I HAVE an interesting query this week from an Evening Press reader who is on a very restricted diet and wants to know which supplements to take to make up what her diet lacks. She has to avoid "red meats, animal fats, eggs, cheese and milk, oily fish or seafood, a few fresh fruits and vegetables as well as wheat, yeast, caffeine and wine". Ouch!

This leaves her with only: poultry, white fish, some vegetables and fruits, presumably pulses/beans, nuts and seeds, other grains such as oats, rye and barley, and, er, that's it. I'm dying to know why she needs to avoid so many things; if it's due to an allergy, she should keep it under review, because her reactions may get easier over time, and if they don't she should consider desensitising injections. I can't think what else would give her such a restricted list, and perhaps a second opinion might suggest alternative solutions.

While she is on this diet, she is going to be lacking in a number of things. No animal fats or oily fish means practically no vitamins A and D - good old fashioned cod liver oil should sort this out - or vitamin B12. No oily fish also means not much of the omega-3 essential fatty acids.

The other essential nutrients are a bit more complicated. I'd need to know more detail to be sure, but it looks as though what she's effectively on is a vegan diet, with the occasional bit of chicken.

Now in many ways a vegan diet has been shown to be healthier than what the rest of us eat, but it takes some skill to do it well.

You need to combine protein foods carefully to get first-class protein, and to eat surprisingly large quantities of vegetables, including lots of salads or raw veg. This way you can keep up your intake of fibre, which would have come mainly from wheat, getting it instead from the other grains, pulses, and vegetables in general. Calcium and magnesium are in the grains and pulses too (Stone Age Man didn't raise or milk cattle, but had more of these minerals in his bones than we do).

Zinc, selenium, vitamin E and the other B vitamins (not B12) can all be found in a range of vegetable foods. Important antioxidants are in red and yellow fruit and veg.

So most of the important nutrients are quite well provided in the foods available to her, provided she can acquire skill at combining and preparing them. My advice is to get a vegetarian/vegan cookbook and work from that, and regard what little meat and fish she can have as a bonus.

Take a cod liver oil capsule or spoonful every day (in Iceland it's on every breakfast table) and an omega-3 supplement (ask the health food shop for help). Get your GP to give you shots of B12 every month. If it's really hard to get a wide range of fruit and veg, take a multivitamin and mineral for the B vits, zinc etc. And get out in the sun for the vitamin D!