Is Vegan the New Black?
By Dr. Melissa Bahamonde
M
My friend Jen and I sat at a table at a local coffee shop and
laughed about how disparate our way of eating (or diet) had become
when compared to what is easily available in our community.
We had decided to check out the Florida Vegan Gourmet
Food Festival, hosted by City Festivals, to experience the freedom
of knowing we could follow our diet while eating at a festival.
The majority of the time I am bombarded by advertisements
for heavily processed animal-based fast food on billboards and
via television commercials. Jen is a vegetarian and I have slowly
been transitioning to a whole-food plant-based vegan diet.
While we both have ethical reasons for eating this way, we
both also have chronic health conditions that are aggravated and
exasperated by eating dairy, meat, large amounts of sugar, and
processed foods.
plant-based diets is hard to ignore and have been the subject of
documentaries such as Katie Couric’s Fed Up, Forks over Knives,
and What the Health. Whole-food plant-based vegan eating differs
somewhat from general veganism in that it emphasizes nutrient
based eating and doesn’t include some technically vegan
food (yes, Oreos and French fries are vegan). What I can tell you
is that when I eat vegetables and do not consume meat and dairy,
I feel amazing.
-
line media outlet MSN featured an article about the most popular
diets of 2019 on 3/25/2019. Of the 25 diets featured, nine focused
diet, vegetarian diet, veganism, raw food diet, paleo vegan diet,
Nordic diet, probiotic rich diets, DASH diet, and the Mediterranean
diet). To clarify, some diets still allow for occasional meat
meals include a wide variety of vegetables. Vegetarianism allows
dairy and eggs, while veganism does not allow any animal
products at all. Further, many people who are vegan and vegetarian
are committed to not consuming meat and/or other ani-
What the Health and Cowspiracy effectively highlight how the
mass consumption of animal products is devastating our earth
and polluting our environment. Further, there are so many articles,
news stories, and environmentalists that are also presenting
you should Google it). For these reasons and more, many people
are choosing to eat vegan food and even follow a whole-food
plant-based vegan diet.
My desire to eat a whole-food plant-based vegan diet has
been the subject of various conversations with those in my circle,
including my friends and family. When I explain the aforementioned
reasons to some friends and family, they often comment
in a manner similar to “well I could never give up cheese (or
steak, or seafood, or another animal-based food) forever,” or
“we eat turkey on Thanksgiving and ham at Easter because it
restaurant.” While these are all valid points, my answer is usual-
view of most vegans I know, but if everyone could collectively
eat less animal products and consume more vegetables it could
only improve our health and decrease the environmental impact
of meat consumption. For example, could we all start with
28 • AUGUST 2019 813.682.9364 FLORIDA WOMEN MAGAZINE