I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Low / No vitA food list
My daughter (1yr) and I (34) are relatively new on our low vitamin A journey (almost a month). I've been researching low and no VA fruits and veggies. We've had pretty decent success with what we've tried so far with the exception of fatty meats and pretty much any oil so we are avoiding those for now. I will note we love fruits, but we are limiting those to some degree until my daughter's eczema clears up some more. We don't usually mix fruits in a meal and rarely eat more than 1/2 cup serving size.
Well tolerated:
bananas
beans (black, kidney, and pinto)
beef (lean)
blackberries
black peppercorns
cabbage
cauliflower
cranberries (dried)
celery
coffee (black w/sugar)
egg whites
garlic
mushrooms (white/portobella)
oatmeal
olives
onions (white)
pineapple
pomegranates
potatoes (white/russet)
pretzels (organic)
raisins
rice (white/jasmine- organic)
salt
turkey
turmeric
Not well tolerated:
butter
pot roast or other fatty beef cuts
chocolate of any kind
May Try in Future:
apples (granny smith)
bamboo shoots
bread (organic)
cherries (bing)
chickpeas
corn (white)
cucumber (peeled)
dates
figs (raw)
grape juice (white)
grapes (green)
hominy (white)
honeydew melon
jicama
kiwi
lemon
macadamia nuts
parsnips
pears
sunflower seeds
turnips
water chestnuts
Anyway, that's our list so far. Has anyone had bad experiences with any of the fruits or veggies on this list?
Trista
@Trista I think you're still breastfeeding, but I just want to mention that fats are important to a child's development and that cases of vitamin A deficiency in children are most probably from a lack of good fats.
What kind of olives do you eat? My toddler and I both reacted badly to green olives.
Yes, we do still breastfeed. I understand that fats are important. I only planned to minimize processed fats (butter/oils) as she has begun reacting to them after a severe reaction to a fatty cut of meat. I cut out processed fats for about 2 days when her skin read calming down. I started back with butter this past week and not only has my daughter's eczema become severely inflamed, but her whole face and eyelids have become very red and itchy (clearly an allergic response).
We both eat black olives, and I was considering substituting macadamia nuts and/or sunflower seeds to make up the difference. Do you and your toddler find either of those tolerable?
Trista
I've had no problems with sunflower seeds. I can't say for macadamia nuts. I haven't tried them yet. I ate some almonds and I seemed to be Ok with them.
List of the vitamin A content in foods.
Here's a link to reproduce a report of the vitamin A content in various foods. You can adjust the search to include just a limited selection of food groups. For example:
96
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
You can download the results in PDF or as a CSV file format. If you download the CSV you can open it using MS Excel. Once you have it in Excel you can sort it say by IU / unit.
^this is actually helpful because you can fitler for lutein and zeaxanthin as well
Quote from Guest on December 15, 2018, 12:50 pmMy daughter (1yr) and I (34) are relatively new on our low vitamin A journey (almost a month). I've been researching low and no VA fruits and veggies. We've had pretty decent success with what we've tried so far with the exception of fatty meats and pretty much any oil so we are avoiding those for now. I will note we love fruits, but we are limiting those to some degree until my daughter's eczema clears up some more. We don't usually mix fruits in a meal and rarely eat more than 1/2 cup serving size.
Well tolerated:
bananas
beans (black, kidney, and pinto)
beef (lean)
blackberries
black peppercorns
cabbage
cauliflower
cranberries (dried)
celery
coffee (black w/sugar)
egg whites
garlic
mushrooms (white/portobella)
oatmeal
olives
onions (white)
pineapple
pomegranates
potatoes (white/russet)
pretzels (organic)
raisins
rice (white/jasmine- organic)
salt
turkey
turmericNot well tolerated:
butter
pot roast or other fatty beef cuts
chocolate of any kindMay Try in Future:
apples (granny smith)
bamboo shoots
bread (organic)
cherries (bing)
chickpeas
corn (white)
cucumber (peeled)
dates
figs (raw)
grape juice (white)
grapes (green)
hominy (white)
honeydew melon
jicama
kiwi
lemon
macadamia nuts
parsnips
pears
sunflower seeds
turnips
water chestnutsAnyway, that's our list so far. Has anyone had bad experiences with any of the fruits or veggies on this list?
Trista
I'm pretty sensitive so I would probably react to most of those things. I just wanted to say that most of the VA is in the skin of the fruit, if you for example peel an apple your VA exposure will be 70-80% lower.
Question: has anyone tried supplementing with bee pollen? Thanks!
Rusty, I've taken bee pollen in the past, and I've kept bees. Do you know that pollen is bright yellow? I would wonder if it was chock full of carotenes, but what do I know? 🙂
The typical thing is to start taking local pollen mid winter when your pollen allergies might be at the lowest ebb, and work your way up from one grain. Itchy mouth might tell you that you are going to fast or wading into allergen territory!
Thanks for the info., @lil-chick. Has anyone tried pumpkin seeds in their Low Vitamin A diet? It looks like they are fairly low in A but do have 23.86 mcg of Lutein and Zeaxanthin.