In hospitals and within communities, oral nutritional supplements (ONS) and enteral feeds are essential to help people with a variety of health problems to reach their nutritional needs. THEY ARE VERY COMMONLY PRESCRIBED.

For example, certain diseases such as cancer increase our nutritional requirements and so these feeds can be useful to help prevent weight loss. If people lose their appetite or have lost a lot of weight, these products are also routinely prescribed to patients.

However, there is not currently a nutritionally complete ACBS approved vegan feed. The majority contain dairy. This means that vegan patients may be forced to consume animal products which can cause distress or they may refuse to have any of the non-vegan supplements altogether. As a dietetic student I saw this happen in practice and it is upsetting that a vegan feed does not exist for these patients.

I have asked some of the nutritional supplement companies whether they are bringing out a vegan supplement in the future, however I was told they couldn’t reveal this information to me.

Please sign this petition to encourage Fresenius, Abbott and Nutricia to make a nutritionally complete vegan sip feed and enteral feed. Thank you!