Vitamins for a vegetarian

[map man]

Since I assume you do eat dairy, whey protein is used in many many protein powders. If you google whey protein powders you will find a ton of them to choose from. Probably quite a few on your grocer's shelf, too, these days. A protein powder I like the taste of is sweetened with stevia (a natural sweetener), but that stuff is expensive. Supplies of stevia are very limited in this country because of successful lobbying by the artificial sweetener makers.

As for mixing protein powders on the trail, I bring a tupperware shaker bottle. And I've found that if I add the powder AFTER I've got water in the container, that it mixes up a heck of a lot better. Put the powder in first before the water and it wants to lump up and stick to the bottom. (And the suggestion to be sure to rinse out the container well is a very good one.)

[ScottP]

Lots of vegetarian females have nutrition problems on the trail.

Read up on some real information on protein reqirements in the diet--it's way less than you might think. Protien power is probably silly.

You should think about maildrops. It will be tough to get good vegetarian nutrition without them.

[mudhead]

I have some Nature's Plus caps, expensive, and smell like nasty. Burp nastier.

Seaweed based blah... I am allergic to rose hips so it is a beast to find ones I can take. I am allergic to cold water fin-fish such as cod, so that negates a large portion of mass market vitamins.

Would appreciate options.

[Tipi Walter]

Lots of vegetarian females have nutrition problems on the trail.

Read up on some real information on protein reqirements in the diet--it's way less than you might think. Protien power is probably silly.

You should think about maildrops. It will be tough to get good vegetarian nutrition without them.

Say what? I've seen a lot of people on the trail with nutrition problems: They live on junk candy bars, sodas, cigarettes, coffee, spam, and twinkies. Protein powder drinks are not silly, they are tasty and a suitable replacement to the usual dried milk or hot chocolate favored by others.

As far as keeping to a vegetarian diet while backpacking, it's easy. When you hit a store, look for:
Beans(look for either canned/bulk dry/dehydrated flakes/lentils cook pretty fast)
Rice(look for Uncle Ben's Ready Whole Grain/or bulk brown rice in bags or just get the white)
Cheese/amazing variety here
Oatmeal/All Hail the Humble Oat, etc
Granola and granola bars/Cliff, etc.
Boxed cereals (along with dry milk powder)Shredded wheat, cheerios, you name it
Raisins/dried fruit with nuts/walnuts/peanuts/almonds
Mac and Cheese in boxes/quick meals
Ramen noodles
Fresh fruit and veggies
Raw eggs(if you like them and have an egg container, these babies can really augment a pot of backpacking stew)

And this is just in your little country store, when you hit the big groceries the variety is boggling. Who needs meat? It just festers and rots and draws the bears. Just kidding, but not carrying meat is having one less thing that can spoil.

[Blissful]

I brought multi vitamins and had them in my maildrop. Also had Vit C, Co Q and glucosomine. Worth it for me, IMO. I got my vitamins from Swanson (you can find them online).

[Blissful]

Tofu burger mixes were good. You can get dehydrated bean mixes. Couscous in various flavors. There is now a Minute kind of brown rice that cooks quick. Make your own granola as well with added wheat germ, nuts, etc. Carry real cheese you buy from stores (if you eat that). Whole wheat pita. Ramen has no nutritional value unless you add tofu and veggies to it.

[astrogirl]

chances are you can find a veggie version, you'll pay an arm and leg for it though

Vegetarian Omega-3s contain flax oil and borage. I have actually seen these packaged in *gelatin* caps though -- read the label.

All Omega-3 supplements that are worth a damn are fairly expensive.

For vitamins, make sure you get enough zinc. Vegetarians can be chronically short on it.

Try fitday.com. You can put in a days worth of food, then use their reports to tell you if you are meeting all the RDAs for vitamins and minerals -- it's way handy!

[take-a-knee]

Lots of vegetarian females have nutrition problems on the trail.

Read up on some real information on protein reqirements in the diet--it's way less than you might think. Protien power is probably silly.

You should think about maildrops. It will be tough to get good vegetarian nutrition without them.

Protein powder is silly huh? I wonder how many times you can bench press your bodyweight?

Half of your body, excluding water, is protein (this is refered to as the proteome), the enzymes that are essential for 99% of the life processes in your body are protein, every bone in your body contains more protein in the form or collagen, than it does calcium. Have you ever heard of a thru hiker getting a stress fracture...don't worry twinkie man, it's all good, no problem, just eat whatever.

[ScottP]

Take a Knee-
How many times can i bench my weight? Not a very reasonable question for a hiker. Two years ago, before I walked 6,000 miles? Weighed 200, put up 225 16 times at pre-season testing...good enough? Oh, and that's after two severe shoulder injuries (one supposedly 'career ending').

Nutrition is very important, but if you have a solid diet then supplements should not be nessecary.

Protein is overemphasized in the American diet. Protein intake should be around 12% (within a few percentage points, I don't remember exactally) of your daily calories (slightly higher if you are vegetarian, sightly higher still if you are vegan, and even higher still if you're an endurace athlete, such as a thru-hiker). If you are intending to lose weight along the way you'll also have a higher % of protein (as energy is coming from your own fat stores rather than from your diet).

Nutritionally, protein powder is just overpriced dried milk with the carbohydrates taken out. Every athletic trainer I have ever talked to recommended against taking protein supplements.


Tipi--Good post, although 'raw' beans and rice take a long time to cook, and ramen and mac n cheese are not healthy food adding veggies, tofu, or a packet of tuna is not the best solution either)

I had, really, one specific point that I was making. I met several vegetarian girls that had problems with anemia while hiking. Females need a lot of iron, and iron is found in reasonable concentration in only red meat and dark green vegetagbles. Both are very tough to come by out on the trail (and hard to load up on enough of the above if you only get iron in townstops). Iron is also in oatmeal and some nuts in smaller concentrations. Carryng fresh fruits and vegetables is a good, but heavy, solution.

There is not a single scientific that I am aware of correlating taking vitamin/mineral stupplements to being healthy. Do they work? Can your body absorb all those nutrients in a clump? Do some vitamins/minerals prevent others from being abosrbed, as vitamin-C prevents the absorption of zinc, and therefore make supplements totally worthless?

Last hiking season (AT GA-wayensboro, PCT Mex-Canada) I ate had the following meals every day:
Quinoa, 12 different types of dehydrated beans/lentils, and 10 different types of dehydrated vegetables (spinach is an important one).

Oatmeal, powdered milk, mixed nuts, mixed dried fruit

Fruit/nut mix

Some sort of salty-carbohydrate snack mix (pretzels, chex mix, etc. The salt is less nessecary on the AT than on the PCT)

1 clif bar


I met two biochemestry graduates that were on thier way to graduate studies that did the same thing, but used cous-cous instead of quinoa. They said that thier food worked out great.

For 1,000 mile section I averaged 30 miles a day (including resupply days and one or two zeros--my typical day was 35-42 miles) without eating at a restaurant.

I found that by buying in bulk and sending maildrops I was able to hike as much as I wanted, feel great, and totally avoid the cravings that send most hikers to towns.

You just won't find dehydrated vegetables or beans in most any grocery stores. Whole wheat pasta? Instant brown rice? Good luck finding those at trail grocery stores. Boxes of health cereal? Expensive and bulky.

Nutrition is absolutely one of the most important parts of your hike. Adding multivitamins and protein supplements to a diet of snickers and ramen is going to leave you in rough shape by the end of your hike, if you make it at all. Do some research--read some scientific information on nutrition, and plan accordingly. If you're going to ask your body to be a walking machine for several months then you should know how to treat it. It makes very little sense to me to spend more time researching gear than nutrition. Just make sure that what you read is serious science--there's a lot of bad information out there from quacks trying to sell some book or diet system.


Hermes

[Smile]

Veg's can also soak rice, quinoa, grains while on trail during your hike. Just a little water in the a.m. and by dinnertime you have cold 'cooked' and softened the grains, easier to heat up, add stuff to and enjoy!

[ScottP]

Whole grains won't be edible by just soaking, but pre-processed insants will.

Carrying around enough water all day to soak is heavier than carrying the nessecary items to cook.

[Tipi Walter]

ScottP--I like your list, it reads about like mine, my current backpacking foods consists of higher priced meals(Mary Jane's Farm stuff in bulk, expensive/Tasty Bites meal pouches with rice, Nature's Path sprouted wheat bread loaves/Bear Valley Pemmican bars(veg). But when I was poor and living out of my pack, I carried a Svea 123 stove and 2 Sigg gas bottles and it didn't bother me to spend an hour each night cooking up a pot of rice and lentils. Back then it was just part of being poor but free, free to hike and free to live outdoors with minimal money.

In the old days, oatmeal was also a mainstay of my hiking diet, and I learned to fix it with cream cheese, nuts, peanut butter, or a handful of wild mustard greens or chickweed.

Whether being a vegetarian or not, VARIETY is the name of the game, shift things around, carry out half a head of cabbage, take a pear and some apples, a bag of baby carrots, even some tempeh, miso and tofu. And cheese! When I've been hiking all day and then set up camp, there's nothing better than a hunk of cheese with a rice cake or some corn chips.

Let's go hiking so I can start eating all this stuff! Otherwise it sits waiting for my next trip.

[jesse]

Nutritionally, protein powder is just overpriced dried milk with the carbohydrates taken out. Every athletic trainer I have ever talked to recommended against taking protein supplements.

Who cares as long as it gives you the complete protiens that are needed to keep you going. As far as overpriced, the whey protien I buy at wally-world cost about $.50 per serving, which gives you 50% of what you need per day.

[jesse]

It makes very little sense to me to spend more time researching gear than nutrition

very wise words

[JAK]

The math can be just as much fun also, if not even more so, especially if you like to take it way way beyond the point of being practical as I do.

I think my daily nutritional needs while hiking are roughly:
Fast Carbs: 250g ~ 1000 kcal
Slow Carbs: 250g ~ 1000 kcal
Protien: 100g ~ 400 kcal
Food Fat: 33g ~ 300 kcal
Body Fat: 200g ~ 1800 kcal
Fibre: 20g
====================
Total Food: 660g ~ 2700 kcal
Total Body: 200g ~ 1800 kcal
GrandTotal: 860g ~ 4500 kcal
+Vitamins and Minerals???

My main staples are oatmeal, milk, honey/raisins. That usually provides enough protien also. If I was lean I could add more nuts, or work in some oil. As it is I include a little jerky just for something to chew on once a day. If I was a vegetarian including no dairy I would go to stuff like lentils. With a cozy they don't use too much fuel, but you have to be patient. I am trying to work in more soup at night anyway, so I might move away from so much dairy.

I understand most of the problem with going vegan is some of the vitamin Bs, B6 and B12 I think. Can't remember. Without resorting to multivitamins, which have to get them from someplace, where are the natural sources for some of those missing vitamins and minierals.

[JAK]

Did a little search.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan#Iodine

For vegan diets it is vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iodine, and omega-3 fatty acids to watch out for. I think vitamin D would be well covered with sunshine while hiking, and iodine from iodized salt. Flax seed is an excellent source of omega-3. Calcium would be one to watch for sure. The article above says B12 might not be too much of an issue once it is in your body. B12 deficiency is the cause of several forms of anemia. That doesn't sound good. Probably good to take a supplement, unless your like me and like to go totally carnivour now and then, usually just once a week, but in a big way.

Here is more on B12:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanocobalamin

[ScottP]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/

That website has nutrion data for almost any food you can imagine. You can even program a potential diet into the website and it will calculate everything (completion of proteins, vitamin and mineral content, etc.)

http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/b12/
"Very low B12 intakes can cause anaemia and nervous system damage. The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms."



"The only reliable unfortified sources of vitamin B12 are meat, dairy products and eggs. There has been considerable research into possible plant food sources of B12. Fermented soya products, seaweeds and algae have all been proposed as possible sources of B12. However, analysis of fermented soya products, including tempeh, miso, shoyu and tamari, found no significant B12.
Spirulina, an algae available as a dietary supplement in tablet form, and nori, a seaweed, have both appeared to contain significant amounts of B12 after analysis. However, it is thought that this is due to the presence of compounds structurally similar to B12, known as B12 analogues. These cannot be utilised to satisfy dietary needs. Assay methods used to detect B12 are unable to differentiate between B12 and it's analogues, Analysis of possible B12 sources may give false positive results due to the presence of these analogues.
Researchers have suggested that supposed B12 supplements such as spirulina may in fact increase the risk of B12 deficiency disease, as the B12 analogues can compete with B12 and inhibit metabolism.
The current nutritional consensus is that no plant foods can be relied on as a safe source of vitamin B12. "



http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html


"For strict vegetarians who eat no animal products whatsoever, this unreliability may pose a problem. Since no plant is capable of making B-12, the amount of B12 in plant food depends upon the relationship of the plant to soil and root-level microorganisms (bacteria, yeasts, molds, and fungi) which make the vitamin. Cultured and fermented bean products like tofu, tempeh, miso, tamari and shoyu may or may not contain significant amounts of B12, depending upon the bacteria, molds, and fungi used to produce them. The B12 content of sea vegetables also varies according to the distribution of microorganisms in the surrounding sea environment.
Unfortunately, reliable nutrient analyses are often unavailable for consumers of these products, and labeling for B12 content is not required. In general, tofus, tempehs, and sea vegetables tend to be more consistent sources of B12 than misos, tamaris, and shoyus. Depending upon the medium in which they are grown, brewer's and nutritional yeast can also be significant sources of B12 in a strict vegetarian diet."
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...rient&dbid=107



B12 appears to confuse researchers as much as any of us.

[astrogirl]

Nutritional yeast adds a lot of flavor and B vitamins for it's weight. If you have a B12 problem, you probably already know it.

I would absolutely carry tempeh out of town, if I could find it. I have no idea how long it would last fresh, but I would try it if I found it in a grocery store. It's fermented -- I'm sure it would hold up for a few days. In it's refrigerated state it lasts for *months*. Tofu, even the tetrapack stuff, has a lot of water in it and I wouldn't bother with it myself, but then I don't really like tofu either. I have brought the baked tofu (purchased refrigerated) hiking in late June, and it held up for a couple of days. Once I opened it though, I finished it off.

I dry tempeh at home for my trips (I'm not a vegetarian, but I love tempeh) after cooking it taco style.

[map man]

Hey, JAK and ScottP, thanks for the nutrition links. A lot of good stuff there at first glance, and I intend to go back and read more.

And ScottP, I see you have a lot of dehydrated vegetables in your trail diet. I've read in a few places that veggies, and other stuff, can lose a lot of vitamins and nutrients during dehydration (banana chips have only 2% of RDA of potassium per serving while whole bananas obviously do a lot better). Are you worried about losing a lot of the iron in spinach, for example, when the spinach is dehydrated?

[ScottP]

nutritiondata.com is intense--it has different data for vegetables that are hot-dried, warm-dried, canned, frozen, and fresh. For some produce it even has different data depending on season and location.


While some nutrients are lost in the dehydration process, I've read that in most cases 60-80% of micro-nutrients are retained, depending on the temperature (lower temp, less nutrients lost).

Nutritiondata.com has seperate listings for bananas, dehydrated bananas, and banana chips. The dehydrated bananas have pretty much the same nutritional content as the fresh bananas, while the banana chips are almost devoid of any nutritional content (maybe commercial banana chips are deep fried?).