People jump onto the Vegan bandwagon for several reasons – some people for their health, but many go vegan because of their concern for the environment or because they care for animals and cannot bear to kill or otherwise exploit them.
Because they completely give up animal products, which are high in saturated fat and cholesterol, and also too high in protein – generally they get tremendous health benefits. Many long term health issues they were facing go away. They lose weight. They look and feel a whole lot better. In general, their health improves.
But is giving up animal products all that needs to be done, to achieve superior health? Is a vegan diet enough? Or can you eat an unhealthy vegan diet too?
Unfortunately, the answer is Yes. Here are the common ways that even Vegans do harm to their health
- Too much sugar. If they have a lot of juices, soft drinks (even Coca-Cola) and vegan desserts, they can end up consuming too much sugar for their own good
- Oils. Same story. Oil is vegan but it is not at all healthy.
- Deep frying vegan food makes it really unhealthy.
- Refined Food. If vegan food is prepared using White Rice (rather than unpolished rice), or White Flour (Maida) – rather than whole wheat flour, you are losing a whole lot of fibre and all the related benefits.
- Processed food. Many vegan items are available in cans, packets and bottles at the supermarket. They tend to have the same chemicals, additives and preservatives as their non-vegan counterparts. And are almost as unhealthy
- Salt . Beware of too much salt!
- Too heavy. When veganizing dishes -for example trying to make a vegan cheesecake, or Dahi Wada without Curd, Vegans tend to go overboard on cashews, almonds and other nuts. While they are healthy foods, they are extremely high in calories and also fat. They are to be used sparingly, but that cannot be done when your main ingredient is cashew cheese!
To summarise, Vegan is good, but a plant-based-Whole food diet is better!
Image Credit : Ella Olsson on Unsplash