Olga Dreesen - Vegan Meal Prep: The definitive guide to learning how to eat healthy, enjoy delicious recipes and organize meals for the week

It promotes animal-free substitutes. Meat, fish, eggs, poultry, dairy, and other foods that come from animals (except breast milk) are excluded in a vegan diet. It merely involves vegetables, fruit, legumes, grains, seeds, and nuts, which are all plant-based. A pure vegetarian follows only a vegan diet and not a vegan lifestyle and is sometimes referred to as a dietary vegan. They tend to use leather and may support animal testing and use of animals for entertainments. This case is motivated by the choice to remain healthy instead of thinking of ethical objections.

Mostly, these types of vegetarians convert to veganism as they become more familiar with its philosophy. Vegans avoid any food that has an animal origin. They are categorized based on a variety of reasons, including motivations, needs, or individual experiences. When people choose a vegan lifestyle, it is mostly owing to better health. However, when the choice is made according to ethical practices or religion, there is a greater chance of complete loyalty to the diet. Most vegetarians generally rely on dairy and eggs for their dietary needs.

As they understand the realities of being vegetarian, they tend to transfer from eating animal products to an entirely protein rich plant-based diet, which includes soy, nuts, legumes, and seeds. This progress becomes a cakewalk with time as there is a vast selection of non-dairy milk, tofu, and pseudo-meats available in grocery stores. Over a decade ago, 5% to 10% of all vegetarians were vegan, but recent surveys show that 25% to 40% of all vegetarians are vegans. History of Veganism It is quite appropriate to say that the greatest injustice of our age is not against humans but towards animals. The roots of vegan ethics grew from the east through philosophers; religious leaders from prominent religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism concentrated on empathy towards animals and included vegetarianism in their lifestyle. These ideas spread to the West through Pythagoras, a sixth-century BC philosopher and mathematician from Greece.

He tried to abolish the consumption of animal meat and guided his followers to do the same. Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, Ovid, and Seneca were other followers who followed suit. Finally, during the mid-1800s, Western culture accepted the moral roots of vegetarianism. Moral leaders from Christian churches in England became an epicenter. Though it gained popularity in the West, it was limited compared to the teachings and practices in the East. The ethics behind eating dairy were strongly debated during the British Vegetarian movement.

In 1944, a small like-minded group of individuals developed a new facet to vegetarianism, one where the practitioners consumed no products originating from animals. The founder of this contemporary movement was Donald Watson (1910-2005). He recognized the dairy product industry was linked to the meat food industry as animals raised for dairy were eventually slaughtered when they were of no use. These vegans built a case against the British meat industries so that the consumption of egg and dairy were not considered as ethical vegetarianism. To solidify this, they brought together a community called the vegan society in 1944. They had 25 members initially.