Why did you decide to become a vegan rather than a vegetarian?

Question

That is my question. Why adhere to a stricter diet. What are the health reasons for choosing not to eat dairy like vegetarians do, for instance.

I know the difference between vegans and vegetarians. Vegetarians eat eggs and other dairy products like milk, cheese and yogurt. Vegans eschew all of these. My question is addressed to Vegans and I am asking why did they chose not to eat dairy. What are the health reasons, if any. Please can't I get an answer from someone who is a vegan. I know you are out there. Thank you.

Sorry LJ, pick up many vegetarian cookbooks, including the Famous Moosewood Cookbook from the Moosewood Cooperative in Ithaca, NY and you will find lots of recipes with cheese, yougurt and milk in them. There are plenty of vegetarian out there who did eat dairy products.

Thank you all for answering my question. I am seeing some very good replies and am getting a good education but you are also making it very difficult to find a best answer.

Answer 1

I have been vegan for 4 years. To say that you are vegan implies that you believe it is wrong to use animals as property and interact with them with your own benefit in mind. Anyone can say that they eat a "vegan diet" for health, environmental, religious or other reasons, but unless they believe that animals are not property "period", it would make no sense at all to call the themselves vegan. It would be more appropriate to call them "strict vegetarians" or "total vegetarians"

If I see a snail on the pavement, I move it into the ivy or shrubbery. If an ant is crawling on me, I blow it off of me outside. If flies are in the house, I seal everything up and make sure that whatever they are after is cleaned up.
I treat others as I would like to be treated no matter what their size or intelligence.

I respect all life and only make exceptions with fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and other animals that are parasites and can possibly spread disease. Just as relevant to larger animals, any animal that endangers my life or that of another innocent person and any of our non-human family members, endangers its own life as well. I am guardian to 3 dogs and too many cats. They are all spayed and neutered and I am not their owner, I am their caretaker.

The health benefits are only awarded to people that know what they are and know how to get those results. People that think that having compassion for animals will make them healthier than those that don't care about anything but themselves are very wrong. EVERY diet requires thoughtful planning for it to be optimal an stand out above the rest.

There have been vegan Olympic gold medalists and a vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis
http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML_(Draft).htm

Here are some more veg people:
http://www.mikemahler.com/index.html
http://www.vegetarianbodybuilder.com/index2.html
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bios
http://www.andreascahling.com/andreas-about
http://www.billpearl.com/career.asp
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-23-27/Salim-Stoudamire-Runs-on-Broccoli.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Danzig
http://www.scottjurek.com/career.php
http://www.nfl.com/players/rickywilliams/profile?id=WIL271115
http://www.brendanbrazier.com/raceresults/index.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm vegan and these are some of my favorite things to eat:

Breakfast: bananas, cream of wheat with brown sugar and soy butter, cereal, pancakes or french toast with real maple syrup, vegan "sausage" patties, smoothies.

Snack: BRUSSEL SPROUTS =) no joke

Lunch: vegan "sausage" sandwiches, sandwiches with vegan deli slices(Tofurkey is the only one that's kinda funky), fruit, dinner leftovers, couscous salad, vegan sushi, potato or pasta salad.

Dinner: sloppy joes, "sausage" and gravy with homemade biscuits, Spaghetti and Trader Joe's "meatballs" or TVP, lasagna, Thai pad see ew, pad khi mao(drunkard's noodles), pad prig king, tofu+eggplant with basil sauce, yellow thai curry with tofu or vegan chikn and veggies and jasmine rice, Indian dal with homemade roti or dosai, channa masala, aloo gobi, vegetable or minestrone soup, pizza, STEAMED "PORK" BUNS with potstickers or spring rolls, sweet&sour/orange/lemon chikn, vegan pho or wonton soup, baked tofu, BBQ homemade seitan (tastes like BBQ'd ribs), kabobs

I use these sites to find recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com
http://vegweb.com
http://www.recipezaar.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you want to become a lacto-ovo vegetarian, the transition should be quite simple. Almost all meats have widely available commercial replacements. All that you have to do is replace any flesh in your diet (beef, pork, poultry, seafood) with meat analogs or just leave it out altogether.

You should keep in mind that a journey such as this can be quite short but should just be the beginning of a longer one to a plant-based diet with no animal products. This is because of the reality of factory farming in which animals that are kept alive to produce milk, eggs, etc suffer much more and longer than animals that are raised to a certain weight and then slaughtered.http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/
http://meat.org
Some people use the word "vegan" in reference to this idea, but be aware that applying that label to yourself should always come with the inclusion of wise activism and advocacy.http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/index.html
Two extremely important examples of this are that you should never speak to someone about vegetarianism/veganism without their consent and genuine interest or as a comment on what they are eating AND your dietary beliefs should never be used as an introduction or explanation of who you are as a person. Veg*ism should be something that comes up AFTER people get to know you and they offer you a situation that makes it confusing to withhold the information/discussion. Also, if you are presented something that you choose not to eat or you are
ordering food/eating together somewhere/picking the best place to eat.

When you you hold off on the subject until it's necessary and then act like it isn't a big deal at all, people are usually surprised and WAY more interested and curious than if you were to bring it up when someone's eating or just using it as a conversation starter.

A responsible vegan ALWAYS studies the subject of their own health and how to keep their body completely provided for in every sense. http://www.veganhealth.org/sh
To neglect their body is to define a plant-based diet as unhealthy and is the opposite of helping the animals.

Just to clear things up, the vegetarian/vegan diet is not composed of salads, vegetables, fruit and fake meat. Fruits and vegetables are always important but they DO NOT make up the largest portion of any healthy diet.
A balanced plant-based diet includes grains(breads, pasta, rice,cereal), legumes(soy, beans, peas, lentils), fruit and vegetables.
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/food_groups.html
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/eating.html
Being vegan can be an art, one whose challenge is to take things that involve the suffering of the innocent and change them into something free of cruelty.

A vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.

Technically the term "vegetarian" does imply that you don't consume anything that comes from the body of an animal that requires killing it. Many ingredients such as gelatin and glycerin are found in many candies, Fig-Newtons, and many of other foods as well as rennet found in many cheeses.
http://www.happycow.net/health-animal-ingredients.html
The best thing to remember is to take your time so that for example: when you are comfortable not eating beef and pork you can then give up chicken when you are sure you can make the commitment permanently.
Depending on your age or reliance on parents or regional options, it may not be best to give yourself a label. The important thing is to do your best to make progress and be committed to your compassion towards animals. Never put your focus onto what you or other people use to describe yourself.

If you meet someone that talks down to people for eating meat, dairy, etc or to you because they think they are "more veg" than you, laugh in their face and tell them they are a disgrace to the entire philosophy. People like this only hurt the idea of veg*ism AND the animals. The point of all of this is to live compassionately and and as free from cruelty as you can, all the while maintaining your health and a positive attitude. People who don't maintain either, need not open their mouths and represent our beliefs.

If you actually choose to read all of this, I hope it helps. If not, feel free to e-mail me if you have questions.

Answer 2

No and yes, but generally no. Here's my no. I've been a vegan for about 8 months so far, and a vegetarian for over 33 years before that. I would go back to being vegetarian if I had to - say for medical reasons. But, I don't believe I would ever have to. I feel healthy and happy enough without dairy products in my diet. But, to be perfectly honest, if, 20 years from now, I'm seriously ill and drinking milk is the only cure, I'll drink the milk. Staying alive is the overriding factor. And here's my yes. Having been a vegetarian for so long, I know for a fact that you can live perfectly healthily without eating animals. So I cannot, in all conscience, sanction a veg*n regressing to eating animals. It's a completely unnecessary backward step. If they want to do it, they can go ahead and do it. It's no skin off my nose what other people eat. Just don't expect me to welcome the news of a vegetarian becoming an animal-eater, that's all. Evolution (of anything - in this case, a person's diet) is about moving forward, not backward.

Answer 3

I went veg at first, but then I read about how the dairy cows are treated, how the male calves end up in veal crates and the female calves end up on the dairy line. I objected to veal long before I went veg (never realizing that there are far more egregious cruelties, such as the egg industry), so I stopped using dairy products. I mean, like any other mammal, a cow makes milk for her baby, not for us!

And I read about the way hens raised for eggs are treated and the fact that baby male layer chicks are killed at birth because they don't grow fast enough for big enough to be profitable.

Going vegan just seemed like the right thing to do.

Answer 4

when i learned that chickens used for eggs and dairy cows just end up at slaughterhouses when they are of no more use, i knew i couldn't support those industries any more. an average life span for a cow that is in nature is 15+ years, a dairy cows is 4-5. they are also kept impregnated so that they lactate and are pumped full of hormones and such so they produce much more milk than natural. male cows that are born at turn to veal (which is a TERRIBLE existence) and girls are made into milk cows also. chickens and cows in the dairy and milk industries lead horrible lives.

Answer 5

One of the reasons I originally did was because of allergies. I spoke to an allergist who told me that most of the allergies in America are due to Dairy consumption. But, that we often need an irritant to start the reaction. So, I stopped dairy for 3 months as a test, and sure enough after about two months I had much fewer problems with allergies, I won't say they all disappeared though. I remained vegan for 5.5 years.

I strive to stay away from dairy today because of so many other reasons, I will be vegan again within the year. There was an article from Harvard University that went into how dairy in America, causes three types of cancer, estrogen problems, and is loaded with nasty hormones. I will set a link for you to read it, it is a fairly easy read.

In America we keep our cows pregnant for 9 months out of the year. During this time we milk them consistently, about 300 days a year. Women should know that estrogen peaks during pregnancy, and it is passed to us through the milk. Huge amounts of it. This doesn't even take into consideration the amount of artificial hormones that the farmers add. And, there are so many other things to concern yourself with. Just nasty stuff today.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/12.07/11-dairy.html

Answer 6

I stopped eating meat, eggs, dairy, etc all in one night. At first, I guess you could have called me a "strict vegetarian" because I wasn't really concerned with animal rights. I did it mostly because my mother, father, and three of my grandparents are diabetic, and I had just found out that my uncle had heart disease. That, combined with high rates of cancer, was enough to convince me that I needed to eat less fat, sugar, and cancer-causing foods.
I'd also read Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation" and made the connection between animal people (beings that can fall in love, miss their mothers, mourn the death of someone in their herd, defend their friends) and human people. I decided that I couldn't eat someone who could fall in love, and I wondered how Temple Grandin could design systems to kill them more efficiently when she understood them so well.
I lost over fifty pounds, but I'd also cut out wheat and processed sugar. When I went back to eating cupcakes I stopped losing weight, and I need to go back to a healthier diet because I've slowly become a "junk food vegan" and I feel pretty gross. Once I get my willpower back to maximum levels I'm pretty sure I'll lose more weight and feel good again. It's just a matter of eating more vegetables and less sugar.

Answer 7

It wasn't much of a stretch for me. I have a allergy food list that is over 50 foods. Including Dairy & Eggs.

Answer 8

Vegans are vegetarians, but vegetarians are not vegans!! And no, you are mistaken, its not always a dairy thing as you describe it. Ovo-vegetarians for example, they are not vegans, but yet, they do not eat or consume any dairy.

Vegans become vegan for ethical reasons mostly. They don't believe in taking anything from an animal life. They want nature left as is.

Answer 9

For me, strictly ethical. I learned about the cruelties inherent in the egg and dairy industry, and have simply decided that it is wrong (for me, and I believe in general) to support it.

Answer 10

They both are Perfect for your health. If you eat both, you're better off. But yea, I'd personally choose fruits because they taste better.

Answer 11

It is determined by the fruit or veggie linked to a comparison. If perhaps you compare a n to a carrot, the carrot is the better of the two nutritional. But since you compare an avocado to the carrot, then this avocado is better. The two the apple and avocado, are fruits.