You won't how many different types of vegans are out there. It took me a while but I've comprised a list of the most easily recognizable and distinguishable types below. I came up with this list after thinking about what we eat as well as our reasons for going green in the first place. Bear in mind that a person can fall in more than one category.
Ready? Let's go......
Most of the most well known vegans in the world fall under this category. Ethical vegans have an undeniable love for animals that guides their every action. They live for animals by abstaining from the consumption of meat, eggs, honey, dairy or any animal by-product. They do not wear wool, leather, fur, silk nor any clothing derived from the exploitation of animals. And finally, ethical vegans are completely against all forms animal exploitation for any purpose including entertainment, experimentation food,clothing etc. Vegan activists,such as Gary Yourofsky, are ethical vegans.
These are people who chose to become vegan because of health concerns. Many people switch to a vegan-life style after receiving sad news from their doctors with hopes of finding some relieve, which they often do, from illnesses. Health conscious vegans do not usually share the same moral convictions as their ethical counterparts but they follow a vegan diet by abstaining from meat, eggs, honey and dairy. Their diets consists of whole plant foods, that is , unprocessed foods (no white stuff, no tofu, no vegetable meats). Health conscious vegans eats lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, legumes, seeds and leafy-greens (stuff like cabbage and Callao).
Junk food vegans share some common ethical and moral views as ethical vegans but are not especially concerned with their health. These are people who live a fast paced life, people working in the busy cooperate world and even busy college students. Junk food vegans consumes crazy amounts of processed foods such as French fries, white rice, white bread and packed noodles because of convenience. Just because you're a vegan it doesn't mean you are healthy.
These are the most impressive vegans out there when it comes to preparing foods. In addition to not consuming meat, eggs, dairy products and honey, they don't eat anything that's been cooked above 115 degrees Fahrenheit or just about 46 degrees Celsius. By preparing food at such low temperatures, raw vegans are able to preserve all the nutrients and enzymes of the foods they eat. And, as you might have guessed, raw vegans eat no processed foods. Raw vegans general have good health and few health complications. Many ethical and health conscious vegans are also raw vegans. Foods in a raw vegan's diet such as yams, potatoes, pumpkins and other foods that you would normally cook the heck out of, are prepared with very little heating at all.
Raw vegans are also deeply intertwined with nature, hence why they try to consume food in it's natural state as much as possible.
In some sense, fruitarians are the ultimate type of vegans. Generally, frutirains are people who follow a vegan diet but only eat fruits, or at least 70% of their diets is made up of fruits. Some fruitarians will only eat fruits that would naturally fall from a plant or had already fallen. Others use the biological definition of what a fruit is and may consume legumes, beans and peas. Other fruitarians believe we should consume only plants that disperse seeds and think that consuming anything else, such as grains and nuts, is unnatural for humans.
So you are probably wondering why the a person would be so narrow minded in their choice of food. Well there are many reasons for this including: ethics, religion, cultural influences, health or just simplicity. Fruitarians believe we should should avoid killing at all costs, even plants (I agree with them on this). Others ,who believe in the story of the Garden of Eden in the bible, hold the view that according to Genesis 1:26, humans were instructed by their creator/s to consume only seed-baring plants.
So what type of vegan am I?
Hey thanks for reading and I trust that you learnt a bit about some of the various types of vegans there are out there. If you are wondering what type of vegan I am I'll let you take a wild guess; go ahead, I'll wait on you. Ready? What was your guess? Well if you picked ethical, health conscious , or raw vegan, you're absolutely right and wrong at the same time. I'm a mixture of all three. I have an insane passion for animals, I even care for those creepy cock roaches and I enjoy spending time talking to stray cats, dogs, birds and spiders (I did say insane didn't I). I also don't like hospitals so I do my best to stay out of them by eating whole foods. And you probably figured out that I don't really like my foods cooked. Yeah man (Jamaican accent) I love it raw and natural.
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