Ok, let’s break each of these down. A vegan diet excludes any and all animal products. These diets only include plant foods.
Within vegetarian diets, there are a few subtypes, none of which include meat. A pescatarian diet includes fish and seafood, but not meat. Other vegetarian diets exclude both meat and fish, but do include eggs and/or dairy (lactos-ovo vegetarian diets).
Eating a plant-based diet is a more open term. Some people take it to mean only plants, whereas others use the label to signify their diet is based around and primarily made up of plants, but it doesn’t exclude animal sources of food. This can be referred to as flexitarian too!
Vegan diets are often heralded are being healthier than omnivorous diets. While that is often the case, it isn’t necessarily a given.
When looking at how healthy a diet is, you need to consider the overall dietary pattern. We know that plants are good for us. When you exclude large food groups (which vegan diets do by removing all animal food sources), that often leads to eating a wider variety of foods from what is left. When that is plants, of which having a greater variety of is shown to have various benefits, then that can form the basis of a healthy diet.
Another aspect to consider is the people who choose these diets. They are often ‘health-seeking’ individuals, who live an overall healthy lifestyle (such as being active, not smoking, regularly exercising etc). That can contribute to the perception of their diets also being healthier.
However, not all vegan food is healthy. With an increase in the popularity of these diets, there are more pre-packed convenience food options, and vegan ‘junk’ food. Like all diets, the ones which are comprised with higher amounts of whole foods and less processed foods, are generally going to be healthier.
I’m going to break this down into two sections, as there are two main areas of note. Protein and micronutrients. When you cut out entire food groups, it follows that it can lead to missing or reducing the amount you have of key nutrients.
Protein is essential for optimal health. It’s also important for muscle growth and recovery. A lot of research has been dedicated to looking at all aspects of protein intakes and how to optimise hypertrophy (muscle growth). From this, whey protein (from dairy) is heralded at the “gold standard” as it is quickly digested and due to its amino acid profile. As most plant sources (soy apart) have an incomplete essential amino acid composition, they are considered inferior.
The practical reality is less clear cut! The total amount of protein you consume is important, as is getting enough of each of the essential amino acids (as we can’t synthesise those, therefore must get them from our diet). Spreading your intake across 3+ meals is better than getting it all in one go. However, we mostly eat mixed meals and different plants have different EAA profiles. If you combine the right ones, you can easily cover all the ones you need. A lot of the research compares isolated sources, not whole foods too. Different foods will have different effects, and it’s overly reductionist to say one is good and one is bad.
You can certainly eat enough protein while following a vegan diet, It might need a little more planning, and you may want to focus more on the finer details to optimise hypertrophy, athletic performance and recovery.
Looking at micronutrients, there are certain vitamins and minerals that are more prevalent in animal products. Again, this doesn’t mean you’ll definitely be deficient. But it does mean you’ll want to be mindful to make sure there aren’t any gaps in your habitual diet. Or if there are, then fill that gap with a supplement.
Of note; Vitamin B12, Iron, Calcium, Zinc, Omega-3s, Iodine and Selenium. There is also Vitamin D (although, that can be lacking in omnivorous diets too, and the NHS in the UK recommend everyone supplements from October to March).
While we can argue about how healthy vegan diets are, there is less debate over the environmental impact of plant or animal foods.
Various aspects of how we live will influence our personal carbon footprint. Eating less meat will certainly reduce it. Within that, red meat has the highest environmental impact, with beef being far and away the highest. If you aren’t ready to change to a completely vegan diet, but wanted to reduce the greenhouse emissions from what you eat, that would be where to start.