Laura Schoenfeld: So I’m assuming Paleo pescetarian means that they’re not eating red meat, chicken, or any poultry. Possibly they’re eating eggs, I’m not sure. It sounds like maybe just fish, not sure about eggs. So the main things I would look for would be certainly iron, especially if it’s a menstruating woman. That would be something I would be paying attention to. Vitamin A is really one of those nutrients that a lot of people don’t get enough of in their diet. And like I said earlier in the call, I like to really be talking about preformed vitamin A. If somebody’s a pescetarian, I’m assuming they’re not eating much liver and maybe they’re doing cod liver oil or eating cod livers. But that’s not as common with the average person. So just making sure that that person is getting cod liver oil to get that vitamin A in their diet if they’re not eating beef liver, lamb liver, or possibly eggs as well. Paleo pescetarian, I’m trying to think if there’s anything else other than iron.
I would say zinc could potentially be an issue in that situation. If they’re eating shellfish, they should be okay, but if they’re not eating shellfish and they’re just eating fin fish, then that’s probably not going to be enough zinc for them. Unless maybe if they’re eating a lot of seeds, they could get enough zinc. Let’s see, anything else pescetarian. Possibly copper, but again if they’re eating nuts and seeds, they should be getting a decent amount of copper. Also copper, you don’t have to get that much copper to have enough. So I wouldn’t necessarily worry about a copper deficiency. It’s just copper tends to be higher in things like red meat, and beef liver is a very high copper source. But yeah, I would basically, mostly look at vitamin A and iron as being the two nutrients that would be most likely to be deficient.
Maybe things like folate and B12 if they’re not doing a lot of actual animal foods. But when I say animal foods, we’re talking about fish for this person. But if somebody’s eating fish at every meal or having eggs in the morning and fish at the other two meals, they should be okay for B12 and folate, especially if they’re eating lots of leafy greens. So I think those would be the ones that I would be looking at. And like I said, if the person’s taking some cod liver oil, they should be getting enough vitamin A. For iron I’m trying to think what you might want to do for iron. I mean, it may just depend on what the person’s gender and age is. So if they’re a postmenopausal woman, or really most men don’t need iron supplementation for any reason unless they’re anemic, so I would just check their iron stores and see if they’re okay. And if they are, then don’t worry about it. If they are anemic, then you might want to do some short-term iron supplementation if they’re not getting much iron in their diet. But those would be the ones I would look for.