Bruising when I don't eat meat.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-28-2005
Bruising when I don't eat meat.
2
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 6:29pm
Late last year I stopped eating meat and most meat products. I've pretty much become a vegan. It just seemed that anything that came from an animal was too heavy and was making me sick. This is going fine for me except I'm getting these really bad bruises. I mean I bang my funny bone and I have a bruise on my elbow the size of a softball. I hit my knee at work and then I have a a bruise the size of a dinner plate. They are nasty looking too like when I was in a car accident nasty. Now I don't know any vegetarians so I don't know if this is normal. I've made a effort to eat right and make sure that my body is getting everything that it needs. Is there something I'm overlooking? Is this normal? Any thoughts on how to fix it?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 06-29-2005 - 4:26pm

there are some nutrients to look into such as iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. notice that they're all elements.

nutrition is a difficult study because many people think of these nutrients in an isolated sense, rather than how they work 'in tandem' between each other, before and after cooking, with other nutrients, with other chemicals in our foods, and so on.

For example, lets talk about iron. There are three types of iron: 1. heme iron, which comes from animals and animal products such as dairy and eggs; 2. non-heme iron, which comes from vegetables; and iron salts, which makes up our iron supplements.

Heme iron absorbability is not affected by diet. Of whatever heme iron you consume, what you need will be absorbed.

Non-heme iron is affected by diet. Oxalates (spinach, mustard greens), tannins (tea, olive oil), phosphoric acids (additives in soda), caffine (present in tea, coffee, soda, etc), and a myriad of other elements common to our diets inhibits the absorbability of non-heme iron. Many vegetarians say "i get enough iron; i eat spinach!" yet spinach--unless cooked to smithereens--contain oxalates which inhibits the absorption of the non-heme iron present, and therefore you get little or no iron from spinach. Vitamin C increases non-heme iron absorption, but if the amount of inhibitors exceeds the amount of non heme iron, then none of it will be absorbed. Consider a spinach salad with orange-juice and olive oil dressing. The oxalates in the spinach and the tannins in the oil will completely discount the orange juice and you won't get the iron that you need.

Many vegetarians choose to supplement with iron supplements. these come from ferrus salts, and are absorbable. Of course, they are in a different form than heme and non-heme iron. The body has to 'crack' the salt and then absorb the iron--so it takes more energy and therefore it's likely that not as much will be absorbed than if it were from a heme source (or a nonheme source that wasn't inhibited by other dietary factors). So, even here, you'd need to take an increased amount of supplement, spread throughout the day, to get the appropriate amounts of iron absorbed.

Does this make sense?

Understanding what you need as a vegetarian isn't necessarily enough. You need to understand how absorption works and how you may be inhibiting absorption. Look into these minerals and see where you may be lacking and waht you can do to improve your situation.

avoid most processed foods, balance out your diet, and consider consuming more things with absorbable versions of these nutrients. :) Good luck!

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-20-2003
Thu, 06-30-2005 - 1:27am

I haven't heard of this before. It could be related to nutrients as the other poster suggested, but the timing could be coincidence.


Next time you see your doctor I would bring this up. If you are also tired or have other symptoms, or just worried, go soon. This may not be related to your diet at all, and even if it is a trained professional can give you the best advice.


There are a lot of books and websites that can help you determine if your diet is giving you what you need- I've even heard of sites and computer programs where you can plug in what you eat for a few days and it will give you specific information. It isn't much harder to eat a balanced vegetarian diet, or even a vegan one, than a "conventional" one,

Jaseann

co-cl-Celiac Disease