Ace-Vegan

How to go vegan: a guide

If you’re thinking about trying Veganuary this year, here are 12 reasons to ditch meat products for good

With 600,000 known vegans in the UK, chances are you know someone living a plant-based life – it may even be you! There’s no denying the growth of this lifestyle and with more tasty recipes available, more options on our supermarket shelves and more of us reducing our meat consumption and opting for dairy-free alternatives, being vegan has never been easier. Wherever you are on your vegan journey, here are some very good reasons to stretch Veganuary into February and beyond…

1. Antioxidant rich

“Free radicals are molecules that are chemically unstable, produced by our metabolism and by the environment,” says Alice Cooper,Dip-NT, mBANT, CNHC, Vibrant Vegan Chef and nutritionist. “They cause damage by trying to steal oxygen molecules from our cells – what we know as oxidative stress. Antioxidants are fantastic compounds that have extra oxygen molecules to hand around to these pesky free radicals, stabilising them and thereby reducing damage and inflammation in the body.”

2. A longer life

Nutritionist Emma Thornton says: “Following a vegan diet may help us live longer as well as being kinder to the planet. Researchers found that eating more fruit and veg, wholegrain carbohydrates, less fat and sugar, and beans and pulses in place of meat, reduces mortality risk by around seven percent. The largest reduction in risk, a healthy-looking 10 percent, is associated with the consumption of fruit and veg.”

3. Lower inflammation

Alison Cullen, A.Vogel education manager and nutritional therapist says, “a vegan diet can help lower inflammation levels in the body and reduce the risk of developing several illnesses. A study that followed 210,000 people for 32 years found those with a proinflammatory diet have a 46 percent higher risk of heart disease and 28 percent higher risk of stroke than those consuming anti-inflammatory.”

4. Increased compassion and empathy

“Many vegans report that eliminating animal products from their diet appeared to increase their levels of compassion and empathy with all other beings on the planet, animal and human,” says Louise “It’s often cited as a bi-product for people that take up a vegan diet for health reasons. They didn’t start out vegan for the animals, but once on the plant-based diet they become disturbed at the thought of animal abuse and factory farming. Compassion and empathy have a huge, and well-documented positive impact on overall wellbeing.”

5. Can save lives

A global switch to plant-based diets could save eight million lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, lead to healthcare-related savings and avoid climate damages of $1.5 trillion. Marco Springmann, of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, says: “The size of the projected benefits should encourage individuals, industry and policymakers to act decisively to make sure what we eat preserves our environment.”

6. Save the planet

In 2018, researchers from Oxford published a ground-breaking report assessing the environmental impact of food. They found that going vegan could reduce your food-related greenhouse gases by up to 73 percent and global farmland use by 75 percent, an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined. Lead author Joseph Poore said: “A vegan diet is probably the biggest way to reduce your impact on the planet; not just greenhouse gases but land and water use.”

7. Breathe easy

Brett Cobley, a chef, vegan entrepreneur and author of the bestselling cookbook What Vegans Eat, says: “Veganism helped me to improve my lung function. I am a long-term suffering asthmatic and when I went vegan I began to notice that my breathing improved and I saw noticeable improvements in my longdistance cardio.”

8. Good gut health

“I think we all know or have an idea that fibre is good for us,” says Jasmine Carbon, registered nutritionist at carbonnutrition.co.uk, “Not only does it help to keep the bowel motions regular, it can actively lower levels of bad cholesterol. By having more vegan based meals can help to treat or manage gut disorders such as IBS and promote healthy weight loss.”

9. Reduced intake of saturated fats

Jasmine also says, “by swapping to a more plant-based diet, you have instantly removed one of the main sources of saturated fats in modern Westernised diets: meats and dairy products. Modest amounts of saturated fats can be found in plant products such as coconut oil, but this will likely be eaten in small amounts. Saturated fats are the main component in fatty parts of meat and are also present in cream, butter cheese and milk. We know that diets where saturated fats are taken regularly increases risk of diet-related conditions such as poor heart health, so swapping meat for vegan dishes can help prevent conditions like this from developing.”

10. Osteoarthritis

Charles Clare, Co-Founder and Chief Technician of Cell Regeneration, MBST-therapy.co.uk says: “The symptoms of OA may be reduced by adopting a vegan diet. One study carried out by Michigan State University College of Human Medicine studied 40 patients between 19 and 70 years of age with OA. Half ate a whole food plant-based diet and half their normal diet. Just two weeks in, the vegan group saw significant pain reduction.”

11. Rheumatoid Arthritis

“Turku University College of Human Medicine did a small study of patients with RA,” says Charles. “One group was put on a raw vegan diet, the other continued their regular diets. A month later their gut flora was measured, and the vegan group had changes associated with better outcomes for RA. Animal protein consumption can result in immune complex developments in the bloodstream which can result in inflammation and damage over time.”

12. Osteoporosis

“We all get told as children that to get strong healthy bones we must drink milk as it contains calcium, but is this true?” Charles asks. “Calcium is the most common mineral in bones, but do we need dairy to get what we need? In 2006 the University or Surrey did a cross sectional study of five age and sex cohorts looking at bone mineral density related to fruit and veg intake and found higher intakes may have positive effects on bone mineral status in both younger and older age groups.”