Not All Vitamins Are Vegan

This is post I have been wanting to do for a while. I am always learning something new about being a vegan. Throughout my journey one of the things I learned was that the vitamins I was taking were not Vegan. I was not happy about that when I found out. I started doing some research on the internet to find out what is in vitamins that make them not vegan. I won’t get too technical instead just give you the jist of it. Vitamins are made from plant and animal sources, or synthetically in a lab. Examples of non vegan ingredients are lactose, gelatin, insects, and the actual vitamin component. In reading about gelatin there are vegetable gelatin alternatives available. Although I am not sure how their consistency is compared to the animal derived. But, the point is if you see gelatin as an ingredient know it can be from an animal. So what is one to do in this situation? Well, luckily there are companies who make vegan vitamins. The first thing you can do is to call the number on the back of the vitamin bottle/s you currently take and ask them if the product has any animal ingredients in it. I have never had trouble having that question answered. It is from these calls I learned that remnants of insects can be in vitamins and that sometimes the actual vitamin type itself may be derived from the animal. I do not remember the vitamin derivative I was told I had that came from an animal but for reference I am talking about the letter for example Vitamin D or C. Once I found out I needed to change the ones I had I looked at the type I was taking, the mcg/mg/g amount on the back of the bottles and then went looking on line. I typed in vegan vitamins in the search bar and also browsed through vegan stores. There are choices so it is just a matter of choosing what is best for you. When you find vitamins of interest see if you can view the details of the content so as to compare it to what you are taking and then order. To name a few Deva, VegLife, and calcium soft chews by Nutrition Now are brands I currently use. I will re-post here web links to online vegan stores so you could browse through. And when in doubt for the requirements that you may need refer to a nutritionist or your primary care provider. I hope this information is helpful.

Sources of Information
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Vitamin.html

http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/faqingredients.htm

http://www.archure.net/salus/hidden.html

Online Vegan Shopping
http://www.veganstore.com/

http://www.vegangoods.com/

http://www.veganessentials.com/

http://www.cosmosveganshoppe.com/

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GnewVegan