By: Amit Kothiyal
Submitted: 2009-09-28 01:50:09 | Word Count: 481
To understand what or rather who Vegans are, one must know the meaning of Veganism. Veganism is a form of vegetarian diet that excludes eggs, meat, dairy products, or any other kind of ingredient derived from animals. Therefore, a person following such a diet is said to be Vegan.
There are vegans who even deny food that is processed through animal products, most commonly, white sugar and a few wines. They even discard the products made of animals such as leather, wool or fur. Strong discussions are still on, on considering whether certain products such as Honey are vegan or not.
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Nowadays, our diet is loaded with animal- derived products and ingredients. Most of the times we don't realize how much we are dependent on such food items. In that case renouncing such food items from our daily diet is a tough challenge. Thus, it is very important to know what can be had as a vegan diet.
Vegan diet thus constitutes of grains, legumes, beans, fruits and vegetables. There is huge variety of dishes that can be prepared using these foods items. There are substitutes too that are available in the market so that you can be a vegan and still can gorge on hot dogs, mayonnaise, cheese and ice creams.
If you are on the way to become a vegan then you can either directly stop the eating the above mentioned food products or you can even be a vegetarian first and then later on skip eggs and dairy products, which ever suits you best.
There are a number of factors within a 'vegetarian' diet which can or cannot be consumed by certain kinds of vegans. Lets have a quick look at these factors below:
1. A Vegan is allowed to eat fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds. He eschews meat, shellfish, fish, dairy products, poultry, and eggs.
2. A Lacto-vegetarian can eat fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds and dairy products. He eschews meat, shellfish, fish, poultry, and eggs.
3. An Ovo-vegetarian can eat fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds and eggs. He eschews meat, shellfish, fish, poultry, and dairy products.
4. A Lactoovo-vegetarian can eat fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, eggs and dairy products. He eschews meat, shellfish, fish and poultry.
5. A Semi-vegetarian can eat fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, eggs, shellfish, fish and poultry and dairy products. He eschews meat.
So, based on this, one can see that even within vegetarians and vegans, there are many different things that one can and cannot eat. At the end of the day it is a personal choice made by one depending on the philosophy one believes in. Also, many a times, such food choices are made by people for health reasons.
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