Plant-Based Diet vs. Vegan Diet: What's the Difference?

Last updated on March 25, 2021 at 02:36 pm

Plant-Based Diet vs. Vegan Diet? Well those who are vegan and those who follow a plant-based diet eat many of the same foods, cook many of the same meals, and might give you many of the same reasons for their lifestyle, including health benefits, animal rights, and a reduced environmental impact.

But are the Plant-Based Diet vs. Vegan Diet interchangeable?

While they aren’t mutually exclusive, there are small differences between the two that mostly have to do with the histories of these two lifestyle choices.

Here are the differences between both diets and some information that may help you decide which you should choose to meet your personal goals.

What is Veganism?

In 1964, Eva Batt published an essay describing the fundamental tenets of vegan philosophy and how to realize them practically (1).

Batt was a pioneering vegan, adopting the lifestyle just ten years after the term was first coined. She also helped to lay out the groundwork for the practical set of instructions that assisted others in joining the movement.

This groundwork was necessary because, without the right knowledge, many of those early adherents suffered from nutritional deficiencies that caused health problems.

The term vegan was coined by a group of so-called “total vegetarians” who first met in London in 1944 to discuss their lifestyles. They completely rejected the exploitation of animals by people for any reason, and their lifestyles adhered to that belief. While this mainly affected their diets, it also changed the way they behaved in other areas.

These early vegans rejected everything related to the exploration of animals, including brushes and brooms made from animal hair, wool rugs, cosmetic products tested on animals, and zoos or circuses that used animals for human entertainment.

Veganism came about because the group no longer wanted to exploit animals for their own gain. They did not do it because the diet was necessarily healthier.

The Vegan Diet Today

Veganism today has changed, especially in the context of animal agriculture, environmental degradation, and climate change. More vegans are adopting the diet for health and environmental reasons, as opposed to the purely ethical standpoint of the early vegans.

In 2017, the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior published a study based on a survey of 34,525 people in the United States. Among the 4% of respondents who had followed a vegan or vegetarian diet in the past, a variety of motivations were recorded (2).

75.4% of these people reported following a vegan diet for health reasons, while 43.1% said it helped them manage stress. 23.8% reported using the diet to improve athletic or sports performance (see: Can Athletes Follow a Plant-Based Diet?).

Clearly, the vegan diet today is used to achieve a variety of goals. As time went on, people focusing on the use of a plant-based diet for other purposes began to create their own terms to more easily distinguish what they were doing apart from the ethical connotations of the early vegans.

What is a Plant-Based Diet?

The term plant-based diet was popularized by the American biochemist Thomas Colin Campbell in the 1980s. He wanted to study and discuss the health benefits of following a diet based on whole, plant-based foods without evoking the extra ethical and environmental connotations associated with the vegan movement.

A plant-based diet is an eating pattern that revolves around plant-based foods. While a vegan diet also emphasizes eating plant-based foods, the difference between a plant-based diet and a vegan diet is that a plant-based diet doesn’t necessarily require you to avoid animal-based products.

Someone can still eat a little meat and dairy while still being considered to follow a ‘plant-based’ diet.

If one were to eat 90% plant-based foods and 10% animal products, they could still be considered to be following a plant-based diet, but would certainly not be considered to be following a vegan diet, as a vegan diet requires the complete exclusion of all animal products in any quantity.

Many vegans already knew about these health benefits. Once they had figured out how to achieve a nutritionally complete diet based entirely on plants, many of them found that they experienced better health outcomes as a result, and today, the most scientific establishments agree with this view.

A position statement released by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2016 states that there are multiple health benefits associated with plant-based diets (3).

Vegetables and fruits are high in fiber and phytochemicals, which are powerful antioxidants. At the same time, removing animal-based foods eliminates many saturated fats from the diet.

The Health Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet

Diets high in fiber and low in unhealthy fats such as saturated fat can help to improve glucose control and reduce levels of harmful LDL cholesterol, resulting in many improved health outcomes.

A study in 2013 collated research to provide a recommendation for American doctors to advise their patients to follow plant-based diets to improve their overall health (4).

Excess consumption of salt and saturated fats associated with animal products can lead to increased blood levels of LDL cholesterol, which deposits fats on the walls of the coronary artery, resulting in heart disease.

However, antioxidants found in many fruits and vegetables appeared to have a preventative effect on many types of cancer. They also found that the right kind of plant-based diet reduced patients’ risks of strokes, hypertension, and obesity. But not all plant-based diets are the same.

Are All Plant-Based Diets the Same?

Thomas Colin Campbell knew that not all plant-based diets were created equal. After all, a plant-based diet of potato chips, soft drinks, and white bread isn’t likely to improve anyone’s health.

For Campbell, it wasn’t enough to simply eat a plant-based diet, so he advocated a whole-food, plant-based diet. Processed foods, such as refined flours, oils, and sugars are associated with the same health conditions a plant-based diet is supposed to prevent.

In his book, Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, Campbell cites research that supports the idea that whole, plant-based foods work to prevent a wide range of health problems (5).

These foods include:

Fresh fruits and vegetables
Whole grains
Legumes
Tubers
Nuts and seeds

Refined oils and flours are discouraged, along with dairy products, meat, and eggs.

Much of the health impacts of processed foods come from their simple carbohydrates.

Increasing consumption of refined flours in the United States has contributed to the epidemic of type-2 diabetes within the country, according to one study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (6).

By removing the tough, outer kernel of grain during processing, flour refining makes it easier for the body to digest the carbohydrates inside. This decreases the time between eating the food and experiencing an increase in blood glucose levels, as measured by the Glycemic Index (GI).

High-GI foods like refined flours and various forms of processed sugar (think high fructose corn syrup) damage your body’s ability to control its insulin response, leading to type-2 diabetes and other associated conditions.

Plant-Based Diets vs. Vegan Diets

Usually, veganism extends past food choices. Being a movement founded on the ethics of using animals as resources, veganism is not solely limited to the choices around food and eating. In contrast, plant-based diets are concerned about the diet exclusively.

Many vegans will not wear clothes made from animal products, including fur, wool, and leather. Personal care products, especially various soaps, cleansers, and makeup products, are still often tested on animals, and vegans will often use only cruelty-free products.

Other lifestyle restrictions include certain medications. Some medications, especially immunizations, that use animal products or have been tested on animals.

Sugars like galactose, as well as amino acids, are among the products used commonly in medications that are derived from cows.

An Absolute Stance

The philosophical basis of veganism will always be reducing the harm done to animals through lifestyle choices. True veganism is absolute: animals may not be exploited by humans for their own gain. The nutritional benefits of eating a plant-based diet go hand in hand with this but are not necessarily the original goal.

“Plant-based diet” became a common term because nutritionists recognized that occasionally eating non-vegan foods didn’t necessarily ruin the health benefits associated with a diet that included mostly plant-based foods.

In fact, some animal products can even improve the health benefits of a plant-based diet. When choosing which diet is best for you, it’s important to analyze what your motivations are for eating a certain way.

Should I Choose A Vegan or Plant-Based Diet?

If your concerns mostly have to do with health and nutrition, you’ll want to choose a plant-based diet. However, that doesn’t mean this diet can’t be vegan as the two are not mutually exclusive.

Plant-based diets simply give you greater flexibility to achieve your desired health outcomes. Functionally, any vegan or plant-based diet is likely to be based on similar foods and eating patterns.

But adding selected animal products to your mostly-vegan diet makes it easier to address nutritional deficiencies common in vegan diets.

For example, omega-3 fats are essential in the diet, and they can’t be produced by the body. The best source of these fats in nature is in fish and other seafood. A plant-based eater can incorporate limited amounts of these foods to ensure they get enough of this key nutrient.

That doesn’t mean that vegans will necessarily be deficient in omega-3 fatty acids.

While it’s easier to get omega-3 while including some animal products in your diet, there are plenty of plant-based sources of omega-3 to incorporate into your diet. Chia seeds, for example, are a great source of these fatty acids, as shown by this nutritional analysis (7).

The same applies to protein. It’s typically easier to get more protein in your diet by eating meat, but there are many healthy plant-based foods high in protein such as tofu and beans.

Choosing a plant-based diet also keeps the focus on the food. If you’re driven by the desire to get healthier through your diet and aren’t interested in giving up your leather boots or checking your medications for animal products, then a plant-based diet is probably your best bet.

The Overlap Between Plant-Based and Vegan Diets

The reasons for making the change to either a vegan lifestyle or a plant-based diet can be a little different, but most of the benefits overlap.

For example, switching to a more plant-based diet can still contribute to animal rights.

Reducing the demand for animal products and buying more plant-based foods encourages companies to provide more of those and start decreasing their production capacity for meat, eggs, and dairy.

The most important part is to choose the right kind of plant-based foods, no matter what proportion of your diet they make up.

Remember, the health benefits of a plant-based diet mostly come from increased fiber, complex carbohydrates, and antioxidant consumption, as well as reduced saturated fat intake. Most processed foods miss this mark, whether they’re plant-based or not.

The Bottom Line

The differences between a vegan diet and a plant-based one are small but not insignificant. They speak to the philosophical and ethical points that underpin the choices people make while following one or the other.

Vegan diets came about because of a protest against the exploitation of animals for human gain, while plant-based diets came about to advocate for a more nutritious way to eat.

That being said, there is now considerable overlap between the two, and the differences are often obscured. Both kinds of diets can achieve the same goals, and they can look very similar in practice.

If your motivation is your health, then you’ll want to choose the right plant-based foods, whether you also eat animal products or not. Eat a lot of whole, fresh, plant-based foods, and it’s hard to go wrong.

If your motivation is weight-loss, then you’ll want to participate in our 21 Day Program that helps you lose fat and with that, a lot of pounds in a limited period of time and with significant impact on your health far beyond those 21 days.