Learning the Difference Between Vegetarian and Vegan

Many people are hopping on the bandwagon of the vegetarian and vegan world in order to save money on life insurance, avoid diseases and live longer lives. Still others are trying to save the animals or the environment.

There are many reasons why people do these types of diets; mainly to save the animals, save the planet, or to save their youthful and slim bodies. It has been proven by many various studies that people do live longer on a vegetarian diet than they do with a mixed diet that includes animal products such as chicken, cheese, eggs, and fish.

Many movie stars have learned that these types of diets will help them to remain younger looking longer, staying more beautiful and healthy for their "looking good" careers. And, some even try to do it to save the animals from a torturous existence of factory living.

Whatever the reason, there are some basic differences between vegetarian and vegan names. The vegan diet is simply to eat only plant foods and to avoid all animal products.

But, the vegetarian diet can be very complex. Lacto-vegetarians are like vegans, except that they include raw or organic milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products in their diet.

The Ovo-lacto-vegetarians include all of the above with the addition of the ovum of chickens, or namely; eggs. While some vegans would consider dairy products to be liquid meat and the eggs of chickens to be baby chickens.

Then, there are flexitarians, nutritarians, bestfoodist, and other newly discovered terms for the ways of eating that tend to be mostly vegetarian, vegan, or organic. There are a lot of newly invented ways of eating mostly vegetarian.

The ironic thing is when people say they eat no meat, but then they do eat lots of chicken and fish. Apparently, they think chicken and fish are not in the animal kingdom, even though they do have eyes and the ability to move around independently without being rooted in the ground.

You have to get really technical to speak with these people. They think they are eating such a healthy vegetarian diet even though the chicken and fish are the flesh of a dead animal as well as beef or pork are.

It has been found that chicken and fish also have high amounts of cholesterol and pathogens similar to other forms of flesh and are not truly a vegetarian food. Vegetarian foods technically mean something that comes from a plant; hence being 100% vegetarian would simply mean only eating plant foods and being a vegan.

A person who is vegan also tends to avoid honey, which is the digestive juice of the bee combined with pollen. How sweet is the taste of bee spit or vomit? It is very sweet, but it is not truly vegan.

Some vegans, not most, are doing their diets to save the animals. They not only don't eat anything that might come from an animal, but they also don't wear anything that comes from an animal such as leather.

They also don't use any products that have been tested on animals or have any animal ingredient. So, within the vegetarian diet, there are many variances, and within the vegan diet, there are many reasons to do the diet.

Vegans either do the vegan diet for their health, their looks, to save the animals, or to save the planet. They believe they are helping save the environment from toxic fumes of concentrated manure in the air or water by reducing the demand.

It's helpful to know the differences between vegetarian and vegan, so that you can have a little more understanding for the growing diversity around you, when it comes to diet.