Ritual Essential Prenatal is a vegan prenatal vitamin in clear capsules, but are they worth it? Plus, what should you be looking for in a prenatal vitamin whether you are vegan, plant-based or omnivore?
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[Music] ever wonder if these little ritual vitamins are actually worth it well I’m Oregon I’m any plant-based registered dietitian and so today we’re going to dive into kind of the six main nutrients that you need to focus on for whether you are trying to conceive for a woman but then also kind of what the vitamin provides and why I think it can be an option this is not a sponsored post and all just one throw that out there I just happen to do a lot of research and I always want to know what’s out there I think it’s important for my clients and so this can be an option for some people but I want before we go on I just want to know or want you to know this is not some really like endorsed and supplementation needs are very individualized because our intake is very individualized so the right vitamin you know on time you think what is the best vitamin for this and that and honestly it really depends on what your intake is what your lifestyle is like if you have any deficiencies it’s it’s great right it’s not black and white so just know that going ahead and this may be a great option for you it may not but I think it’s still important to have this information so you know what what vitamins to choose for yourself and then also what nutrients to look for because there’s some really big things the first really big thing is choline so choline has kind of come up into research more lately and it’s not the interesting thing is in 2017 the American Medical Association said that choline needs to start being added into all multivitamins there wasn’t any specific amount that was discussed but it is found that you know 85% of women don’t well a lot of people don’t get enough choline but 85% of women who are trying to conceive don’t consume enough choline and choline is really important for for brain development specifically I’d look at my little notes there this is a lot of information you long it’s gonna be good but just knowing that ahead of time so with the choline it’s important development and you find a lot of it in eggs and meat and then also have some nuts and seeds like pumpkin seeds a really good source but for a lot of people especially so I’m a vegan I work with a lot of plant-based eaters so if you’re not consuming like the meat and you know the eggs it is important to then consume odd nuts and seeds and for some of us that just doesn’t happen I need you have to consume a relatively large amount so choline the sort of the general consensus that’s out there is 450 milligrams per day if you’re pregnant and 550 milligrams per day if you’re lactating now again most American women are only getting about 200 milligrams a day so that would mean that you need a supplement for most of us again that’s gonna be about 200 milligrams per day so the ritual vitamins do have choline which I will say a lot of prenatals still don’t or they have just a teeny tiny amount and so again depending on your you know intake is you may need more choline in a prenatal vitamin or just in a multivitamin depending on what you’re going with so in this one um is so freakin hard to see should have probably wrote that down to 55 milligrams so 55 milligrams only about 10% so keep that in mind that it’s still gonna be a low amount of choline but it does have some and if you’re eating a lot of nuts and seeds maybe enough you can also and give just a choline supplement to you know they’re relatively inexpensive if you are trying to conceive or if you’re already pregnant and you decide to go with the ritual essential prenatal the second nutrient that I want to talk about is going to be the iodine so what I really love about the ritual vitamin is that there’s 150 micrograms or the milligrams lordy Lordy 100 micrograms of the iodine it’s usually potassium iodide is usually how you find it in supplements that’s how it is in the ritual essential prenatal but with iodine it’s actually becoming more of a problem for a lot of like clean eaters so to speak or people who are eating more of a plant-based diet reason being is that you know iodine is added to just like high salt is usually how I find it but if you’re not eating a lot of processed foods and you’re not having iodine salt like maybe you’re doing a lot of the Himalayan pink sea salt or just sea salt in general that actually has a very low amount of iodine so iodine is really important for thyroid regulations really important for hormone regulation and it’s very important for for pregnant or whether you’re trying to conceive so in this again if you’re not eating a lot of processed foods that can be a super key nutrient to focus on and it’s not added in a lot of multivitamins so I really like cuz I’ve added into the essential pre nails my ritual and again it’s the 100% RDA so needs are covered don’t even have to worry about that I also really like that so then there’s the folate is the third nutrient I wanted to talk about with Foley there’s multiple forms and we’re gonna dupe time real fast because I think it’s really important that you understand the difference so there’s folic acid and then there’s full weight and then there’s also like a methylated form of folate and both of the synthetic forms both are there gonna be absorbed a little bit easier and you know there’s some people that have a gene that actually so you don’t convert the like non active form to the active form essentially is what it is and you know how many of us out there it’s estimated that potentially half of women could have that gene um you know give or take and you don’t really know unless all of a sudden you’re taking you know prenatal or vitamin and all of a sudden you realize you know folic acid or you know I can folate deficiency that could be a huge thing and it does prevent you know pregnancy and does prevent sort of like a healthy pregnancy so especially I should say too that folic acid folate is really important for decreasing neural tube defects in spina bifida being the main one there but so I am if it is actually the leading cause of paralysis and it may be and so getting enough folic acid as usual we all hear about with you’re trying to conceive whether you’re pregnant but I think it’s really important to have a form that is absorbed really well because you just don’t know if you have if you are absorbing it you know the right way and so I really like the ritual essential prenatals has the methylated form the other thing I was gonna say if so the so the recommendation is six hundred micrograms you know per day and so usually again depending on how much leafy greens you’re eating and that’s gonna have that folate and has to be converted of course and this one Lord Jesus should probably wrap those down so fully here we go it has sixteen sixty five micrograms which is two hundred and seventy percent in the daily value now honestly it is a little on the high side there’s something like a happy medium of like you want some folate but you also don’t want or some of the methylated point but you also want like a ton because that can be potentially problematic um but I would say that this is still a good option and definitely I think it’s more important that it’s active form if you have any questions about that be sure to comment below is we can again deep dive even further into the whole fully folic acid situation and so then the the fourth one I wanted to talk about is iron so this vitamin this ritual essential prenatal is like probably one of my favorites when it comes to iron specifically reason being is so it has the the RDA amount for just like healthy women so from women like 19 to 50 the recommendation is 18 milligrams per day and yes okay double check these numbers Dinos so 18 milligrams per day is for women for pregnancy it’s actually 27 milligrams so they’re essential prenatal has 18 milligrams so depending on what you’re eating so if you’re eating heme sources of iron like you know like meat or anything like that then obviously no problem there if you’re eating more non heme sort so again plant-based sources when you’re vegetarian just plant-based vegan whatever it is more important to kind of just focus on consuming iron and of course consuming some vitamin C with your iron to increase that absorption but I find that a lot of people that I work with personally if you’re eating a well-balanced diet can very easily consume adequate amounts of iron with a non heme source meaning from a plant-based source so you know even though it’s not quite as a 20-7 this um original one is not quite the twenty seven you know milligrams recommendation it’s at eighteen which to get that extra nine milligrams I think can easily done with food but again it just depends on what you’re eating so the iron in here is really an adequate amount it’s a really really cool thing I find is that it’s a lordy Jesus it’s basically it’s attached to a protein so the thing about iron I feel like I wrote this word down because I knew I was gonna this the word like trips me up every single time y’all so it’s a by clasp innate chelate so basically what it’s saying is that it’s an active form of the iron and it’s with a protein already so doesn’t invite you to a protein which essentially all that really means is it’s gonna be a lot easier to digest and to tolerate and if you know anything about iron you know that it can really cause a lot of upset stomach and cause laugh you know constipation which is another reason why I kind of like this doesn’t have a full 27 milligrams is that you know you’re not having as many potentially constipating effects and so you know I’ve been taking this now for a few months and I have no problems tolerating it I do consume it with food because some of the nutrients are just better absorbed with food but you can take it with food or without is what they say and so with that I just find that the iron is actually like I haven’t had any issues and I am someone who’s definitely had issues with iron in the past so again iron amount is great if you consume iron containing foods it’s very easily digested intolerable which i think is fantastic the only if you have a history of being anemic or deficient in iron you just want to make sure that maybe you’re taking enough from other sources to make sure those bases are covered so that’s the thing about that the iron with the ritual mine I feel like I’m talking so so fast I thought this is like this is already way longer than I thought it was going to be but I think it’s all very important information and so hopefully you find that to be the case as well if you do give me a like so I know that so the v nutured that I want to talk about is DHA so of course DHA we hear a lot of you know now being important for pregnancy and the thing about DHA is that normally it comes from fish um which is fine if you are consuming finish eating fish whatever but for me and many other vegans vegetarians plant-based eaters out there and that’s not the case and so the the DHA needs to come from the the algae it’s actually the fermentation process of the microalgae is what creates or was that source of the DHA there’s great sources of omega-3s in in plant-based foods but it’s the ala form so it’s a different form that needs to be converted to DHA and EPA in your body to get those same sort of benefits and you know how that’s converted we don’t really know so again the general recommendation is still to have the DHA and anywhere from 200 to 300 milligrams per day depending on the the source that you’re reading it from this essential prenatal from ritual has two to three hundred milligrams of DHA from the microalgae so it’s a vegan source which I like personally as a vegan you know again depending on your lifestyle that may or may not be important to you and then I also really like that it’s the 300 milligrams but um you know bada-bing bada-boom don’t worry about it at all and you’ll actually see what’s really cool about these is that um there’s like all the marketing that they have they’re like you can tell that it’s like a clear capsule to clear capsules one is encapsulated in the other and so all the oils that you know the fat soluble vitamins and with the mega threes are on the outer part that’s more than the oily part if you will because those oils are super important so an FDA chain again enough iron to kind of you know meet the baseline needs anyway enough iodine a little low on the choline and then when I also like about this one I feel like I said that a lot on already is that it has magnesium so it has 100% of your main museum should probably double checked it before just kidding a hundred percent nowhere near one person it’s only eight percent so it’s thirty milligrams a day so magnesium has on a benefit in preventing preeclampsia and in supporting healthy birth weight on baby and so if you aren’t pregnant that’s obviously like a thing that you want to avoid it’s pretty clam SIA so there’s magnesium supplements out there that you can get and this is just a little extra something I guess really and so if you you know you may want to have an additional magnesium supplement if you are pregnant just to kind of meet those needs the other thing is that magnesium has been used for like eons as a kind of like a bowel regulator and so if you are struggling with constipation that can obviously because of you know those hormone levels the magnesia might actually be really helpful to take to kind of regulate that so just something to think about there as well and if you’re curious about a brand comment below I’ll hit you up um and then and okay I think yes so those were the main nutrients I want to talk about the other really cool thing that I want to talk about that I like about the ritual vitamins is that they just show up on your doorstep so I have someone who kind of I can’t forget to like you know keep up on things and so I loved it they just show up every month I don’t have to worry about it and you know I’m not gonna lie I’m a fan of their marketing so I am a sucker for good marketing and I like their marketing I like that they you know kind of pride themselves on being transparent which you know so the cool thing is that you can see where these ingredients are coming from so if you go over the website can see exactly like where their main source from you can read about some of those companies and I think that’s really really cool as a consumer who probably you know deep dives into all this more than most people I like that transparency a lot it’s just it means a lot to me and so I’m willing to pay you know that monthly probably more I’m paying more for the rituals than like other prenatals but I also find that it’s worth it a because it’s high-quality ingredients not quite enough in some of those key ones you know you need to worry about if you are pregnant trying to conceive that such a big deal necessarily again depending out your intake is um so many variables y’all but the the other really thing cool thing that I like about the essential prenatal ritual vitamins is you know they’re transparent they show up every day but they’re also just super easy to take so I find that you know some of the pre Daniel’s that I’ve taken in the past which PS I’m taking prenatals almost my entire like vegan existence for like ten years now mostly because they do have more iron and I just have always been concerned about that and so I just I have better results with this honestly like it’s just easier for me to digest to tolerate all that good stuff I will say that if I take the vitamin and then drink like a ton of water afterwards I have sort of like a it’s fishy but it’s really just like the seaweed algae type of like a burp and it’s not only even a burp it’s just it’s like way fluid overloaded um I don’t think everyone has that reaction know because I kind of a little weird like that I think but just know that like it can still have like an algae aftertaste sometimes again for me it’s just if I drink like a ton of water and it’s like four sort of logged logged I guess like fluid long or something is when I had that sort of reaction not taste but for the most part super easy to take very well tolerated and just super transparency and it provides a lot of nutrients um I also have noticed this is just a side benefit that with this is vitamin my hair looks a lot better and my skin looks a lot better I’m not sure like what the combination is with that but better than some of the other with other vitamins I’ve taken in the past oh and I should mention that uh Alana prenatals have vitex which my text is complain your hormones and can you know effect ovulation which is like fine for most for some people if you have like irregular cycles but I would always check with your doctor your nurse practitioner whoever you’re working with because if you’re having regular cycles it can actually make your cycle longer and so I actually had that problem and it was I was like what the hell examines have super regular cycles all of a sudden I changed this multi or this prenatal before the ritual ones that had by text and it’s in a lot of them so pay attention to that if all of us think a really long cycle they’re like why it could be the vitex um so just something thinking about that I like that there’s not a lot of added stuff so you know a lot of those vitamins um have like the ginger and chamomile and things like that to which I just don’t think really personally I don’t think that they make a difference I think that if I was having upset stomach I would just have some ginger tea um but again that’s a personal decision I just feel like the the ritual certainly across an awful lot of boxes for me and I’m really excited that they but they have a lot of these things that are sort of newer in science that other vitamins don’t have the choline and iodine specifically but if you have any questions about the the ritual essential prenatal again comment below I will put just a if you are curious or if you want trying about yourself I’ll put a link down in the description below and again if you I am like more than happy to answer questions I know there’s like a ton of vitamins out there but really keep in mind that it’s super individualized and the best vitamin is not gonna be the same for everyone so shake it like a tambourine so I hope that you found that super helpful I know it was way longer than even I expected but I hope that you guys enjoy like it and I will see you soon keep it kind [Music]
