Shopping for the vegan diet – Part 2

Shopping for the Vegan Diet

The vegan diet is rather difficult to shop for considering the diet goes against the grain of the usual American diet. Vegans completely avoid animal products in everything from the food they consume to beauty items to clothing. Most manufacturers or food and most other product seem to find a way to stick some animal product in just about everything they make.

When shopping for food, you will be spending most of your time in the produce section. It’s important to fill up on as many fresh fruit and vegetables as possible. A good variety of produce will give you a good variety of vitamins and minerals. The rest of the shopping trip should consist of finding some beans, nuts, and seeds. These items will give you the protein and other nutrients fresh produce won’t give you.

If you shop for packaged foods, you will become a pro at identifying animal products in the ingredient list. Of course the prepackaged vegetarian/vegan items are easy to prepare, but you must be skeptical of all ingredients. These items are also much more expensive then the average packaged item to buy.

The best thing to do is buy as many whole natural foods as possible and keep all packaged and processed foods to a minimum. When buying any packaged foods, buy from a reputable natural company. Research these companies on the Internet and find one that best suits your needs. Many of these companies will have a mission statement on their front page stating where and how they use their ingredients. Any company that isn’t forthcoming with that information may be a company to avoid.

Here are some common ingredients found in food, health and beauty aids that are normally made from animals:

Albumen, allantoin, amino acids, benzoic acid, biotin, carmine, casein, castor, cetyl alcohol, collagen A, cortisone, cystine, elastin, gelatin, glycerin, guanine, keratin, lactic acid, lanolin, lecithin, linoleic acid, lipids, pathenol, polysorbate, rennin, royal jelly, stearic acid, sterols, uric acid, and whey. Note: some of these ingredients can be made with plant products and will normally be noted as so on the ingredient list.

Then of course there’s clothing. It’s easy to find good clothing made out of plant materials, but shoes can be much more difficult. So many of our shoes are made from leather. You have to look for rubber soles and synthetic leathers. This can be a daunting task if you are shopping at the average shoe store, but can be much easier online.

One great online store to get all your vegan materials is www.veganessentials.com.