Eating healthy and VEGAN is soooo expensive right?!?! NAH! Honestly it never has to be! But certain countries and places make it more or less expensive to eat SPECIFIC vegan diets.
Here is a list of a few types of vegan diets
- ANYTHING VEGAN
Anything plant-based including fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, most bread, pasta, vegan pizza, vegan burgers, vegan donuts etc. Simply no animal products (meat, fish, milk, cheese, eggs, gelatin etc) This diet is easy to eat because you can find vegan food anywhere in the world.
Watch my vlog of my EPIC JUNK FOOD VEGAN CHEAT DAY Vlog in Berkeley CA (I tried uploading these vids to Dtube but my uploading on Dtube is not working at all here in Mexico! Oh no! So I will link the YT vids instead.) :
2- Whole Food Plant Based
Only eats "whole foods" which means purchasing whole ingredients from the produce section as nature provided. This diet excludes any refined foods such as flour, pasta, bread, sugar, and you could even argue fresh fruit juice is not a whole food because the fiber is removed.
3- RAW VEGAN
There are few different raw diets. There is High Fat raw which includes lots of veggies, some fruit + high quantities of nuts, seeds and raw plant oils.
Then there is the FRUITARIAN high fruit low fat raw diet which excludes oils and high fat foods and instead focuses on fruit and veggies uncooked lots of fruit smoothies (sometimes 20 bananas in a day) and lots of tender greens like lettuce and spinach. No raw diet includes anything cooked meaning no rice, potatoes, beans, bread, or even steamed foods.
Here is a vlog of me eating a raw day at the Woodstock Fruit Festival:
4- KETO VEGAN:
High fat low carb vegan diet that includes raw and cooked foods but low on the carbs. This diet includes lots of vegetables (raw, steamed, grilled etc), nut, seeds, oils like coconut oil, flax oil, olive oil, avocado, tofu. This diet could also include low fat specialty granola bars and grocery store items that can be expensive.
5- RAW TILL 4:
Raw vegan Fruitarian diet for breakfast and lunch then high carb low fat cooked food dinner (rice, beans, potatoes, veggies, pasta etc). Raw Till 4 is not as strict to follow and the cooked dinner portion can really be anything vegan but most people try to keep high carb and healthy. But enjoy your vegan pizza once in a while, it's still raw till 4.
Here is a vlog of mine eating a Raw Till 4 Day:
I will make another post as to which diet I prefer in terms of health and taste...but this post is about COST. Now I will rank the diets In terms of how much they cost supposing you are in North America. This will very a lot given how many calories you eat, what types of food you buy, organic or not and most importantly where you live and where you are shopping! Organic foods and foods imported out of season will always be more expensive.
CHEAPEST: ANYTHING VEGAN = $20-200 / week
This diet can be the cheapest or most expensive. If you don't care too much about nutrition and choose to be vegan for ethical reasons only, you can survive off rice, Oreos, french fries, soda, PB&J etc. This diet could be expensive if you are eating out at restaurants often and buying fun vegan ice creams and premade food. I can't put a weekly price on this diet because it depends on what you are eating, but it can be the cheapest or most expensive.
#2 Cheapest: Whole Food Plant Based = $50-80
This diet consist of foods like oats, nuts, bananas, oranges, rice, beans, vegetables etc. If one is purchasing expensive organic whole food super foods and overly priced fruit in states where high quality cheap fruit does not grow this diet could increase in price but a starch based WFPB diet of oats, rice, beans, and canned or fresh cheap veggies can be DIRT cheap and so healthy for you.
3rd Cheapest: RAW TILL 4 = $70 -100
This diet can be more expensive than simply a WFPB diet because some people buy a lot of unique fruits in places where fruit is expensive. BUT if you are cool surviving on bananas ($30 USD per 40lbs case (90-100 bananas) at any grocery store), frozen berries and then rice, beans, pasta and bread for dinner with spices and condiments like nutritional yeast, ketchup etc. this diet can be just as cheap as a WFPB diet because you can be raw till 4 and WFPB at the same time. This diet implies that you can also be an "anything vegan" for dinner.
4th Cheapest: Keto Vegan: $100-150/ week
Vegetables are usually a bit cheaper than most fruits, and oils are very cheap as well, but you have to eat a lot of vegetables and greens which can increase in price. This is a calorically dense diet so the volume can be low while you still get sufficient calories. This diet can become expensive because I have observed a lot of people who eat this way taking advantage of prepackaged specialty items like "keto approved" cereals, bars, drinks, broths, snacks, low carb fake meats, candies etc that they sell at expensive grocery stores.
Most Expensive: RAW DIET = $150+/week
I hate to say it because I think this is the healthiest diet on the planet BUT raw diets are quite expensive in NORTH AMERICA. It should be understood that if you live in the tropics like Ecuador, Southern Mexico, Thailand etc this diet can be super cheap! But this post is for my friends who do not live on the equator. I was a fruitarian low fat raw vegan living in Colorado for 9 months and it was very expensive shopping at Whole Foods Market and Sprouts. Bananas are always cheap so that was great but anything else the price added up because you have to eat a lot of volume on this diet because it is very calorically not dense. Sometimes I would eat 15 oranges, 2 heads of lettuce, 5 tomatoes, an avocado, raw nuts, nori warps and expensive mangos or some specialty fruit that can be low quality and expensive! Ay ay ay! Raw vegan not in the tropics costs a lot of money, there is not really a way out of it.
Hope this helps you decide what diet is right for you. I am a big fan of the WFPB diet and the Raw Till 4 Diet because I love fruit all day...and then vegan pizza or a nice rice, potato and veggies bowl for dinner. I will make future posts about the health impacts of each of these diets. Let me know more blog post style informational posts you would like to see me put together! Give me topic ideas if you like this and upvote of course much appreciated! Peace Fam!!!
What is YOUR fav diet! Vegan or not...tell me!