Veganism is on the rise, and people are joining the movement, being inspired by different motivations. For us, it was to reduce pain and suffering to animals. For you, it might be for the environment. For others, it’s about optimising your health.
But does eating a plant-based diet guarantee good health? And if you aren’t experiencing the often promised health benefits of a vegan diet, what do you do?
In this conversation, we discuss our experience with health since we became vegan in 2014, as well as some things we’ve learned along the way.
“Veganism isn’t a pill that automatically makes you feel amazing.”
“I’m vegan. I’m doing it for the animals, I’m not doing it for myself.”
Listen to the episode
Subscribe to The Minimalist Vegan Podcast on:
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Things mentioned in this episode
- What’s Your Vegan Origin? Episode – Episode 002
- Forks Over Knives
- What The Health
- The Pressure of Being an Overweight Vegan
- MeeT on Main in Vancouver
- Frankie & Jo’s
- Are You a Junk Food Vegan?
- Adam Guthrie
- The China Study
- Happy Cow
- The Minimalist Vegan Wedding
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Hello M&M!
I am a big fan of your podcast and every episode is interesting because I always find points I disagree with, and worth discussing! I am vegetarian but i will use the terms vegetarism/veganism interchangeably as both apply to this topic.
I agree that veganism doesn’t equal healthy food. My vegetarian housemate is Quornivore (he only eats processed meat replacements from the brand Quorn, such as vegan sausages) out of convenience, as he doesn’t have either the time or the motivation to cook. Every once in a while, he eats fresh fruits and frozen steamed vegetables but I don’t think it’s enough for a healthy, balanced diet.
I have made the choice of a wholefood plant-based diet, but I find it more time- and energy- consuming (I get a vegbox from a local community farm delivered weekly but I also buy dry food such as beans, cereals, pasta in a bulk store located 30min away from home, and need to schedule cooking times). Even though I feel better after a balanced, nutritious meal, and proud to have cooked a delicious meal from scratch, I appreciate the availability of ready meals for lazy days, or the existence of vegan substitutes for a specific meat-based recipe. I also like to treat myself with vegan junk food (vegan burgers/wraps), but it remains occasional.
I also think you should make a clearer distinction between wholefood as opposed to processed plant-based food. If you consider tofu a processed food because some elements of the soya beans have been separated, what about any plant-based milk/juice? Cooking and transforming plants can be necessary, especially for food difficult to digest for humans such as soya or insoluble fiber-rich plants.
I am looking forward to the next episode!
Lily
Hi Lily! Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us.
I suppose we’re glad that you’ve found our conversations to be challenging 🙂
Regarding your question about processed foods—we hope that our episode did not come across like they’re absolute rules to a wholefood plant-based diet. I’m pretty sure we made it clear that like yourself, we still consume processed foods, but we’re determined to reduce the frequency. We just thought it was a valuable exercise to ask questions to help people categorise processed foods versus non-processed foods. After that, it comes down to personal preference.
With simplicity,
Michael