How To: Be a Healthy Vegan (Part 1)

You hear someone say the word “vegan”—what’s your first thought?

A few generalizations that vegans tend to hear most often are either along the lines of “vegans are unhealthy since they lack vitamins and minerals,” or “vegans must be healthy since they only eat plants,” according to the Plant-Smart Living blog. Despite these stereotypes, a vegan way of life, as with any way of life, can be either unhealthy or healthy—it just depends what each vegan makes of it.

While not all vegans lack essential vitamins and minerals, a vegan diet can easily turn someone unhealthy if they don’t focus on eating nutritiously. Only after people understand the ease of falling into unhealthy veganism can they appreciate a healthy vegan diet.

The Unhealthy Vegan:

Though veganism tends to be represented with pictures of dark, leafy greens and bright, fresh fruits in the media, these images are far from the truth of what the lifestyle can be. The number of people identifying as vegan in the United States has increased over the past three years, according to a report by research firm GlobalData, and the food industry has been forced to compensate. Now, vegan versions of many foods exist, and several of them are not particularly nutritious:

· So Delicious Dairy Free ice creams are vegan and made with either almond, soy, coconut or cashew milk, but each half cup contains no vitamins and low quantities of minerals.

· Silk yogurt alternatives are made dairy-free through the use of almond and soy milk, but they provide just one vitamin and small amounts of two minerals.

· Violife cheeses are vegan, but they contain only one vitamin and no minerals.

Therefore, even though all of these foods are vegan, none of them are particularly high in nutritional value. In addition to foods like this, vegans also have “accidentally vegan” snacks—foods that were not intentionally made for vegans—available to them. Examples include Hershey’s chocolate syrup, Marie Callender’s frozen apple pie and Duncan Hines California Walnut Brownie Mix, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

“People commonly think that just because something is labeled as vegan means that it is a health food,” Bryn Smernoff, College Campaigns Assistant for PETA, said. “While ‘accidentally vegan’ foods are tasty, usually they are not the heathiest option.”

All of these foods discussed, and others, allow vegans a chance to occasionally indulge in their less-than-healthy cravings. If vegans eat them too often, though, they will start to lack the vitamins and minerals that these foods fail to provide and become unhealthy. Luckily, there are many other vegan foods that do provide adequate nutritional value, and an attainable, healthful vegan diet will be discussed next week.

#nutrition #vegan #accidentallyvegan #vitamins #minerals