Can A Vegan Diet Help Your Health And The Environment?
It's Veganuary! The easiest time of the year to try a vegan diet and see how easy and delicious it is to eat in line with your climate commitments and compassionate values! Join thousands and thousands of others by signing up online for a world of nutrition information, recipes, motivation and support.
January is a time for new starts and New Year's resolutions, and an estimated 35 million people in the UK will be starting 2024 with a promise to themselves to make a positive change to their health and diet. Veganuary, an annual challenge that promotes a Vegan lifestyle, has become increasingly popular since its inception in 2014 and more and more people are taking up the challenge every year. According to the latest data, in 2023, 706,965 people worldwide signed up for the challenge (update: since January 2024, the number has increased to 1.8 million). Veganuary is much more than just a new year resolution, with an estimated 83% of people planning to make significant ongoing diet changes after the end of the 31 days.
Veganuary's mission is to inspire and support people to try vegan, drive corporate change, and create a global mass movement championing compassionate food choices with the aim of ending animal farming, protecting the planet, and improving human health.
Veganuary And Your Health
With increasing numbers of people trying Veganuary for the first time and sticking with Veganism as a lifestyle choice, many are discovering the long term benefits to their health that a vegan or plant based diet can have.
Vegan diets have come a long way in the last few decades, and well planned diets follow robust and clinically proven healthy eating guidelines that have been endorsed by the British Dietetic Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics among others, with an increasing body of research that recognises the fact that a vegan diet is suitable for every age and stage of life. Eating a vegan diet doesn't mean you have to go without, with so many varied food choices, meals and nutritional powerhouses like whole grains, fruit, nuts, seeds and vegetables, which are packed full of beneficial fibre, vitamins and minerals, a Vegan diet can have a major impact on your overall health.
Possible Health Benefits Of A Vegan Diet
- May improve your blood sugars, lowering the risk of complications from diabetes
- May support heart health
- May reduce blood pressure and cholesterol,
- May balance gut health and act as an anti inflammatory
- And much more beside...
Please see the NHS Eatwell guide for advice on getting a fully balanced diet when going Vegan.
Veganuary And The Environment
With these increasing numbers of people signing up for Veganuary, there is also a huge increase in questions being asked about how a Vegan diet can be good for the envioronment too, as more and more people are concerned about living a healthier and greener life at the same time. The good news is that the answers all invariably point to adopting a Vegan diet can have a significant impact on reducing an individuals carbon footprint.
Animal farming and the production of animal derived products has an enormous carbon footprint and places a significant burden on the planet. The vast amount of grain needed to feed animals can usevast tracts of land and can be a huge contributor to deforestation, habitat loss and species extinction, and wastes vast quantities of water in the process, not to mention the carbon impact of transporting and producing meat for consumption. It has been suggested that adopting a Vegan diet would take up a lot less resources and a lot less farming land than the current meat based diet while using considerably lower quantities of crops and water.
So Veganuary seems like a win, win all round!
Ambassadors of Veganuary include celebrities such as Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, Alicia Silverstone and Deborah Meadon. Mayor of New York Eric Adams is also on this list this year, as having transformed his own health with a plant based diet, he is committed to bringing the benefits to communities in New York. Mayor Adams has transformed the food environment of New York Hospitals, serving plant based food by default in 11 hospitals, not only reducing carbon emissions and showcasing healthy delicious food, but also saving money.
The NHS has a long way to go to match this ambition and impact, but many staff are changing their own diets, and working to ensure that food is included in sustainability targets made by their organisations. The New Year is a great opportunity to support colleagues and patients to make positive changes and to ensure they have the most up to date evidence-based information on why and how to shift to a more plant based diet. The CSH Food and Nutrition Network therefore held an online event to support those staff thinking about promoting Veganuary at their own work places. This was led by Dr LJ Smith, who has promoted both Veganuary and No Meat May at King's College Hospital for the last few years alongside colleague Dr Shireen Kassam. LJ shared her experience of what has worked, and what has not, provided a time line for preparing in advance, and shared resources such as posters, film recommendations and common Q&As.
Anyone engaged in fighting the climate crisis must consider their dietary choices. Without reducing reliance on meat and dairy, we have no chance of staying within planetary boundaries and are guaranteed to breach 1.5C of warming with catastrophic consequences. As healthcare professionals we should also consider direct consequences of animal agriculture on public health issues of air and water pollution, rising rates of antimicrobial resistance and increased zoonotic pandemic disease.
The good news is that food is something we have control over as individuals, and is something we can take action on today and every day. Our potential collective power is huge.
For more inspiration why not watch the recording of the recent CSH Food and Nutrition SusNet event here:
And if you want to learn more about Veganuary or get involved in one of the conversations happening right now around Vegan diets, health and the environment with experts, clinicians, patients and other interested people, then sign up to our networks and join the conversation.