In recent years, we’ve become more conscious of our health and our environment. As a result, people have begun looking at alternative ways of eating. Vegan and plant-based diets are great examples.
But wait — since vegans only consume plant-based food, doesn’t that make them the same thing? It may surprise some of you to learn that they aren’t exactly the same though they do have many similarities.
In a nutshell, vegan diets refrain from the ingestion of all animal-derived food while a plant-based diet does not. Plant-based dieters strive to eat more vegetables, fruits, etc. but they can still partake in animal products.
If you’re re-evaluating your eating habits and are considering making a major change, here’s what you need to know about vegan and plant-based diets.
What Being Vegan Means
Adapting a vegan lifestyle goes beyond one’s diet and encompasses how one shops and uses things.
On top of removing meat and animal products from their table, vegans also avoid buying animal products or products tested on animals. These items include clothes, hygiene items like shampoo and soap, shoes, accessories such as wallets and hats, and even household items like cookware.
The term vegan is often interchangeably used with similar terms such as vegetarianism and vegetable-based diets/lifestyles. However, these terms do not mean the same thing because they each have different definitions and connotations.
What Plant-Based Living Means
Despite the name, a plant-based diet is more flexible than a vegan diet because its followers are known to eat food from animals like cheese and eggs. Others may say that their plant-based diet is comprised of “vegetable-based whole foods” which simply means that they mostly eat whole foods that are minimally processed or are altogether unprocessed (raw).
This is because plant-based diets also focus on consuming food that has been processed as little as possible. Because of this focus, a whole food plant-based diet does away with processed oils and grains — two items that vegans are willing to ingest.
Following a Vegan or Plant-based Diet
Though it may seem restrictive to follow either of these diets, the food industry has evolved and kept up with the times by offering several vegan and plant-based options. Meat-like alternatives like veggie rice burgers can make transitioning to these diets a lot easier since they imitate the taste and texture of meat.
Plus, food companies like O’scallion have begun offering microwaveable instant meals that are easy to prepare and taste delicious. Aside from rice burgers in different flavors such as Satay Mushroom and Teriyaki, they also sell varieties of stir-fried meals like Instant Fried Rice Cauliflower and Instant Stir Fried Noodles.
Following a vegan or plant-based diet used to mean preparing most of your meals from scratch since there were very few commercially available options. But this is quickly changing. O’scallion products can be heated in the microwave for a few minutes, making animal-free diets much more practical and convenient.
So, if you’ve been interested in changing the way you eat, you may just be pleasantly surprised by the many enticing options you’ll find at your disposal!