Vegan claims

Can you make a vegan claim if there is 0.08g/ml of DHA detected in your product?

Hey Julliet, welcome to the forum! I'm attaching our Vegan cert. body's standard - hope, it'd help a bit. I didn't find any mentioning of DHA - however, I'm sure it depends on your country regulations RE: vegan rules.

Greetings Julliet,

To date there is no set limit about DHA in vegan diet. This omega fatty acid is also difficult to come by in plant-based diet. However EPA and DHA may occur via bioconversion of excess ALA (which can be found in higher amounts in various plants), so your first step is to try and find out if the detected amount of DHA is directly coming from an ingredient or if it derives from ALA bionconversion.

In the second and easier case it's all good, since it naturally occured form plants. In the first and more difficult case it comes down to if a vegan can accept that he does need DHA in his diet for various serious reasons and can overlook this traces of it in the product.

Have in mind that The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommends intake of EPA plus DHA to be 250 mg per day for adults, with an additional 100-200 mg of DHA per day during pregnancy and lactation.

Unfortunately to my knowledge there is no definitive answer to this.

Regards!

It's not the best source of information, but apparently, there are plant-sources of omega-3 fatty acids:

Seaweed, spirulina, nori and chlorella are all forms of algae that are rich in omega-3 fats. These foods are especially important for vegans and some vegetarians to consume because they provide one of the only plant-based sources of EPA and DHA omega-3s

 

Source: 8 Best Omega-3 Rich Foods for Vegans (eatingwell.com)

So if DHA is found, all is not lost, but you'd better have an explanation where it came from and make sure there is no chance the source was animal-based.