What Is a Vegan? Understanding Plant-Based Lifestyles. Vegan Shakes for Hair Growth and Hair Loss.
Health Benefits of a Vegan Lifestyle
Veganism is a dietary lifestyle that many choose to adhere to for a number of different purposes. From health reasons to environmental conscience, vegans take their diets very seriously. As a form of vegetarianism, veganism requires you to not eat meat, fish or poultry. But in addition to that, vegans refrain from eating other animal products and by-products like eggs, milk or honey and do not support the use of cosmetics, soaps, silks or wools that came from animals.
The health effects of veganism all range for how you approach the lifestyle. Like any healthy diet, a proper vegan diet is filled with variety. It is still important to get all the nutrients and vitamins you need but with veganism, there is a different path. Fruits and vegetables are the obvious choice but vegans also branch out to nuts, seeds and legumes to replace the necessary nutrients in things like meat and dairy products.
A clear advantage of the vegan diet is that it is completely void of cholesterol and is generally very low in saturated fat. This leads to a dramatic decline in the chances for heart disease and cancer, which are frequently caused by processed foods. There are some fatty foods, like nuts, oils and avocados, that are allowed in a vegan diet.
And while the health effects can be great, many people transition to a vegan diet because of the social ramifications of eating meat, eggs and dairy products. As has been well documented in several recently popular documentaries, the larger food production companies around the world do not always value the animals they use to produce their food. The deplorable conditions that cows and chickens must endure just to produce the amount of food necessary is often enough to push those considering the diet change to jump right in.