Question
But what can vegans eat?
Alternatives
Oh, you are vegan, that must be hard. Being vegan is expensive.
Summary
Most people already eat a variety of plant foods, and they make up the majority of the calories they consume; so they've already got a great starting point for a vegan diet. Anyone who believes that millions of vegans are wasting away trying to find food hasn't met enough vegans. Vegans come in all shapes and sizes, from slim to voluptuous, athletic to wiry, couch potato to powerlifter. Vegans do have far lower rates of obesity than meat-eaters, but we aren't all skinny. Veganism is about compassion, not self-denial or purity. Most people have access to an unprecedented variety of foods, so it has never been easier to make more compassionate choices.
Discussion
When you tell someone you are vegan, they picture their own diet with animal products removed and get confused about what would be left. Of course, most people already get around half their protein and the majority of their calories from plant foods, but for some reason, they don't see it that way. Animal products seem to form the psychological centre of people’s meals, especially for males. For most people, moving to a plant-based diet only requires changing a handful of ingredients. For animal flesh, for instance, most people eat products almost exclusively from four sources: chickens, cows, pigs and fish. So you could become a vegetarian, largely by removing 4 ingredients. If you then remove eggs and products made from cow’s milk, you have cut out the majority of animal products in the average diet. By changing 6 ingredients, you could be following a predominantly vegan diet.
A world of choice
A quick Google search tells me there are 20,000 plant species that people eat. Well, the first search result did. Another result said it was 300,000 species, then one said 80,000; you get the idea. The exact number of edible plant species is unimportant; we can just say there are a lot. There are thousands of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and pulses that we have never heard of. Many foods unfamiliar to us are staples and delicacies in other cultures. Most people eat a limited subset of the wide variety of plant foods available and mistakenly assume that is all there is, but there is a world of plant foods out there we have yet to explore.
Ask any healthy, long-term vegan, and they will tell you they eat a greater variety of foods since going vegan than they did before. Unfortunately, some people who try a vegan diet just remove animal products from the picture of what people eat, in line with the picture of the standard diet they unconsciously inherited from their environment. A plant-based diet then unnecessarily becomes a diet of self-denial, of less variety, that is far less healthy and interesting than it should be. It is probably fine, in the early stages of transitioning our diet, to just remove some ingredients from our kitchens and plates, but to set ourselves up for success, we should soon embrace a healthier way of eating. For all the problems surrounding eating animal products, if we spent our lives learning a diet based on them, they would play a role in our diet's nutritional profile. By reimagining what a healthy plate of food looks like, we can maintain or improve the nutritional power and sensual delight of what we eat. People who thrive on a vegan diet are those who have educated themselves on what healthy plant foods they can add to their plate to make it nutritionally complete and delicious. The Vegan Society website is a great place to consult for recipes and nutritional guidance. Some vegans may take more time in making this educational transition than others, but given our diet's important role in our physical and mental well-being, it is always a worthwhile long-term investment to make in ourselves.
Repairing the food pyramid
Most of us will be familiar with the concept of the food pyramid that governments often release. Few people, though, know or suspect how much the business of animal agriculture has been influential in creating many government nutritional guidelines. The advancing science of nutrition, however, cannot be completely denied. For decades now, we have seen foods like tofu, beans, nuts, and other alternative proteins start to appear alongside their animal product counterparts in nutritional guidelines. Veganism does not upend the food pyramid but adjusts it in a way that will be largely familiar. Whole grains, vegetables and fruits continue to create the foundation and majority of calories. We replace other parts of the pyramid with some of the wide variety of plant-based foods high in proteins, healthy fats, calcium, iron and omega-3s, etc. We are not intent on upending the food pyramid, but repairing it. Anyone eating a diet recommended by the world’s peak nutritional organisations will already be eating in a way resembling the plant-based food pyramid. They just need to replace the animal products in their diets with nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, grains, fungi, tofu, tempeh, mushrooms, soy, seitan, fruits and vegetables. Ingredients play a role in a given dish, and we can quickly learn to replace the textures and flavours we desire. It is similar to nutrients, we adjust the sources of them, the protein, fats, iron and so on, making sure we are eating foods optimal for our personal goals.
Milk is a good example of the variety of vegan foods that we can enjoy when substituting animal products. Instead of a single type of milk taken from the mouth of calves, vegans can choose from oat, soy, almond, macadamia, cashew, rice, hemp, quinoa, coconut, and many more, including blends. In my local supermarket, there are also high-protein, barista, organic, high-calcium, flavoured and other versions, so you can try as many as you need to in finding one that is right for you. Almost every common animal product has a plant-based version for those who would like them, from plant-based cheeses, marshmallows, milk chocolate (some dark chocolate was always vegan-friendly), condensed milk, mayonnaise, yoghurt, haggis, black pudding, bacon, jerky, salami….you get the idea. A diet reliant on these “mock” products isn't as cheap as eating more beans and lentils, but eating too much of these products, vegan versions or otherwise, isn’t nutritionally optimal anyway. They are out there, though if you need them, and can be found online, in health food shops, and increasingly in regular supermarkets.
Some vegans identify as “junk-food vegans”. They would roll their eyes at all of the pontification about healthy eating here and say that veganism is not a diet, and they are correct. Veganism is a philosophy about the human relationship with other sentient beings, one that aims to reduce our contribution to their suffering. How healthy our diet is doesn't really change those equations. Junk food vegans will centre their diet on animal-free convenience products, such as plant-based meats and dairy products, or even what we call "accidentally vegan" convenience products, sweets and snacks. This type of diet can also make the transition to veganism easier, as we don't have to change the practical shape of our diet very much after going vegan. Of course, this option wasn't available to older vegans, and still might be difficult for people living in vegan-alternative deserts. If you have the opportunity, this type of diet is still a huge win for the planet and animals.
Back to the future
Vegans have a saying, "Eat beans, not beings". Eating a diet comprised of a large number of alternative products can get expensive, while missing out on health benefits. Rice, beans, lentils, whole grains and starchy roots have been the basis of human diets for millennia. They are still the primary parts of many traditional cultural diets, because they are the cheapest, most versatile and healthy foods you can find. They aren’t always the quickest or most convenient to prepare compared to modern ultra-processed foods, but whatever our diet, that is something we should be moving away from. By embracing cooking and considering the time spent in nurturing ourselves as a good investment, we can reclaim our personal sovereignty from food corporations that don't care about animals or us. These, often multinational, corporations are happy to perpetuate cruelty to animals and manipulate consumers. People buying their products adds to their share price, and they don't care about their other effects on the world. Ultimately, food is an incredibly personal journey. It’s up to each of us if and how we integrate convenience products into our diet. The animals you spare from factory farms don't care if you can be a junk food vegan, a whole foods plant-based vegan, or somewhere in between.
One of the healthiest diets ever studied is the Whole-Foods Plant-Based Diet. Many of its recipes are based on traditional world cuisines. Before ultra-processed foods reliant on oil, sugar, salt and deep frying, people put flavour into foods with herbs, spices, skilful cooking and quality ingredients. Whatever amount of time you are willing to invest in learning how to cook a WFPB diet will be a win for your pocket, the animals, your health and that of your loved ones. Creating and sharing tasty, healthy plant meals is a personal skill that will reverberate positively into your relationships and the world.
Habits and routines
We forget about how much of our diet is routine and habit. Habit can be our enemy in making positive change, but it can quickly become our friend in maintaining it. Adopting a positive lifestyle change, like following a vegan diet, will often seem more daunting than it is, partly because people fear change itself. This is despite the fact that most of us will have experienced how new habits, once acquired, quickly become as automatic and easy as old habits. Once we take a positive or negative direction in our lives, it soon starts to build its own momentum, so much so that we can't recognise the old self.
As you embrace a vegan diet, there will be a short period of adjustment. In this phase, you'll be learning and trying new things, scanning ingredients to look for what is animal-derived, and checking out the local vegan-friendly restaurants using the Happy Cow website and application. Very soon, the core knowledge you need will start to coalesce, and the vegan diet will move from the unfamiliar to the familiar. The scale of changing your diet is also not as large as we might think. People generally have a rotation of regular dishes, frequent the same restaurants, and buy more or less the same list of items when they go grocery shopping. Once you get the hang of these core changes, you will have achieved most of the necessary progress. This might be very quick if you are motivated to learn and research new things, but you can also take a more relaxed approach. For people who like to cook, the perfect place to start is putting together a good roster of regular dishes, often veganised variations on the ones you already make. I like to eat from a variety of cuisines; my staple dishes involve pasta, wraps, veggie burgers, stir fries, salads, curries and soups. Now and then, I will cook something new from the Internet or a recipe book. Whether you are just starting to cook, or are a foodie, there is an infinite world of vegan blogs, video tutorials, meal plans, shopping tips and recipe suggestions out there. As with learning most things, a good, free place to begin is by consulting the oracle of the Internet. To find restaurants, type in "vegan food near me". To find ingredients, try "vegan alternative to". To find recipes, try "vegan" followed by the name of your favourite dish. There are also free vegan meal kits, websites that help you go vegan, online communities you can consult for advice, vegan social groups you can go along to, the awesome Happy Cow to find food wherever you are in the world, and hopefully a vegan or two in your life you can consult with.
There is a meme about eating vegan that makes light of our tendency to overcomplicate things. At the top, it has a box that says, "Is it from an animal?" Beneath the box, there are two arrows, one that says "Yes, then don't eat it" and the other that says "No, then eat it". Obviously, there's a little more knowledge required, but it makes a point. People often overcomplicate a change, and this becomes a barrier to the change or an excuse not to make the change. Millions of people across vastly different cultures, at all stages of life, have gone vegan, so you can too. Most vegans hope and believe that one day this will be the norm, and it will be a better world for us all.
A new hope
Veganism is about an ethical evolution for the whole human race. We believe that one day our age will be seen as a strange and dark place with respect to our treatment of animals. People in the future will scarcely believe that the cruelty and oppression inherent in animal agriculture were not only legal but commonplace; that so many tried to justify, or gave little thought to, the suffering of billions in factory farms and their murder in slaughterhouses. Our cruel treatment of animals is also unnecessary, which only adds to its immorality. We can eat beautifully and healthfully without participating in this oppressive, destructive system. We can play a part in bringing about a better shared future for all animals in this world, human and non-human.