Vegan diet has been linked with health and environmental benefits. Reduce consuming animal products is thought to be one of the ways to prevent and managing chronic disease also prolonging life. While some foods bringing concern to some health-related diseases, vegan diet has variously shown the capability to reduce body weight, prevent and treat Type 2 diabetes, lower cancer risk, and reducing the chance of getting cardiovascular diseases.
Vegan diets are deemed to be the most ethical diets because it raises the awareness of animal welfare and reducing environmental impacts. Consumers are increasingly switch or opted their diet to vegan diets. In practical, the annual Veganuary campaign has shown a raise in participants that temporarily switch their diets. From 3300 people in 2013 to over 629.000 people in 2022. However, this switch was just temporary and 84% of them failed to maintain this diet because it lacks excitement compared to normal diets.
Despite potential health and environmental benefits, many people abandon the attempt to switch to vegan diets. The main cause is consumers are unable to psychologically adjust to an absence of animal products. Especially for foods that they think contains specific aspects and there is no vegan product that can replace it. There are 2 points of view to overcome this dilemma. One is to completely abandon ship and the other is to implement a more flexible vegan-based diet with occasional non-meat animal products or currently known as plant-based diets.
Many people found it that maintaining a vegan diet needs lots of efforts. It is because, there is a lack of accessibility of vegan foods which makes it a barrier for all the vegan out there. The other one is regarding on the habit of eating animal products. As we all know, changing someone’s habit is not like flipping a hand. It needs time and patience for someone to be able to change their dietary habit from consuming animal products to plant based products.
When these barriers are overcome and dealt with, switching, and maintaining to at least a plant-based diet will not be that hard and challenging. The only problem lies between yourself. Will you take and conquer the challenge of eating a vegan diet. The easiest way to start is by implementing meatless Monday where each Monday, no animal product is eaten during the whole day. After suceeding Meatless Monday, try to implement Veganuary then after that you will find that eating vegan diets is no different than your normal everyday diet.
Source:Appetite, Volume 180, 1 January 2023
Image by: unsplash.com
