It is something I asked myself while I was pregnant and I couldn’t find much information about it. I did consume some protein powder here and there before I became pregnant, but I wasn’t that used to it. So I wondered can you consume plant-based protein powder while pregnant?

It is not advisable to consume vegan protein powder during your pregnancy. A study from the non-profit organisation Clean Label Project has found that 53 leading brands of protein powder sold in the United States contain elevated levels of heavy metals and BPA. The plant-based protein powders were the worst offenders according to the study done by the non-profit. 75% of the plant-based protein powders contained measurable levels of lead.

Beside the results of this study, protein powder is not a whole food. For pregnant vegans the best and safest way to meet your protein needs is by eating a whole foods plant-based diet. Some whole foods that contain lots of protein are: black beans, lentils or chickpeas, soy, tofu, tempeh, quinoa or hemp seeds. Lentils, quinoa and hemp seeds are also complete proteins and contain all essential amino acids.

So make sure you eat lots of whole foods that contain enough protein to get your needs met. You need 0.8 grams of protein per kg of total body weight. That is approximately 55 grams if your weight is 150 lbs (68 kg). But it is best to aim for 70 gram of protein per day.

Is Vegan Protein Powder Safe During Pregnancy?

When you are pregnant you should be more careful for contaminants like mercury, BPA and lead. Exposing your baby to heavy metals can lead to bad outcomes such as miscarriage. Another study has found a link between lead and mercury intake by pregnant women and negative neuro-developmental outcomes for babies at 6 months of age.

High levels of mercury are found in fish, luckily you aren’t consuming any fish as a vegan so that’s all good. But who thinks about heavy metals such as lead or mercury when consuming protein powder?

A study from Clean Label Project has found that 53 leading brands of protein powders sold in the United States contain elevated levels of heavy metals and BPA.

That’s not all: plant-based protein powders were the worst offenders with 75% of them containing measurable levels of lead. The organic versions of protein powder scored twice as bad for heavy metals.

If you decide to use protein powder, you are trusting the manufacturer that their info is accurate. So if you are already checking that ingredient list, you might be thinking you are consuming a 1-ingredient protein powder shake with for example only pea protein isolate on the ingredient list.

But according to this independent third-party study, the plant-based protein powders were the most contaminated. The study has found elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, BPA, mercury, mycotoxins, pesticides and residual solvents.

But the study is done in the United States and I live in the UK or Europe? I live in Europe too, the fact that this study is done in the United States is only a precursor to me for other brands, including European ones. Yes there are more regulations in Europe about pesticides and GMO’s, but I would still focus on eating whole foods rather than a protein powder shake to get your protein as a pregnant vegan.

Another element to look for when consuming a plant-based protein powder is added vitamins. If you are taking a prenatal vitamin, your vitamin needs are already met and you might be taking too much of a good thing. For example vitamin A, this vitamin is essential but should not be consumed too much during pregnancy.

If you are on a well-planned whole foods plant-based diet you get all nutrients met. You might not need extra vitamins from a protein powder shake. A study from 2016 shows that an appropriately planned vegan diet is nutritionally adequate and healthful and has health benefits for the treatment and prevention of different diseases. A vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life, including pregnancy and when breastfeeding; but also during infancy, childhood, adolescence, and for athletes.

If you are not already reconsidering the use of protein powder when you’re pregnant, there are also no long-term studies done to research any long-term effects of (vegan) protein powder use, whether pregnant or non-pregnant.

Protein powder is always a supplement and can never be substituted for a real meal made of whole foods. Consider taking all your proteins from whole foods.

How to Choose a Safe Vegan Protein Powder during Pregnancy?

After all that is said above, you still want to consume a plant-based protein powder? In that case, the best thing you can do is head over to the website of Clean Label Project and check if your desired brand is a clean brand according to their independent study. The best plant-based protein powders according to Clean Label Project are:

• Puori Plant Protein Booster
• Plantfuel Performance Protein Vanilla

Another thing to do is being a conscious consumer. E-mail or call the company of your desired protein brand and ask the manufacturer if they analyse their product for heavy metals, BPA and other environmental contaminants.

Puori Plant Protein Booster

Puori Plant Protein Booster is a protein powder based on pea protein isolate. Pea protein contains many essential amino acids. They also added algae calcium which is calcium extracted from fossil algae. There are 3 ingredients:

• Pea protein isolate (95%)
• Algae (Lithothamnion calcareum)
• Organic rapeseed oil

The brand advices you consult with your healthcare provider when pregnant or nursing before using their product.

Plantfuel Performance Protein Vanilla

Plantfuel Performance Protein is a protein powder based on pea protein, mung bean protein and sunflower and pumpkin seed protein. It has 20 grams of protein per serving of 2 scoops. Plantfuel Performance Protein powder also has all 9 essential amino acids. It is advisable to consult your healthcare provider before consuming when you’re pregnant or nursing.

Best Vegan Protein Sources during Pregnancy

Focus on whole foods. The best vegan protein sources when you are pregnant differ from legumes, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, whole grains and pseudo grains, and even some fruits. A quick list below where to get your protein from as a pregnant vegan. To find out more about protein during a vegan pregnancy read this article.

1. Vegetables
2. Lentils
3. Quinoa
4. Hemp Seeds
5. Beans
6. Tofu, Tempeh, Edamame
7. Whole Wheat Grains
8. Spelt
9. Wild Rice
10. Whole Grain Rice
11. Nuts or Nut-butter
12. Chia Seeds
13. Seitan

How Much Protein do I Need as a Pregnant Vegan?

On average you need 70 gram of protein per day when you’re pregnant, vegan or not. You can easily meet this requirement by eating a variety of plant-based foods such as beans, lentils, vegetables, tempeh, tofu, quinoa and whole or pseudo grains.

During your second trimester you need 340 kcal extra per day, during your third trimester you need an extra of 450 kcal per day. When consuming more calories you are likely eating more protein when eating a variety of plant-based foods.

Do you want to learn more about protein during your vegan pregnancy, read this article.

Candy Marx, a registered plant-based nutritionist and registered master herbalist, wrote Plantfed mama’s Guide to a Vegan Pregancy during her second pregnancy. Candy did a great job writing this resource book and it even contains 75+ delicious recipes. I’ve read the book twice already and in this article I share my thoughts about Plantfed Mama’s Holisitic Guide to a Vegan Pregnancy. 

Review in short: This book is my go-to vegan pregnancy book. It combines the basics of a healthy vegan diet with natural resources of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. In addition it combines information about herbal remedies for lots of ailments and has a holistic and spiritual view about pregnancy and life itself. If this is your thing, this book definitively belongs on your bookshelf.

Overall Impression

The book has a happy and colourful cover that reveals a lot about the rest of the book. The happy colours in the book make it really cheerful to read about a vegan pregnancy. It is clearly written and understandable for non-English speaking people as well, except for the Australian measurements in the recipes. As you can read in the table below, there are a variety of chapters in this book. It varies between which vitamins are essential to the importance of your breathing. This broad variety of information makes the book a really good go-to vegan pregnancy book. 

Chapters

The book is divided in 22 informative chapters and an additional 7 chapters full of recipes (75+ recipes). If you wonder which chapters can be found in Marx’s book, check the table below. In the table below you see the chapter titles and a short description of the chapter.

Impression After Reading the Book

I really enjoyed reading the holistic and spiritual subjects Candy’s written about. Firstly because it is not that common to include a spiritual and holistic point of view combined with food in pregnancy books. Secondly because it is really nice to read about her holistic and spiritual point of view towards food, it reminded me that you are not someone strange to think about food and life in that way. The book encourages me to trust my intuition and that’s a good thing because it gives me strength. Strength is good in pregnancy. 

What Did I Miss?

There is not that much that I really missed in this book, I could only think of some minor improvements. 

• Convert all Australian/American measurements of recipes to European measurements as well. This would really improve the readability of the recipes for European readers. 
• Although there are some warm recipes, there could be more recipes included for colder climates with typical colder climate vegetables. Handy if your pregnancy is largely during snowy wintertime somewhere in the northern hemisphere (like me). But this book still has a lot of recipes to offer. 
• Add more information about Chlorella use during pregnancy. Candy is very positive about chlorella use during pregnancy, but more information about its use could be added in future editions.

Should I Buy This Book?

Candy Marx has done a great job with writing this information-laden vegan pregnancy book. If you are an experienced vegan there is probably a lot of good and new information for you. If you are a new or not so experienced vegan, I recommend reading a second vegan pregnancy book on the side as well. I surely recommend this book, as it is a one of a kind. If in doubt read the table above with chapter descriptions and decide if this is your kind of information. 

When you are pregnant it is best to stay away from soft cheeses, but does that count for vegan cheese as well? Can you eat vegan cheese during pregnancy?

In short: yes you can eat all vegan cheese during your pregnancy. It is safe to eat vegan cheese when pregnant because vegan cheese does NOT contain dairy. Dairy should be pasteurized in order to be safe to consume for pregnant women. Soft cheeses, like Camembert or Brie are not pasteurized. Vegan cheese is safe because it does not contain any dairy; therefore it is not necessary to pasteurize vegan cheese. Vegan cheese is often made of cashews, coconut oil or soya. 

What is Vegan Cheese? 

Vegan cheese is a plant-based, non-dairy alternative to dairy cheese. Dairy cheese is, like it says made of dairy. Vegan cheese does not contain any animal products, dairy does. 

It is thought that vegan cheese goes way back to 16^th century China. It was made with fermented tofu or whole soy. Soy is high in protein and creates a spreadable consistence. 

Vegan cheese began hitting the Western market around 1980, although it came with scepticism. Its flavour did not at all resemble dairy cheese. It was then mostly made of tofu. 

With the years, vegan cheese was made with different ingredients creating different kinds of cheese. Such as Mozzarella or Parmesan, often made with nuts. Nuts have proven their functionality and are now often used to create different kinds of cheese.

The benefits of nuts are that they do not contain cholesterol and it creates a spreadable consistence. Nuts are also high in fiber and are a good source of various minerals such as magnesium.

Can You Eat Vegan Cheese During Pregnancy?

You can eat vegan cheese during your pregnancy. Vegan cheese does not contain any dairy. It is therefore not necessary to pasteurize any ingredients in vegan cheese. Because it lacks any animal products, it is safe to use during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Which Cheese Do You Have to Avoid During Pregnancy? 

You better avoid all unpasteurized cheese made with animal dairy during your pregnancy. This is often mould-ripened soft cheese. This contains the following dairy cheese: 

• Camembert
• Roquefort
• Brie
• Queso fresco
• Queso blanco
• Chevre (type of goat cheese)
• Panela
• Feta (if unpasteurized, check label)

What different kinds of vegan cheese exist?

The good news is you can eat all vegan cheese. There are different kinds of vegan cheese and more are entering the market each year as the demand increases. Here is an overview of different vegan cheese, and what they are usually made of. 

Can you eat Vegan Cheesecake?

Yes you can eat vegan cheesecake! And you can easily make vegan cheesecake yourself. You don’t have to be a chef. Follow this recipe. It’s really easy!

Sources 

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/vegetarian-and-vegan-mums-to-be/

If you are a vegan and you are pregnant, you might think you’re all set. But there are a few vegan foods you still want to avoid. Are there vegan foods that I should avoid during my pregnancy? Which vegan foods should I avoid?

In short: yes, you have to avoid certain vegan foods. You probably already have an idea which foods that must be. Most important vegan foods to avoid include: alcohol, caffeine, raw sprouts, unpasteurized juices and unwashed produce. But you also want to consider heavily processed foods such as potato chips, desserts, candy and overly processed cookies.

It is obvious why you should avoid alcohol, although there is some research that light drinking might be safe, but more research is needed. So stay safe and don’t drink during your pregnancy. 

Experts say that current data about the consumption of more than 300mg/d caffeine is limited and conflicting. Therefore their suggestion is to limit caffeine consumption by no more than 1-2 cups of coffee a day.

Raw sprouts carry a risk of foodborne illness if contaminated with bacteria, e.g. salmonella, E. coli and listeria. Raw sprouts include alfalfa, radish, clover or mung bean sprouts. 

Unpasteurized juices and unwashed produce can carry a risk of foodborne illness too if contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella. Once contaminated it is difficult to sanitize the fruit or vegetable. Yes, a vegetable can be contaminated with salmonella. Better be safe than sorry and wash your fresh produce.

What about the heavily processed vegan foods? Are they safe to consume during pregnancy?

Which vegan foods to avoid during pregnancy?

Raw sprouts

Raw sprouts carry the risk of foodborne illness if contaminated with bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli or listeria. As a pregnant woman you are immunosuppressed, which means your immune system is suppressed so your body doesn’t reject the baby as its ‘foreign’ to your own body. Therefore, you are more prone to infections that don’t normally cause illness. Keep this in mind and don’t consume raw sprouts. 

Especially alfalfa should not be consumed during pregnancy. Alfalfa sprouts are considered dangerous of the risk of food poisoning; the FDA and CDC recommend not eating raw alfalfa sprouts. 

Alcohol 

Let’s keep it safe and don’t consume alcohol while pregnant. At least, if you know you are pregnant. If you drank something while not knowing you were pregnant, don’t blame yourself harshly for the rest of your pregnancy. It’s going to be a rough pregnancy if you’d blame yourself continuously for drinking on that one evening. This will go hand in hand with an amount of stress hormones, and that’s not really helping your pregnancy and growing baby. 

Remember this: you cannot go back into the past, so focus on the future and the now. What can you do now to have a healthy pregnancy?  

Caffeine

While you’d better not consume alcohol, caffeine is tolerated if we’d listen to the experts. No more than 2 cups of coffee a day is what they say. But is that a good way to approach coffee consumption? In a single cup of coffee there is an average amount of 100 mg of caffeine per cup. If you limit your coffee consumption to 2 cups a day this will be an average consumption of 200 mg of caffeine per day. 

But coffee isn’t the only product with caffeine in it. Therefore, if you consume some of the other sources of caffeine everyday, you will get more caffeine in your body. Other products with caffeine are for example black tea, green tea or chocolate. But also: sodas, energy drinks, chocolate ice cream and even decaffeinated coffee. 

Nevertheless, caffeine is a stimulant and a diuretic. Being a diuretic means that it deprives the body of fluids as fast as possible. For a pregnant woman it is important to keep hydrated and drink at least eight to ten 8-ounce glasses of water, or 1,5 to 2,5 litres (6-10 glasses of 200ml). 

So if you decide to consume caffeine, especially coffee, at least drink that extra glass of water. Or don’t consume coffee at all. 

Unpasteurized juices

When fruits or vegetables are cut, peeled or squeezed, harmful bacteria from the outside can find its way to the inside of the produce. If the juice or smoothie has not been pasteurized these bacteria might still be present in the juice. Pasteurized juices are most common and if pasteurized it should be written on the label. Check the label! Unpasteurized juices are found in farmers markets, health-food stores or the refrigerated section of the grocery store. 98 percent of the juice sold in the US is pasteurized; in the UK this is 99 percent.

Tip: Make your own juice with a juicer.

Unwashed produce

Same as for unpasteurized juices: harmful bacteria or parasites from the outside, for example on the peel, can spread to the inside of the fruit or vegetable you are about to eat. Another reason is the pesticide residue on the fruit or vegetable. It is especially important to wash your fruits and vegetables. How to properly wash your fruits and veggies?

Well according to Dr. Michael Greger, researchers have found that dedicated fruit and vegetable washes do NOT enhance the removal of pesticide residues that tap water could also have done. A very cheap and helpful fruit and vegetable wash is salt water. Just mix 1/10 salt with 9/10 water and rinse thoroughly after the produce soaked in the salt-water solution.  That’s it! 

Which vegan foods could be avoided but are not necessary?

The best way to eat during your pregnancy is a diet you can maintain. And if that diet makes you eat a bag of potato chips once in a while, that is okay, if the majority of your diet is healthy. But if you are eating that bag of potato chips everyday you might want to consider your eating behaviour. 

Potato chips & French fries

Pregnant women according to dr. Michael Greger should better not eat potato chips or French fries. Deep-fried foods generate carcinogens that are not good for the pregnant body. Deep-fried plants form acrylamide which is not good for you and your growing baby, it causes inflammation says one study. Acrylamide is found in French fries and potato chips, as well as other chips. So either cut back on these products or leave them out of your diet. 

Processed foods: cookies, sweets, desserts 

According to dr. Pierre Dukan, pregnant women should limit processed foods. Specifically invasive carbs and sugars, also known as fast sugars. In his book The Most Important 60 Days of your Pregnancy (2017) he explains that invasive carbs and sugars aren’t very good for the insulin levels of the woman and her baby. Instead he recommends consuming carbs that have a low Glycemic Index value. Or as he states: Eat like you grandma did when she was pregnant. Examples of such carbs are brown rice, wholemeal pasta or rye bread (>60% rye). You can find the Glycemic Index values of different foods here.

So limit your intake of potato chips, French fries and products with invasive carbs. But if that stresses you out too much, think about it twice and stick to a diet that does work for you. There is no harsh line to what is good or bad and you’ll probably know intuitively what foods are best for you. Soak in knowledge about healthy food but also trust your inner knowing. Your doing great mama! 

Sources: 

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-pregnancy#foods-to-avoid

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22413723/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625078/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/sprouted-seeds-safety-advice/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22850369/

https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/infections#causes

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/update-on-alfalfa-sprouts/

https://www.fda.gov/food/people-risk-foodborne-illness/fruits-veggies-and-juices-food-safety-moms-be

https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/04/20/the-best-way-to-wash-fruit-and-vegetables/

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cancer-risk-from-french-fries/