I’m really sorry to hear about your health issues. I’d recommend you reach out to a registered dietitian who has experience with plant-based diets. Here’s a list of such people who do remote personal counseling:

https://vegetariannutrition.net/find-a-registered-dietitian/

Good luck and I hope you find a way to feel better and make a plant-based diet work.

Josh–

The reason we increase the servings for the second list is because there are a number of foods that don’t contain as much ALA as all the foods in the first list, so you need to eat more of some of them to ensure you’re getting enough. We decided to expand the list of foods for the book, but I’ve stuck with my smaller list of foods that contain more ALA on VeganHealth.org to make sure people don’t just rely on random chance to get their ALA. I’m actually torn on which is the better tactic.

For ALA, you wrote

“Add 0.5 g of uncooked ALA to your diet daily (see chart). This would be the equivalent of:

1/5 oz English* walnuts (3 halves)
1/4 tsp of flaxseed oil
1 tsp of canola oil
1 tsp ground flaxseeds”

However in your book Vegan For Life (great book) for ALA you say to have three to four times these amounts:

“Be sure that your diet includes three to four servings per day from the following list:

1 teaspoon canola oil
¼ teaspoon flaxseed oil
⅔ teaspoon hempseed oil
1 teaspoon walnut oil
2 teaspoons ground English walnuts or 2 walnut halves
1 teaspoon ground flaxseeds
½ cup cooked soybeans
1 cup firm tofu
1 cup tempeh
2 tablespoons soynuts” (p. 89)

Can you clarify this? Or am I missing something?

Thanks mate!

Sheena–

The way to know if it’s a particular food is to eliminate the food for a few weeks and see if symptoms clear up. If they do, then add the food back in and see if they come back. If they do, you can be fairly certain it’s that food. Be aware that many problems are not food-related. I hope you find some relief soon!

Ok, thanks for the info! I’ll take the Vitamin D daily for a while and see if it clears up.
Cheers!

Hi Sheena–

It’s extremely unlikely for 300% of the RDA of B12 to cause skin problems. Doses that do that tend to be more in the realm of 400 times the RDA (which is more like 2,000%).

Psoriasis is not likely to be diet-related. Mayo Clinic says that exposing the skin to small amounts of sunlight can help as can some topical vitamin D ointment, that’s why I though perhaps it could be related to a significant vitamin D deficiency but that is more theoretical than evidence-based. It’s not uncommon to get vitamin D levels tested and I recommend that vegans do that every few years just to make sure they’re getting enough.

Mayo Clinic info: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/psoriasis/basics/definition/con-20030838

Good luck and I hope you find a solution!