SHORT STORY:
A lifestyle that doesn’t include any meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy or other animal products. A vegan diet can be focused on food that comes from plants like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains and legumes OR a diet that includes lots of vegan “junk food” like sweets and processed foods (vegan breads, cakes, cookies, chips, pastas, faux meats…). Because a vegan diet is usually based on ethical reasons it also eliminates the use of household and personal items tested on animals as well as animal derived products like leather, wool and silk.
FULL STORY:
Before we get into more vegan goodness it’s important to understand that a vegan diet is not about deprivation or focusing on everything you “can’t” eat. Even if you’re not a self-proclaimed hippie a vegan diet is about love, respect and compassion for your body, the environment AND all animals.
If you’re thinking that not eating animals sounds insane or if you’re saying to yourself que loca! this is nuts! where do these people get their protein!? let me just tell you, I totally get it. No judgment here, girl. I’m Mexican and my dad is a retired meat cutter so when I decided to stop eating meat and go vegan I had a lot of questions too and I’m sure I gave my Latin roots a heart attack.
A vegan diet eliminates eating anything that had eyeballs, feelings, a mother, father or a family so for a vegan eating a cow or a chicken would be the same as eating a dog or a cat. With that being said a vegan diet can be a plant-based vegan diet OR a processed and not-so-healthy vegan diet, here’s what I mean:
I’m all about a plant-based vegan diet and I’m here to show you that if you WANT to add more plants to your diet, reduce the amount of animals you eat OR simply feel better you most certainly CAN do that! And it doesn’t matter how busy you are, how “not healthy” you think you are or how broke you are. Life is busy, loud and often times filled with a never ending to do list but I promise that the time and effort it takes to get the hang of this plant-based stuff is 100% worth it.
I’m positive you’re doing amazing things (if you’ve started a business, beat the odds or rescued a puppy you’re already part superhero) and I want you to know that adding more plant-based foods to your life is only going to enhance your already existing greatness. Everything you do and those you love will benefit from the beautiful results you’ll get (inside + out) from eating more foods that come from the earth. I know that’s a big statement but in case you’re doubting whether you’re capable of handling some greens, smoothies and delicious bowls let me just tell you, girl you’ve got this.
