What is a Plant Based Vegan?

Wow, I can’t believe it, I hit the PUBLISH button.  Here we are, the Plant Based Vegan Sistah blog is live! Yeah, I made my deadline – SCOOOOORRRRREE!!

I think an explanation of why the name Plant Based Vegan Sistah was selected.  You may be asking yourself, aren’t plant based and vegan the same thing?  Not exactly. When I started on this journey, I thought they were one in the same, but discovered there is a difference.  So, here goes.

Plant based is basically eating only plant-based foods.  For instance, fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, tubers, nuts, seeds, and basically any food that does not come from an animal.  I know this sounds a lot like a vegan, but read on…

Being a vegan is more about ethics than diet. Not only do vegans not eat any animal products, they are also to likely not wear anything from an animal, nor use any hair, makeup or cleaning products that come from an animal or have been tested on animals.

Now that the basic definitions have been explained for both plant based and vegan, let’s take a look at a well known snack, the all delicious Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookie – my favorite by the way. These cookies are considered vegan because they do not contain any animal products(see ingredients below) but if you notice there aren’t any plant foods items listed(okay, so there is peppermint oil listed, but sorry it does not count as plant food).

Ingredients: Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron,vitamin b1 [thiamine mononitrate], vitamin b2 [riboflavin], folic acid), sugar, vegetable oil (partially hydrogenate palm kernel and/or cottonseed oil, soybean and palm oil), cocoa, caramel color, contains 2% or less of leavening (baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), cocoa processed with alkali, invert sugar, cornstarch, salt, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavor, oil of peppermint.

A more healthy plant based snack is an apple with peanut butter. When selecting peanut butter, make sure the only ingredient are nuts and not sugar, oil and other additives found in some other peanut butters.

So, I decided to call myself a Plant Based Vegan Sistah, since I eat plant based and vegan foods.  At this point, I’m not all the way on the ethical side of being a vegan, although, I am starting to think about it more than I did a year ago when I first started this lifestyle. I’m finding out more the effects on the environment and to the animals.

So, make your own choice and call yourself what feels good to you in your soul and spirit.  Just be informed in case someone wants to have opinion on your choice as we know everyone has opinions.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about this post below.

Be good to you:)