Introducing the beautiful vegan diet

What is a vegan diet?

By Gloria Stovall

Most commonly, the vegan diet is often confused with the vegetarian diet but there is a concrete difference between the two, and that is, a vegan diet does not contain anything from animals as it excludes all animal products. For example, a vegan does not eat beef, pork, lamb, meat, chicken, duck, turkey and all other poultry, fish, shellfish, seafood, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, cream and all other dairy products, mayonnaise and honey. A bee is not an animal but honey is not vegan as it involves the exploitation of bees. In other words, if it comes from an animal or involves exploitation, vegans cannot consume it. Period. There are no exceptions. On the contrary, the vegetarian diet can include, eggs, dairy and the “semi-vegetarian” diet can include fish or poultry.

Now that you know the distinction between a vegan and vegetarian diet, let us discover the beauty of a vegan diet. For your health, a vegan diet helps maintain lower blood sugar levels, enhances brain, liver, heart and kidney function, reduces the risk of certain cancers, inflammation, high blood pressure and cholesterol. Also, depending on the types of vegan foods that are consumed (whole vs. junk) a vegan diet can also reduce body fat and promote weight loss.

For the environment, the vegan diet boasts endless benefits including the reduction in gas emissions and water pollution, deforestation and extinction of animals, to name a few. Animal agriculture is one of the chief contributors to deforestation across the world, thus leading to the extinction of our beloved wildlife, climate change and water waste. Sadly, raising animals for food consumption uses nearly half of all the water used in the United States, which is disturbing. The vegan diet is the most effective way to reduce detrimental harm to the environment, which makes this amazing diet absolutely beautiful in all ways. According to a study at the University of Oxford, eliminating meat and dairy from your diet can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Think about this, if at least 50 percent of the world’s population adopted a vegan diet, the planet Earth would be saved from destruction and there would be enough clean water for everyone. There is no doubt a vegan diet has infinite advantages.