5 Top Tips For Eating A Healthy Vegan Diet

Following a diet exempt from animal products can be healthy and easy. All it requires is some prior knowledge and willingness to make the change. Like any major lifestyle alteration, going in headfirst without research will undoubtedly make it difficult. So for that reason, I’m going to be sharing my top five tips for keeping healthy when eating vegan!

An old but effective piece of diet advice is to make sure that your meals are colourful, the more variety the better! Eating a varied diet means that you’re more than likely getting lots of different vitamins and minerals, too. There are around 300,000 edible plant species in the world and so there’s bound to be a good amount that you like out there!

Buddha bowls are the perfect meal that can be as colourful as you make it. It’s super versatile and you can include all of your favourite grains, legumes, and vegetables, topped with a flavour explosion dressing. As long as you’re eating a variety of ingredients then you shouldn’t have to be so meticulous with tracking what you eat.

The beauty of the vegan diet is that many cultures have been cooking plant-based for centuries, which means that there’s a whole world of exciting foods for you to try. For example, in Ethiopian cuisine, they have Injera bread which is served with a platter of delicious vegetables.

Creativity and experimentation are key when switching to a plant-based diet, so have fun with it and discover something new that you love!

There are certain nutrients that are hard to come by on a vegan diet, for example, all vegans are recommended to take B12 supplements; this is due to modern-day hygiene practices and soil quality that makes it virtually impossible to source B12 from plant foods. However, there are vegan-friendly products fortified with B12, such as milk and nutritional yeast. Other supplements to consider taking are vitamin D and iron. 

Following a healthy vegan diet shouldn’t feel like a chore. You can nourish yourself with healthy foods while also eating what you enjoy, it’s called a balanced diet for a reason. With that in mind, remember to treat yourself once in a while with foods that you love, but aren’t necessarily considered ‘healthy. 

If there are a few non-vegan dishes that you are missing the taste of, then work out how to veganise them. Almost anything can be made vegan, from scrambled eggs to chicken wings. If eating out is more your style, then no need to fear because you don’t have to go without your favourite restaurants either. As vegan food becomes more popular, so do vegan choices on restaurant menus. Although, if you can’t find a vegan menu for a particular restaurant then you can always call beforehand to see if they can make arrangements for your visit. 

A whole foods vegan diet is one of the healthiest diets in the world and this is why the word ‘vegan’ is often mistaken as being synonymous with healthy, which isn’t always the case. There are tonnes of junk foods like crisps, burgers, and biscuits that are vegan-friendly but are certainly not good for your health. So watch out for heavily processed foods which are laden with saturated fats and make sure to eat them in moderation.