Vegan VS Plant-Based Diet: What’s the difference?

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a vegan diet and a whole food plant-based diet are one and the same, but there are some important differences that mean the two terms are not interchangeable.

Complicating matters even further is the fact that a whole food plant-based diet actually is a vegan diet in some ways – but it’s so much more than that.

Let’s break down the differences.

What is a vegan diet?

We’ll start by discussing a vegan diet. Put simply, if you don’t eat any animal products, you’re following a vegan diet.

Although the term has become quite trendy in recent years, it can be traced back to 1944, when Donald Watson came up with it to describe people who don’t eat or use animal products for ethical reasons.

These days, however, it’s often used regardless of a person’s motivation. Some people switch to a vegan diet primarily for health reasons – although they often also care about helping animals and the planet.

The good news is that studies have shown this way of eating can benefit health as well as the environment.

People on a vegan diet won’t eat meat, poultry, seafood, dairy or eggs, but everything else is acceptable. Those living a vegan lifestyle – true “vegans” – extend this sentiment to clothes and beauty products made from animal materials as well, such as leather, beeswax or gelatin.

What is a whole food plant-based diet?

A whole food plant-based diet also avoids animal-based products such as meat, dairy and eggs. But because it focuses on “whole foods” – which are unprocessed or minimally processed foods – it also limits oil, white flour, and refined sugar.

Eating this way means consuming lots of whole fruits, vegetables and whole grains while staying away from highly processed ingredients.

Going plant-based is often embraced by people who are interested in the health aspect of avoiding animal foods because it focuses on making nutritious choices rather than animal rights.

Some plant-based eaters may have no objections to using clothes and beauty products that are made with or have been tested on animals. However, many people who switch to a plant-based diet for health reasons eventually become aware of their lifestyle change’s positive impact on animals and the environment.

The main difference is processing

The biggest difference between a vegan diet and a whole food, plant-based one is processing.

If a food is processed, it should be avoided or kept to a minimum on a whole food, plant-based diet. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t like to use the word “exclude” or “eliminate” because when something is suddenly forbidden, I find it even more tempting than ever!

So while those vegan desserts you see in the store might be made without cream cheese or milk, it won’t be an ideal choice on a whole food, plant-based diet if it contains ingredients like white sugar and flour.

In fact, a person could easily stick to a vegan diet by eating only processed food. They wouldn’t be eating anything that came from animals, but it wouldn’t exactly be healthy. After all, many types of chips and soft drinks fit the criteria for being vegan.

Vegans focus more on where a food comes from than the quality of it. While health-conscious individuals can make a vegan diet very healthy, there’s a lot of “vegan junk food” out there that people mistakenly assume must be healthy simply because it bears a vegan label.

A good example of this is mock meats.

It’s normal to crave a burger or ham sandwich from time to time, and there are lots of vegan burger and cold cut products in supermarkets catering to this desire.

However, they’re often laden with fillers, GMOs, and other undesirable ingredients, which makes most of them unsuitable for a whole food, plant-based diet.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never have a burger if you choose to go whole food, plant-based. It doesn’t even mean that you’re forbidden from having a mock-meat burger ever again.

It just means that you’ll eventually start to eat your own homemade burgers more often than the packaged, GMO-filled ones at the store. You’ll want to make one with ingredients like beans, chopped vegetables and spices that capture everything you love about the “real thing” – and you can get surprisingly close, trust me! (Check out my Veggie Lentil & Rice Burgers recipe).

What about vegetarians?

Vegetarians simply don’t eat any type of meat, poultry or seafood. Everything else is fair game.

I try to eat whole food, plant-based 95 percent of the time – remember, it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition, as I explained in my article Whole Food Plant-Based Diet for Beginners – and I tend to eat vegetarian for the other 5 percent, especially when I’m eating at a restaurant and nothing on the menu is whole food, plant-based.

I find that I just don’t like eating meat anymore, but I don’t sweat the small stuff on the rare occasions I eat out. If you eat healthy most of the time, there’s room to stray on occasion.

Which way of eating is best?

As a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, I believe that a whole food, plant-based diet is the best choice from a health standpoint because it’s a clear-cut way of eating that replaces unhealthy processed foods with more nutritious and satisfying choices.

Once you know what you can eat, it’s pretty much foolproof – you don’t have to have a chemistry degree to interpret labels and you can be sure you’re not putting any junk into your body! If an ingredient is too difficult to pronounce, it’s probably not something you’d want to put in your body.

Best of all, when you eat this way, you are automatically increasing your intake of fiber, vitamins, and minerals without even trying. Plus, plant-based protein is incredibly beneficial for your health.

It’s a highly personal decision, but I can say going WFPB has been the best choice I’ve ever made for my body.