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If you're new to a vegan lifestyle or just curious about it, you may have some questions about how a vegan diet can improve your health, especially your gut.
Veganism is an ethical lifestyle that promotes animal welfare, environmental protection, and a healthy diet. Vegans don't eat meat, fish, poultry, eggs, honey, or any other animal product or by-product. A vegan diet can also include plant-based milk substitutes, such as soy milk, almond milk, and meat alternatives, like tofu or seitan (wheat gluten).
Unlike vegetarians who avoid consumption of red meat but have chicken and fish products (depending on their personal beliefs), vegans completely abstain from all animal foods. That include eggs, dairy products, such as cheese and ice cream, and gelatinous substances made from bones, like bone broth stock cubes, or anything that comes from an animal source.
Vegans also refrain from wearing leather boots or belts, as these items are made from cow skin. The same goes for fur coats, as they’re made out of dead animals and wool sweaters made from sheep wool. They also avoid silk pajamas, as silkworms produce this material after feeding on mulberry leaves.
What Does Being Vegan Mean?
The term vegan is used to describe one who doesn't consume or use animal products. That includes meat, fish, and other aquatic animals, dairy products like cheese, butter, eggs, honey, and even gelatin. Some people choose to follow a vegan diet for religious reasons, while others do so, as they believe it's healthier for the environment or their body.
A vegan diet excludes all animal-based products, including meat and also the by-products of those foods such as whey, which is derived from dairy production or casein, which is used in chees to help form curd during the aging process.
Vegan diets can be more restrictive than vegetarian diets, as they often exclude processed foods that contain traces of eggs or dairy products to reduce exposure to these ingredients altogether.
Does Vegan Food have All Nutrients You need?
Some people are surprised to know that a vegan diet can be healthy. After all, there are many unhealthy vegan foods: potato chips and soda top the list. However, there are also plenty of unhealthy omnivorous foods—take pizza and hamburgers for example.
To understand whether or not a vegan diet is healthy for you (and why), it's important to know what makes up a nutritious diet. There are two things to consider: nutrient density and food quality.
The first is simply the number of nutrients per serving size; that refers mostly to vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and also includes dietary fiber (which most processed foods lack).
The second refers more specifically to how fresh or natural your food is—basically how much processing has been done before it reaches your plate. A good way to think about that is by comparing apples with apple sauce. One contains loads more fiber and antioxidants than the other, as it hasn't been cooked down into mush yet.
Is Vegan Diet Better for Health?
If you’re thinking about going vegan for the first time, or if you’ve been following a plant-based diet for a while and want to learn more about its benefits, this guide is for you.
The truth is that there are lots of ways a vegan diet can improve your health. Some of them make sense (like reducing your risk for heart disease), while others might seem surprising at first (such as improving gut health).
However, before we get into the specifics, here's one thing: It's easy to get caught up in all the hype surrounding food fads and trends—especially when they're trendy diets like paleo or keto. However, there's nothing wrong with being skeptical when it comes to things like "superfoods" and trendy diets.
In fact, our advice would be: not only ask what research has been done on these types of diets, but also take some time to look at other sources besides just one study by a scientist or doctor.
Is There a Link between Veganism and Gut Health?
Veganism is a lifestyle that includes a diet that's free of animal products. Vegan diets are known to improve gut health and have been shown to help with a wide range of health problems, such as:
- Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
- Ulcerative colitis (UC)
- Crohn's disease (CD)
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
How Does Being Vegan Help Gut Health?
A vegan diet benefits the gut due to its high fiber, prebiotic nature, and low saturated fat and sugar level. Following are the other benefits of being vegan:
- The high fiber content of a vegan diet helps increase bowel movements, which help clear out waste from your intestine and prevent constipation.
- Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates that stimulate the growth of good bacteria in the colon. Prebiotics also make up some of the fiber in many plant foods, such as flaxseeds and chicory root extract.
- A vegan diet is naturally lower in saturated fat than other types of diets, as it excludes meat products that are high in this type of fat (i.e., red meat).
- Saturated fats may increase inflammation in the gut lining, which can lead to ulcers or conditions like Crohn’s disease - an inflammatory bowel condition caused by an overgrowth of harmful bacteria that causes chronic diarrhea or pain with bowel movements.
- A vegan diet contains less refined carbohydrates than omnivorous diets, as it excludes processed foods, such as white breads; cookies; cakes; pizza dough made from white flour instead of using whole wheat flour.
How Important is Gut Health?
The gut is the key to your overall health. It's a vast ecosystem that includes millions of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms.
This community is referred to as your microbiome. The health of your gut determines how well you digest food and absorb nutrients from it; it also affects things like mental health and energy levels.
To put it simply: When you have a healthy gut, you're going to feel good overall. However, research shows that over 70% of people worldwide suffer from some sort of digestive disorder at some point in their lives. So there are many ways in which a vegan diet can help improve gut health.
Conclusion
It’s clear that vegan diet can have a positive impact on gut health. A plant-based diet has been shown to improve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, reduce inflammation and promote overall digestive health.
If you're interested in learning more about how this diet can help better manage your symptoms of IBS, we recommend that you seek out a nutritionist or other health professional on how best to implement these principles in daily life.
