balanced diet, you don't have to worry about getting enough nutrients, even as a vegan.

Find out how to eat a healthy breakfast and maintain a healthy diet in general with a vegan lifestyle.

Questions to ask yourself about a vegan diet

In principle, everyone should have a general idea of what a balanced diet looks like, because nutrient deficiencies and health problems due to malnutrition can affect omnivores too.

However, if you decide to become vegan and thus limit your choice of nutrient-rich foods, you should definitely ask yourself the following questions about nutrition before you completely give up animal products:

Vegan breakfast from VERIVAL - try it now!

What does a balanced diet generally look like?

We speak of a healthy and balanced diet when it contains all essential nutrients. These primarily include the following three macronutrients:

Carbohydrates: They provide us with necessary energy and regulate blood sugar levels.
Fat: Certain vitamins can only be absorbed by our body with the help of important fatty acids.
Protein: Proteins are necessary for the formation and renewal of cells and are involved in many metabolic processes.

According to the German Nutrition Society (DGE), 55% of the daily energy intake should come from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 15% from fat.

A wholesome diet also provides your body with sufficient vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre and phytochemicals.

The crux of a balanced diet is variety, because no food alone can provide all the important nutrients. Instead, it is important to eat as colourfully as possible.

What needs to be considered for a vegan diet?

In a balanced mixed diet with a low proportion of meat and fish products, as recommended by the DGE, animal products contribute to an adequate nutrient supply.

If you decide to follow a plant-based diet, there are some nutrients whose requirements are somewhat more difficult to cover. To ensure an adequate supply of nutrients, it is necessary to consciously select and combine plant-based foods.

The critical foods according to the DGE, for example, include:

Proteins: Vegans can easily meet their daily protein requirement by including legumes, nuts, (wholegrain) cereals, oilseeds and potatoes in their diet. The best way to absorb the proteins from these foods is to combine them.
Vitamin B12 : A purely plant-based diet does not contain any vitamin B12. A sufficient supply can therefore only be ensured by supplementing it or by consuming foods that have been fortified with vitamin B12. Although some plant products contain vitamin B12 (e.g. spirulina or sauerkraut), it is in a form that cannot be utilised by humans. Therefore, be careful of a vitamin B12 deficiency! [1]
Calcium: The daily calcium requirement of a vegan can be covered by green vegetables, nuts, legumes and soy products.
Iron: This important mineral is found in legumes, oilseeds, nuts, whole grains and some vegetables (e.g. black salsify, spinach, peas). The absorption of iron is improved when combined with vitamin C. Foods such as coffee and black tea, on the other hand, inhibit the absorption of iron.

What should not be missing from a vegan diet?

Now that we know the answers to the first two questions, this question can also be answered in summary:

To ensure an adequate supply of all the important nutrients, our diet should be as colourful and varied as possible. It is particularly important for vegans to combine different foods to ensure an adequate supply of nutrients.

So if you decide to go for a vegan diet, the following products should be a fixed part of your menu:

(wholemeal) cereals (e.g. oats, rye, wheat)
legumes (e.g. lentils, beans, chickpeas)
nuts (e.g. Brazil nuts, almonds, cashews)
oilseeds (e.g. linseed, sunflower seeds)
soya products (e.g. tofu, soya beans)
vegetables
fruit

Tips for a vegan breakfast

Muesli with milk or yoghurt, breakfast omelette, bread with butter and jam or pancakes – our favourite dishes for a good start to the day are anything but vegan.

Breakfast is probably the meal where animal products can most easily be replaced by plant-based alternatives.

Instead of butter, there is vegetable margarine, tofu can be used to make delicious tofu scrambled eggs, and you can also easily enjoy your muesli or porridge in a vegan way.

Try out the numerous (homemade) plant-based drinks and yoghurt alternatives and discover your favourite.

Muesli and porridge, in particular, can be easily refined with vegan toppings such as nuts, oilseeds and fruit, which guarantees a supply of essential nutrients.

And we also have a delicious vegan breakfast idea for pancake fans:

How to eat vegan for lunch and dinner

The theory from our questions about vegan nutrition is particularly easy to apply at lunch and dinner.

Make sure that each of your meals contains (complex) carbohydrates, plant-based proteins and healthy fats. Top it off with seasonal vegetables and fruit and your dishes will be bursting with nutrients.

Delicious vegan dishes include vegetable stir-fries with tofu and rice, wholemeal wraps with beans and avocado, lentil stews or wonderfully colourful salads with vegan meat substitutes.

Our easy Buddha Bowl is another delicious example of a vegan dish that provides you with all the essential nutrients you need.

Delicious vegan snacks

Delicious snacks complete a balanced vegan diet, because they are what save you from your afternoon low or lift your spirits when you are ‘hangry’ again. (‘Hangry’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘hungry’ and ‘angry’, i.e. it means being angry because you are hungry.)

An absolute classic among healthy vegan snacks is all types of nuts. These little miracle seeds not only provide numerous important nutrients, they are also considered to aid weight loss.

Vegan snacks from VERIVAL - discover them now!

Fruit is also a delicious way to satisfy those hunger pangs. Berries, pineapple and mango, for example, are particularly rich in vitamins.

But even on sweet sins you don't have to go without as a vegan. From vegan chocolate bars to chocolate avocado pudding and delicious cake creations, there are no limits to what you can eat on a plant-based diet.

Our recipe for vegan walnut banana bread is not only for those with a sweet tooth, but also provides you with important nutrients:

Vegan walnut banana bread

Preparation time 15 mins

Cook time 45 mins

Total time 1 hr

Servings: 8

Calories: 160 kcal

Ingredients

2 brown bananas
50 g rolled oats
100 g spelt flour
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
1 tsp baking powder
60 g walnuts
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
70 ml vegetable drink
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp cocoa powder (optional)

Preparation

First, preheat your oven to 180 degrees (fan).
Next, mash the 2 bananas with a fork to a pulp and then put the mixture in a bowl.
Next, put the walnuts in a food processor until they are finely crushed and add them to the bananas.
Then melt the coconut oil and add it to your mixture.
Next, add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and mix all the ingredients together well until a creamy dough is formed.
Then put the banana bread dough into a loaf tin. If necessary, lightly grease the tin.
If you like, you can also add a few whole walnut kernels to the top of the dough as decoration.
Now put the banana bread in the oven for about 40 minutes. If the top gets too dark, you can also cover it with a little foil.
After the baking time, take the banana bread out of the oven and let it cool briefly. Then you can take the banana bread out of the tin and cut it into pieces.

Nutritional information

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Vegan breakfast from VERIVAL – discover it now!

Shipton, Michael J ; Thachil, Jecko : Vitamin B12 deficiency – A 21st century perspective. In: Clinical Medicine , Royal College of Physicians (2015), pp. 145–150