Basic Vegan Questions and Answers

What is a Vegan?

A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who, for various reasons, chooses not to eat animal products in their diet and daily life styles. They subsists on vegetables, fruits, nuts, grain, etc.

What is the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan?

While a vegetarian chooses to not eat meat, fish, fowl, etc. Vegans do not eat any food derived from animals, as eggs or cheese.

There's many kinds of vegetarians ranging from:

-Lacto-ovo-vegetarian (lak-toh-oh-voh-vej-i-tair-ee-uhn) (Also called lac·to·var·i·an [lak-tuh-vair-ee-uhn] ) is a vegetarian whose diet includes dairy products and eggs. They do not eat flesh of any kind. When most people think of vegetarians, they think of lacto-ovo-vegetarians.

-Lacto Vegetarian (lak-toh-vej-i-tair-ee-uhn) is a vegetarian that eats no flesh of any kind. They do not eat eggs. Their diet consist of fruit, vegetables, dairy product, beans, and grains. This is the most common vegetarian.

-Ovo Vegeterian (oh-voh-vej-i-tair-ee-uhn) is a vegetarian who does not eat meat or dairy products but they do eat eggs. Their diet consist of fruit, vegetables, beans, grains, and eggs.

-Fruitarians (frōō-târ'ē-ən) A vegeterian that only eats fruits, nuts, and seeds (This includes the fruit of vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, and avacados. However, they never eat the roots of plants such as carrots and potatoes) They do not eat vegetables, grains, or animal products.

-Vegans (VEE-gun) A vegetarian that only eats vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, etc. They do not eat (or use) dairy products, eggs, meat of any kind, or processed foods containing these or other animal-derived ingredients (such as gelatin). Many vegans also refrain from eating foods that are made using animal products that may not contain animal products in the finished process, such as sugar and some wines. There is some debate as to whether certain foods, such as honey, fit into a vegan diet. Vegans are all about the animals and use cruelty-free toiletries and makeup and refrain from wearing leather, wool, or fur. Veganism is not to be confused with a strict vegetarian. While the diet is almost the same, the reasons for the diet are different.

-Pure or strict vegetarian does not eat dairy products or eggs. They do eat fruits, vegetables, greens, legumes, grains, seitan, nuts, and soy products. Some eat honey as well. There are many different reasons for choosing this lifestyle: health, environmental, spiritual, and ethical, to name a few.

-Pescetarian (Also known as pescevegetarian, pisceterian) is a vegeterian who will eat fish but not meat, fish, fowel, etc.

-Flexiterian (Also known as semi-vegeterian) is a vegetarian who is flexible enough to occasionally eat meat or fish.

-Raw Vegan (Also known as the raw food diet) is a vegetarian who's diet consists of unprocessed vegan foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). “Raw foodists” believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost a significant amount of their nutritional value and are harmful to the body.

-Macrobiotic diet is revered by some for its healthy and healing qualities, includes unprocessed vegan foods, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and allows the occasional consumption of fish. Sugar and refined oils are avoided. Perhaps the most unique qualifier of the macrobiotic diet is its emphasis on the consumption of Asian vegetables, such as daikon, and sea vegetables, such as seaweed.

Why go vegan?

There are many reasons to go vegan. It's more of a personal prospected on why YOU want to go vegan. Veganism is a cruelty-free lifestyle in which provides numerous benefits to the world around us. Our enviorment, our fellow animals, and our own health all beneifit from living a healthy and natural vegan lifestyle.

Here's some more reasons:

-Because eating animals is wrong: Animals have feelings too! No living creature wants to see her family slaughtered! When they feel pain.. they scream. Animals can feel fear, and they scream because they don't want to die. They scream because.. they're defenseless. What are they going to do? Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't kick them while they're down." Isn't that what we're doing to animals? They don't have any thing to fight back!! They need US to stand up for them, because we are they're only chance. They're living, breathing animals too. They were put on this planet for a reason, just like us. Don't take their life away. It's violence you can stop!

-Because eating animals is unhealthy for your heart: Heart disease is one of the biggeset killers in the US, and heart diesease begins in childhood. A vegetarian diet can REVERSE heart disease. Meats are LOADED with arterty-clogging cholesterol and saturated fats! Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease.

-Because eating meat and dairy makes you fat: Foods like; ham, sausage, and bacon will go straight to your thighs and hips! Plus, meat eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than pure vegetarians are. Eating meat is a good way to increase your waistline and increase your chances of developing deadly diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and impotence.

-Because meat is unhealthy and filthy: You shouldn't have to lie to your children about what they eat. Meat is bloody and disgusting. Every package of chicken has a little poop.. do you really want to eat that? Every time you eat animal products, you’re also ingesting bacteria, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, and a host of other toxins that can accumulate in your body and remain there for YEARS.

- Because no one should have to make a living by killing: It takes a small person to beat a defenseless animal.. but an even smaller person to eat it. Don't lie to yourself about what you're eating. Be truthful to yourself and stop eating meat. Even though there are many reasons to go vegetarian (and I hardly covered any of them), it all comes down to one thing: Why do you want to become a vegetarian? How will you benefit? Do it for yourself!