People adopt a vegan diet and lifestyle for a variety of reasons. Concerns for animal suffering, a healthier, more sustainable environment, and/or personal health are among the most common reasons.
This page addresses vegan health, nutrition and lifestyle. There is much information published these days about the health advantages of an all plant diet versus one which includes animal products. However it has been said that we now have a new generation of overweight, unhealthy vegans. Most vegans agree that if you go vegan and if you promote being vegan, then you have an obligation to stay healthy in order to most effectively promote this diet and lifestyle. In other words, if non vegans see us vegans as unhealthy, they will have little incentive to make the move themselves. Generally speaking a plant based diet is healthier than the Standard American Diet (SAD), however now days, with ample sugar, salt, chemicals, and oils abundant in most all processed foods, and sedentary lifestyles due to work demands and modern day conveniences, it can be easy to become an unhealthy vegan. Most vegan nutritionists recommend a "whole foods" vegan diet - one consisting of mostly whole foods rather than processed foods. It is best to get our fruits and sugars from whole whole fruits rather than fruit juices and processed sweeteners; our oils and fats from seeds and nuts rather than a bottle of processed oil; and our grains from whole non GMO grains rather than processed flours. Some vegan nutritionists recommend that most of our diet be raw so that enzymes and maximum nutrition is preserved in the foods we eat. In addition to eating well, we need to stay active and get some exercise every day - how much exercise remains controversial and is probably different for each of us. You could have a perfect whole foods vegan diet and if you are sedentary, you are probably not very healthy and conversely, if you are very active but have a poor diet, it is likely that you have, or will have, some health issues. The following articles can be used as general guidelines, but remember that each of us is unique, and we all need to find our own health niche where we "hum" along the best. If optimum health is our goal, we may find value in seeking out a vegan health, nutrition and/or lifestyle practitioner. |