What Is a Vegan Diet? Is It Healthier To Be Vegan?

The ultimate guide for complete beginners.

Aemen Farooq
3 min readNov 29, 2021

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Source: Photo by Ella Olsson from Pexels

At present, the vegan diet has become a popular food trend. You can find vegan foods or products everywhere, from social media posts to supermarkets shelves and restaurant menus.

So, if you are wondering, what is a vegan diet? Or deciding to go vegan, then keep reading.

A vegan diet is a type of diet that includes only plant-sourced food items. It excludes all animal-based foods like meat or milk. A person who follows a vegan diet is known as a vegan.

Veganism is the practice of excluding the use of animal products in food, beauty products, clothing, or any other form. Some people follow a vegan diet or lifestyle for various reasons, such as animal welfare, moral principles, environmental concerns, or health benefits.

Most people assume plant-based diets are healthier than a regular diet. However, one should understand a vegan diet doesn’t get automatically nutritious and healthy.

In the article below, you’ll learn more about vegan foods and the health effects of the vegan diet.

Foods Vegans Can Eat

A vegan diet includes only plant-sourced foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, seeds, or nuts. In supermarkets, you can also find more vegan alternatives to animal foods. The vegan alternative includes:

  • Ghee or butter alternatives like olive oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, etc.
  • Dairy alternatives like tofu, almond milk, soymilk, nutritional yeast, etc.
  • Meat alternatives like seitan, tempeh, jackfruit, etc.

Foods Vegans Cannot Eat

A vegan avoids eating animal-derived foods and ingredients. They include:

  • Meat, poultry, fish, and seafood like pork, beef, shrimp, crab, lobster, etc.
  • Dairy products like milk, cheese, butter, ghee, yogurt, cream, etc
  • Eggs from chicken, duck, ostriches, goose, turkey, etc.
  • Bee products like honey, royal jelly, etc.
  • Animal-based ingredients like carmine, fish oil…

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Aemen Farooq

I write about mental health, self-development, self-care, and life lessons as they happen. Editor of sapphirel.com/ https://aemenfarooq.medium.com/membership