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• 1,000 micrograms twice per week from a chewable or sublingual supplement

Iodine:

• 75 to 150 micrograms three to four days per week (or ¼ teaspoon of iodized salt per day)

Vitamin D:

• 1,000 IU (25 micrograms) per day unless you are certain you are getting adequate sun exposure

Omega-3 Fats:

• DHA: A supplement providing 200 to 300 micrograms (of DHA or DHA plus EPA combined) from algae every two or three days (or every day for people over sixty)

• Alpha-linolenic acid: Be sure that your diet includes three to four servings per day from the following list.

1 teaspoon canola oil

¼ teaspoon flaxseed oil

⅔ teaspoon hempseed oil

1 teaspoon walnut oil

2 teaspoons ground English walnuts or 1 walnut half

1 teaspoon ground flaxseeds

½ cup cooked soybeans

1 cup firm tofu

1 cup tempeh

2 tablespoons soynuts

For Those Who Don’t Like Legumes

If you’re beginning a transition to a vegan diet you may not have much experience with beans. Most Americans rarely eat them. Soyfoods and other legumes make it especially easy to meet protein needs on a vegan diet, but they aren’t absolutely essential to balanced meal planning. The real issue when you drop these foods from your diet is that it becomes more of a challenge to meet the needs for the essential amino acid lysine. If you choose not to eat legumes, you’ll need to add three servings of other lysine-rich foods to your diet. A serving is one cup of quinoa, ¼ cup of pistachios, or ½ cup of cashews. This is in addition to the five servings of grains and one serving of nuts that are already recommended in the food guide.

Consider introducing beans to your meals gradually if they are new to your diet. Start out with one serving of legumes per day—maybe a hummus sandwich or bean burrito—plus one serving of a soyfood. Replace the third recommended serving with a lysine-rich food like ¼ cup of pistachios.

Because legumes are the most protein dense of all foods, diets require a bit more attention to planning when legume intake is limited. If you aren’t consuming any legumes or soyfoods, make sure you are getting most of your calories from whole grains, vegetables, and nuts. Limit fruit and other low-protein foods like added fats, desserts, and alcohol.

WHOLE VERSUS PROCESSED FOODS: FINDING A BALANCE

It’s easier than ever to plan healthy and interesting vegan meals because of the array of convenience products like veggie meats and cheeses and boxed and frozen dinners. Although many forms of processing strip away nutrients from foods or add undesirable ingredients, processed foods have a long and nutritionally important history in many world cuisines. Tofu and soymilk are two examples of processed foods that play a significant role in Asian cuisine.

While it is a good idea to build your diet around a variety of whole plant foods, moderate amounts of foods that don’t carry the “whole foods” label can play a role, and sometimes an important one, in healthy vegan diets. For many, including veggie burgers, fortified plant milks, pasta sauce from a jar, instant soup, and other convenience foods makes vegan meal planning more realistic. It can improve the chances that you will meet nutrient needs and thrive on a vegan diet, and it can be especially important for children. Athletes and others with high calorie needs can also benefit from more processed foods.

Too often we have seen an unwavering commitment to eliminating all processed foods from meals morph into a restrictive eating pattern that is marginal in protein and fat and falls short of providing enough calories. Sadly, the result is that many people on this kind of regimen decide that a vegan diet is ruining their health or they find it unsatisfying and difficult, and they return to eating animal foods. On the other hand, we have rarely seen these kinds of problems in vegans who are more liberal in their food choices—enjoying veggie burgers, a drizzle of olive oil on salads, a sweet treat now and then, and whatever convenience products it takes to keep