Why Being Vegan Doesn't Mean you are Healthy.

Just like anything, being a vegan can be good or bad.  As many of you know vegan means no meat or animal products.  This doesn't mean healthy in fact we will talk today about unhealthy vegan diets and healthy vegan diets.  Before I start this I do want to inform you I am not vegan, but this blog is mainly for those of you that are thinking of going vegan and want to know what to eat, or to inform you that being vegan doesn't necessarily mean healthy.

The bad.

processed food
Lets think of fries, potato chips, and processed peanut butter for example.  All these are loaded with unhealthy oils and fats.  Yes they do taste good, and are vegan but that doesn't mean they are healthy. Processed peanut butter is made with hydrogenated oils instead of just peanuts and the natural peanut oil from them.  Hydrogenated oils lower good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol in the body, so read your labels on peanut butter, and make sure it is made with either just peanuts or peanuts and sea salt.  I myself love some french fries, but I rarely eat them for one reason, I become bloated and tired, and I know the side affects of eating deep fried food is harmful not just for acne but can also lead to cancer, weight gain, heart problems, and even diabetes.  These are all vegan but aren't in any way good for you.  In the next 2 sections of this post we will talk about probably the 2 worst things to eat in my opinion, that even vegans can eat!

You can have pop and candy.  I don't care if you drink diet pop it is terrible for your body.  Not only do pop and candy lead to fat gain, but there is no nutritional value to them.  NONE!  I can speak for myself on this.  As many of you know when I was younger I used to never drink water.  I fucking hated water's guts because I was so used to pop.  In turn guess what happened to my teeth, multiple cavities every time I would go to the dentist!  I was overlooking how important my teeth are and if I could go take all the pop that I drank back I would because that taste wasn't worth fucked up teeth!  The reason diet sodas are bad, even though they have no calories is that they contain an artificial sweetener called aspartame.  Aspartame has been linked to seizures, brain tumors, diabetes, and increases the risk of metabolic syndrome, which even though the pop has no calories can lead to fat gain!

I wasn't the biggest fan of candy when I was younger but still had some candy, mostly Reeses. Candy like pop is mostly made up of sugar, and some candy is purely just sugar.  Like pop candy has no nutritional value to you body or health.

Lets move on to the good of vegan diets.

The good.

There are vegans who are strict to not eat any of the junk food I just listed above.   As I stated above I am not a vegan, I love meat and veggies, but I stay away from everything I listed above 99.9% of the time.  However the vegans who eat smart know those foods I listed ar bad for them and realize that they are vegan to be healthy.  Many people hear the word vegan and think that means that they are healthy if they are vegan even though vegans can have pizza, pop, candy etc.  

The purpose of this blog isn't to bash vegans, thats why here I am talking about the good side as well, and to help vegans who are eating this junk food move to a plant based diet.  I used to eat this junk food as well and changed it although I am not vegan I feel much better after cutting it out of my diet, and I know this is the same for anyone vegan or not.

Unlike the food I mentioned above, plants contain a high nutritional value.  Some of my favorites are beans mostly black beans which contain protein and healthy carbs, garlic which can help fight and prevent sickness, turmeric which is anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.  I also love nuts (call me gay) they are a great source of fat, my favorites are almonds, macadamia, brazil, pecans, walnuts, and peanuts.  Some of these are even high in protein but all contain healthy fats, which the body and even brain need for optimal health.  My other favorite fats are avocado and coconut oil.  I could live off macadamia nuts and avocado if I had to!

There is many more to talk about but I would like to keep this short and simple to try and influence you guys to change up the foods you eat, even if you are not vegan.  If this blog post helped you in any way please share it to get the message across to more people, or if you think this would help a loved one or friend share it with them as well!