(While animal foods contain large amounts of all essential amino acids, plant proteins are low in or missing some. Eating a variety of grains, nuts, seeds and legumes throughout the day will make up for this deficit.)
Calcium
Lacto- and lacto-ovo vegetarians can meet their daily calcium requirements by including three to four servings of milk, yogurt or cheese in their diet. Vegetarian calcium sources include fortified soy beverages, fortified fruit juice, almonds, soybeans, tofu prepared with calcium, bok choy, broccoli, kale and figs.
If you're concerned you're not meeting your daily calcium requirements, take a supplement. (Teenagers require 1,300 milligrams of calcium per day, adults aged 19 to 50 need 1,000 milligrams and older adults 1,500 milligrams.)
Vitamin D
Vegetarian diets often lack vitamin D because milk, oily fish and fortified soy beverages are the main food sources. Based on the fact that few foods contain vitamin D – and our skin produces little from sunshine in the fall and win-ter months – the Canadian Cancer Society advises taking a 1,000 IU vitamin D supplement in the fall and winter, and all year round if you are over 50, have dark-coloured skin, or do not expose your skin to sunshine in the summer months.
Iron
Vegetarians require almost twice as much iron as meat-eaters because the body absorbs iron from plant foods less efficiently. Good sources of iron include beans, lentils, nuts, leafy green vegetables, whole grains, breakfast cereals and dried fruit.
Iron absorption can be increased by eating vitamin-C-rich foods such as citrus fruit, strawberries, red peppers and tomato juice.
Vitamin B12
It's only found in animal and fortified foods, so vegetarians should include three servings of B12-rich foods n their daily diet: milk, yogurt, eggs, fortified soy beverage, nutritional yeast, fortified breakfast cereal or fortified soy “meat.” Vegans should choose fortified foods and take a B12 supplement.
Omega-3 fats
Vegetarians who don't eat fish need a daily helping of alpha-linolenic acid, the omega-3 fatty acid plentiful in walnuts, ground flax, chia, and flaxseed and canola oils. Supplements of flax oil or docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fat derived from algae instead of fish, are other sources.
Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based dietitian at the Medcan Clinic, is on CTV's Canada AM every Wednesday. Her website is lesliebeck.com.
