Brenda Davis, R.D. weighs the pros and cons of a whole food diet vs the paleo diet and why the paleo diet gains popularity over other alternatives.

Internationally acclaimed dietitian Brenda Davis explores the health benefits of vegan diets compared to other dietary choices; explains protein and amino acid requirements at various stages of life; describes fats and essential fatty acids and their value in plant-based diets; investigates carbohydrate facts and fallacies; reveals the truth about wheat, gluten, and grains; pinpoints where to obtain calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals without animal products; clarifies the importance of obtaining vitamin B12; and shows how to attain optimal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation and how to achieve and maintain healthy weights and exceptional fitness on a vegan diet.While much of the emphasis is on the health advantages that vegan diets offer. Plant-based nutrition truly benefits the entire planet, and every bite makes a difference.

Brenda Davis, registered dietitian and nutritionist, is a leader in her field and an internationally acclaimed speaker. She has worked as a public health nutritionist, clinical nutrition specialist, nutrition consultant and academic nutrition instructor. She is currently on a diabetes intervention research project in Majuro, Marshall Islands. Brenda spent 8 months in Majuro in 2006 and returns for 4-6 week periods every year or two. Brenda is a past chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association. In July 2007, she was inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame. A co-author of nine books – award winners, Becoming Vegan: Comprehensive Edition(2014) and Becoming Vegan: Express Edition (2013), and the best-sellers, Becoming Vegan (2000), Becoming Vegetarian (1994, 1995), The New Becoming Vegetarian (2003) and Defeating Diabetes (2003), Dairy-free and Delicious (2001)and Becoming Raw (2010) and Raw-food Revolution Diet (2008). Brenda lives in Kelowna, British Columbia with her husband Paul. She has two grown children, Leena and Cory.

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Intro

iron deficiency is a really common myth in the nutrition world that vegetarians are somehow a greatly increased risk in fact if you look at the research vegetarians and vegans aren’t really at increased risk for iron deficiency now I do see iron the the vegetarians at I see

Iron deficiency in vegetarians

iron deficiency in are the vegetarians that are usually lacto-ovo and they’re consuming a lot of their calories from Dairy Dairy is very poor source of iron and it’s also it actually inhibits the absorption of iron so it’s like a double whammy

Iron deficiency in dairy

so people that you know think this is we see this sometimes people switching from a meat and potatoes diet to you know pizza with cheese and macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches because those are comfortable familiar foods for them and and so they they can end up with problems with iron when when you do that but for most vegetarians and vegans what’s really surprising to people is vegans actually eat consume more iron than omnivores almost everything they eat has iron whereas dairy has so little iron when it takes a chunk of your calories and you know it adds up to less than what you would think so so no there’s not more iron deficiency however we still need to be conscious about iron and so there are few things that people need to know oh and there’s one other thing I want to say there’s a difference between the type of iron implants and the type of iron in animals so the type of iron in

Types of iron

animals there are actually two types heme and non-heme so probably about 40% of the iron in animal products is heme iron which is the iron associated with blood okay and then the rest will be non heme and in plants it’s all non heme well non heme iron is absorbed very differently than heme iron so your body has a filter for heme iron or I’m sorry for non heme iron it’s absorbed more slowly some types of human like ferritin

Ferritin

it’s absorbed in this molecule with a thousand or more atoms of iron and and that iron is released slowly as your body needs it which is

Heme Iron

it’s a protection for the body really where as heme iron there’s no filter it just gets absorbed floods your body and and if you end up with a lot of heme iron in your blood it can actually act as a pro-oxidant which is of course the exact opposite of an antioxidant which we want a lot of in the pro oxidant can actually accelerate rates of certain types of diseases so it can increase your risk for things like heart disease and diabetes and stroke and and other diseases even dementia so we need there are some advantages to getting our iron from plants and with that having been

Iron Sources

said a couple more things for people to know the the sort of richest iron sources would be things like legumes of course lentils are a good source and other legumes as well we get some from nuts and seeds we get some from some dried fruits we get some from you know blackstrap molasses if you use it and of course from green vegetables and so you get little bits from all sorts of foods but the major source is legumes and so

Reduce Iron Absorption

the other thing to know is that you can reduce the absorption of non heme iron by about 50 to 90 percent by consuming a lot of what we call fight AIDS or tannins with your meal phytates it’s a most concentrated source is wheat bran so you know some people sprinkle bran on their cereal to get the extra fiber vegetarians and vegans should never do that you get plenty of fiber in your diet if you’re eating whole plant foods you don’t need to sprinkle phytates on your food because we want to enhance the absorption of iron and zinc not diminish the absorption of these nutrients and

Tea

and then tannins which would come from teas even some herbal teas but mainly black and green teas and when you drink those with your meal you inhibit the absorption of iron so if you have any concerns about iron you would want to keep your tea drinking our two before or after meals rather than drinking it with your meals and then the other thing to know is there some things actually enhance the absorption of iron and and the main ones we know about our organic acids and vitamin C and vitamin C can increase the absorption of iron two to six times don’t have the sort of the organic acids well quantified yet but also some phytochemical components from from tumeric and ginger and even carotenoids and these things can actually help absorption of iron as well