So, whenever my dietary choices come up in conversation, I usually just tell people I’m a vegan, however, this is not an accurate description of my diet as I follow a whole foods plant based diet and in this article, I’ll explain the difference between the two.
Someone who follows the vegan diet is mainly concerned with abstaining from animal products and is not particularly doing it for health reasons. It is possible to be on a vegan version of the standard American diet as vegans can eat french fries, vegan burgers, vegan bacon and other processed foods. This is not to say that all vegans are living on junk food but I'm merely pointing out that "vegan" does not automatically mean "healthy" as is often the assumption.
People who follow a whole foods plant-based diet like myself, tend to be motivated by health reasons and are more concerned with eating foods in their whole natural form i.e. unprocessed. An example of the foods a vegan would eat that someone on a plant-based diet would abstain from is cooking oil. Someone who is vegan, may not have a problem consuming olive oil, sunflower oil and flaxseed oil whereas a plant-based person would consider these denatured foods and consume the actual olive, sunflower or flaxseed instead.
Another example would be peanuts and other nuts - someone on a vegan diet may not have a problem consuming processed nuts (as long as it contains no animal products) whereas someone on a plant-based diet would be concerned about the added salt, additives and preservatives in the product.
There certainly are different motivations for living this lifestyle and people who are vegan tend to be animal rights activists/environmentalists and do it for ethical/sustainable reasons. Veganism has morphed from being a diet to a lifestyle/ideology that goes beyond what's on your plate to other areas of life such as the clothes you were - leather and fur would obviously be unacceptable.
Plant-based eaters on the other hand, tend to be concerned with maintaining an alkaline diet for health reasons and may or may not be too concerned about the ethical and environmental implications of their diet. All in all, there are different paths to the same destination and I am happy to identify as a plant-based vegan :)
Cheers
