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Do Vegans Need Vitamin A? A Special Investigation into Carrots and Blindness

  • Writer: Emanuele Bortolotto
    Emanuele Bortolotto
  • Jul 16
  • 7 min read

Updated: Sep 8


The sun, after a long and dramatic performance today , has finally somehow exited the stage, leaving the city in a soft, ethereal twilight. It’s the time of night when things become a little harder to see. And this got me thinking about a piece of nutritional propaganda that was drilled into me as a child: that carrots would give me the ability to see in the dark. I spent a significant portion of my youth eating carrots and then standing in a dark closet, waiting for my latent superpowers to activate. They never did. 🦇


This childhood disappointment sparked my latest investigation. The promise of night vision, I discovered, is all tied up with a single, celebrity nutrient: Vitamin A. It’s the selfie queen of vitamins, the one associated with glowing skin, a robust immune system, and, of course, superhuman eyesight. But as I journeyed into the world of vegan nutrition, I found a dark and persistent rumor. The rumor is that the real Vitamin A, the good stuff, is only found in animal products, and that people on a plant-based diet are walking a tightrope over a chasm of deficiency, destined to a future of dull skin and bumping into things in the dark.

Is this true? Is a diet of plants a one-way ticket to a carrot-deficient, crypt-dweller existence? Today, I’m launching a full-scale investigation to unpeel this juicy orange of a topic.


A Tale of Two Vitamins: The Great A-Team Divide


The first thing I discovered in my investigation is that "Vitamin A" is not one single thing. It’s a family of compounds, a kind of nutritional crime syndicate with two distinct branches, each with its own territory.


The Animal Faction: Preformed Vitamin A (The Retinoids)


This is the stuff that is often referred to as "true" Vitamin A. Its members have cool, sci-fi-sounding names like retinol, retinal, and retinyl esters.

  • What it is: This is the active form of Vitamin A. It’s ready to go, straight out of the box. Your body can grab it and immediately put it to work doing important vitamin things.

  • Where it lives: This faction operates exclusively in the animal kingdom. It is found in high concentrations in liver, fish oils, egg yolks, and dairy products. It is, by its very nature, not vegan.


The Plant Faction: Provitamin A (The Carotenoids)


This is the plant-based branch of the family. They are the colorful pigments that give fruits and vegetables their vibrant hues. The most famous and important member of this faction is beta-carotene.

  • What it is: This is the precursor form of Vitamin A. It’s not the finished product; it's the flat-pack, IKEA version of the vitamin. Your body has to take it, read the confusing instructions, and assemble it into the active form of Vitamin A (retinol).

  • Where it lives: This faction is found exclusively in plants. Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, spinach, and kale are all bursting with it. 🥕🍠🥬

So, the central challenge for a person on a vegan diet is this: they have no direct access to the ready-made, preformed Vitamin A. They are entirely reliant on their body’s ability to build its own from the plant-based parts. And this, my friends, is where the conspiracy begins.


The Conversion Conspiracy: A Deeply Inefficient Biological Process


The human body’s process for converting beta-carotene into active Vitamin A is, I have discovered, a masterclass in biological laziness and inefficiency. It is not a simple, one-to-one conversion. It’s more like trying to build a complex Lego model with a set of vague, poorly translated instructions, while also being slightly hungover.

The scientific community uses a unit called Retinol Activity Equivalents (RAE) to try and make sense of this mess. And the conversion rate is, frankly, shocking. According to the current scientific understanding, you need about 12 micrograms of beta-carotene from food to produce just 1 microgram of retinol in the body. That is a 12-to-1 conversion rate. It's an absolutely terrible deal. 👎


The Deficiency Dossier: What Happens When You Run Out?


So what happens if you fail at this complicated conversion game? My investigation into the symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency was a journey into a world of quiet, creeping bodily decay.

The early symptoms are subtle and easily blamed on modern life:

  • Poor Night Vision: This is the classic, textbook sign. You find it harder to see in dim light. Your eyes take a long, long time to adjust when you walk into a dark room. This is because the retinal form of Vitamin A is a key component of the rhodopsin molecules in your eyes that are responsible for low-light vision. Without it, your internal night-vision goggles stop working. 🌃

  • Dry Eyes and Skin: Vitamin A is crucial for maintaining the health of your epithelial tissues, which includes your skin and the mucous membranes of your eyes. A deficiency can lead to dry, flaky skin and a condition called xerophthalmia, a fancy word for "your eyes are dangerously dry."

  • Frequent Infections: Your immune system is also heavily reliant on Vitamin A. A deficiency can weaken your defenses and make you more susceptible to colds and other infections.

If the deficiency is allowed to become severe and prolonged, the consequences are devastating. It can lead to Bitot's spots (which sound like a delicious type of biscuit but are actually horrible lesions on your conjunctiva), corneal ulcers, and eventually, permanent, irreversible blindness. This is still a major problem in developing parts of the world.


The Orange Panic: A Surprising Side Effect 🍊


So, given the poor conversion rate, the logical solution for a vegan is to just eat an absolutely colossal amount of carrots and sweet potatoes, right? Yes. But this strategy comes with a bizarre, and frankly hilarious, side effect.

If you eat a very large quantity of beta-carotene-rich foods, your body can't convert it all into Vitamin A at once. So, it does the sensible thing: it stores the excess beta-carotene in your fat cells. And because beta-carotene is a bright orange pigment, this can cause your skin, particularly the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet, to turn a distinct, and sometimes quite alarming, shade of orange.

This condition is called carotenemia. And the good news is that it is completely, 100% harmless. It is not the same as jaundice. It is just a sign that you really, really like sweet potatoes. When you reduce your intake, your skin color returns to normal. It is a strange, temporary, and deeply funny cosmetic issue. 😂




Questions from the Internet: "So, should I just take a Vitamin A supplement to be safe?"


This is a great question, and my investigation revealed a very important distinction. NO, for the most part, you should not supplement with the preformed, animal-derived version of Vitamin A (retinol). Because it is fat-soluble, your body stores the excess, and taking high doses can be toxic, leading to a condition called hypervitaminosis A, which can cause dizziness, liver damage, and even birth defects.


The much safer bet is to rely on beta-carotene. Your body is smart. It only converts as much beta-carotene into active Vitamin A as it needs. It will never convert so much that it becomes toxic. This is why you can't get Vitamin A poisoning from eating too many carrots; the worst that will happen is that you will turn orange. Most vegan-friendly multivitamins, if they contain Vitamin A, will provide it in the form of beta-carotene.


Questions from the Internet: "What about retinol in my skincare? Is that vegan?"


This is another fascinating rabbit hole. Retinol and other retinoids are the darlings of the skincare world, famous for their anti-aging and anti-acne effects. The retinol used in many skincare products is often derived from animal sources. However, vegan-friendly versions, which are either synthetically produced or derived from plant sources, are becoming increasingly common. There is also a popular plant-based alternative called bakuchiol, which is not a retinoid but has been shown in some studies to have similar effects on the skin. So, if you are an ethical vegan, you need to read the label on your face cream as carefully as you read the label on your cookies.


The conversion of beta-carotene to Vitamin A is heavily dependent on having enough zinc in your diet. Zinc is another one of those tricky, underappreciated minerals that vegans need to be mindful of. I've conducted a full, deep investigation into that very topic right here: [The Best Vegan Sources of Zinc and Why You Probably Need More].


The Conclusion: It's a Strategy, Not a Scare Tactic


So, after this deep dive into the colorful and confusing world of carotenoids, do vegans need Vitamin A?

My final conclusion is this: yes, absolutely. But the panic and fear surrounding it are largely unnecessary. The idea that you are destined for deficiency without animal products is a myth. The plant kingdom provides a vast and abundant source of provitamin A.

However, you cannot be a lazy or a thoughtless vegan. You have to be strategic. You have to understand that your body is an inefficient, but not incapable, factory. You must provide it with a huge and consistent supply of the raw materials—the beta-carotene from orange and green vegetables—and the right tools for the job—the healthy fats and the zinc.

You don't need to fear the carrot. You just need to eat it, preferably roasted in a little olive oil. And if you start to turn a bit orange, don't panic. Just consider it a very healthy, and very funny, trophy for a job well done. 🏆



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