What is Vegan?

Here at the Vegan Food Quest, we are often asked “What is Vegan?” –  so here’s our simple guide including lots of vegan facts & information.

What is Vegan?

A vegan is someone who does not eat, drink or use any animal products or by-products.

• Vegans don’t eat meat, poultry, fish, eggs, butter, cheese, milk or honey.
• Vegans don’t use products that have been tested on animals or contain animal products.
• Vegans don’t wear or use things made from leather, silk, wool, feathers or fur.

What are the benefits of being vegan?

The vegan lifestyle is becoming more popular every day, which is no surprise considering the number of benefits to being vegan.

A vegan diet is healthy:

A vegan diet can contain all the nutrients that a person needs to live a healthy life, research shows that adopting a healthy, balanced, vegan diet reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and many forms of cancer.

Being vegan is good for the environment:

Many people choose a vegan lifestyle because it has less impact on the environment.

The world’s population is growing and there aren’t enough resources to available to sustain current eating habits of eating meat, fish, dairy and eggs.

We grow enough food to feed the current population twice over, yet millions of people starve each year because we are using land to grow crops to feed farmed animals.

It takes less water to produce food for a vegan diet and produces 7 times less harmful greenhouse gasses than a meat eating diet.

Over-fishing in our seas and oceans to provide fish for both human consumption and for animal feed, has left fish stocks at an all-time low and without fish in the ocean, the delicate eco-system will collapse and our oceans will die.

Compassion for animals:

Many people choose to become vegan because they do not agree with the suffering produced by intensive farming methods that causes animals to suffer from disease and distress on a daily basis.

We believe that animals have just as much of a right to life as humans and so choose a lifestyle that does not involve killing any animals.

How popular is being vegan?

The number of people choosing a vegan diet or lifestyle is growing every year and public interest in this way of life is at an all-time high.

There have been more searches on Google about being vegan in 2014 than ever before and many people in the public eye, including musicians, athletes and politicians have all become vegan, drawing attention to this life style.

What do vegans eat?

Even though vegans choose not to eat animal products, there are a huge number of things we can eat including vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, pulses, beans, rice, pasta, tofu, tempeh, soya or nut milks, the list is endless – we can even eat vegan cake!

Vegan cake? … yes please

Most animal products can be replaced with a healthy and natural vegan alternative, for example, did you know that when baking, an egg can be replaced by a tablespoon of flax seeds ground up with water?

Cooking vegan food can be really creative and fun, almost as good as eating it, being vegan isn’t as hard as you think and we certainly don’t miss out on trying food from different cultures.