Last week, I wrote about a few reasons people might decide to adopt a gluten-free diet even if they’ve not been diagnosed with celiac disease. Through the process of writing that blog post, it highlighted a question that I’ve gotten several times: will I miss any important vitamins and minerals if I go gluten free?

In my experience, when people transition to a gluten-free diet, they often become more intentional about their food choices, moving away from ultra-processed products and toward more whole, nourishing options. Interestingly, many of the gluten-containing foods being phased out like boxed cereals, white breads, and conventional pastas aren’t naturally nutrient-dense. They’re often fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals to replace what’s been lost during processing or to compensate for the nutrient gaps in the standard American diet. 

Well, because of this, people following a gluten-free diet are at higher risk for deficiencies in B vitamins (especially folate, thiamin, niacin, and B12), fiber, iron, and vitamin D—nutrients that are often added to fortified wheat products but not commonly found in gluten-free alternatives.

Let’s take a closer look at what fortification really means and what you can do about these possible missing gaps.

What are ‘fortified’ foods?

Have you ever picked up a milk carton that says ‘fortified with Vitamin D’ or bought enriched flour instead of all-purpose or whole wheat flour? The US, in addition to many countries around the world, have mandated some fortification as a way to combat micronutrient deficiencies and provide consistent nutrition in staple foods.

Many food manufacturers fortify foods with Vitamins A, C and D as well as calcium to replace nutrients that are lost through the refining process. This practice is most commonly found in wheat-containing foods like flour, pasta, cereal and bread as well as rice, fruit juices, milk and milk alternatives.

Often, when someone decides to adopt a gluten-free diet they swap gluten containing foods with a gluten-free alternative. In 2025, it’s not as difficult to find gluten-free pasta, flour, bread, etc. as it once was. However, some studies have shown that these alternatives contain less fiber and nutrients because manufacturers do not fortify these foods the same way they fortify their gluten containing counterparts.

Should I supplement on a gluten-free diet?

The short answer is: it depends. If fortified foods like pasta, bread and cereal were a large part of your diet prior to going gluten free you may need to consider two things:

1. What am I replacing these foods with?
2. What else does my diet consist of?

If your gluten-free replacements are mostly processed, prepackaged, gluten-free versions of the foods above, you’re naturally going to decrease the amount of micronutrients in your diet due to the lack of fortification and general low nutrient density of that food.

If you didn’t rely on these types of foods to begin with, or you’ve decided to ditch them as part of your gluten-free diet you don’t need to be as concerned about the lost micronutrients in those foods.

My recommendation to anyone (gluten-free or not) is to focus on a nutrient dense, whole foods diet. Consuming a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meat and complex carbohydrates is going to expose you to more vitamins and minerals than any fortified food could replace. You may not even realize how abundant whole foods are in some key vitamins and minerals. Here are some great examples:

• 3 brazil nuts per day contains your daily value of selenium
• Lean, ground beef and spinach both contain twice as much iron per serving (around 2.5mg) than 1 serving of fortified milk (1.4mg)
• One serving of salmon provides 800+ IUs of Vitamin D compared to only 100 IUs per 8oz of fortified orange juice

Do you see what I mean? When you focus on eating foods as close to their natural source as possible, you don’t need to stress about the lack of fortified foods in your diet. This is one of the many reasons my own diet, and the Meal Plan Membership, is rooted in whole foods. If you’re part of the first group that relies heavily on fortified foods and you’re switching to a gluten-free diet for any number of reasons, I encourage you to focus on whole foods first so that all of your micronutrient needs are met.

Registration opens June 19th! Grab a sample menu while you wait.