Where do vegans get Vitamin E?
Vitamin E is only made by plants, isn’t that amazing. A healthy vegan diet will cover your Vitamin E needs, so you do not have to worry about taking any supplements.
Vitamin E is an important vitamin required for proper function of many organs in the body and it is also an antioxidant. It is important to know that Vitamin E that occurs naturally in plants is different from man-made vitamin E that is in supplements.
The best plant sources of vitamin E are: Plant oils and spreads (wheat germ oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, rapeseed oil, corn oil, soya oil, peanut/groundnut oil, margarines and spreads). Nuts and seeds (hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, peanuts, peanut butter and pistachios), avocado, butternut squash, canned tomatoes, wheat germ, mango, broccoli, spinach, kale and chickpeas.
You can meet your daily needs with any one of the following: a tablespoon of sunflower seeds in your breakfast cereal (6.0 milligrams), a handful of hazelnuts (7.0 milligrams) or almonds (6.2 milligrams), a medium avocado (4.6 milligrams) in a salad with some sunflower oil (a tablespoon will give you 6.0 milligrams).
Vitamin E is a nutrient that is important to vision, reproduction, and the health of your blood, brain, and skin. It can help prevent the build-up of fatty plaques in the arteries and so reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Vitamin E also has antioxidant properties. Antioxidants are substances that might protect your cells against the effects of molecules produced when your body breaks down food or is exposed to tobacco smoke and radiation. These free radicals might play a role in heart disease, cancer and other diseases. If you take vitamin E supplements for its antioxidant properties, keep in mind that it might not offer the same benefits as naturally occurring antioxidants in food.
Luckily, deficiency of Vitamin E is rare and tends to indicate difficulty absorbing fat rather than a diet lacking vitamin E. Symptoms of a deficiency include muscle weakness, liver and kidney problems, cardiac arrhythmia, night blindness, problems with the nervous system and reduced immunity.
