Plant-based: what it means and where!
How can the term plant-based vary from place to place?
It seems that plant-based means different things in different places. There’s a movement in America where multiple medical professionals refer to plant-based as being vegan BUT there’s a difference, which refers to the foods being whole foods, as opposed to, processed and refined. I’ve written about that here.
What does it mean in England
The definition is quite different here. I’ve spoken to a number of people and although they may not like the actual terms, most of them feel that plant-based and vegan are very different.
What does plant-based mean here?
plant-based is about food
if someone says they’re plant-based it may not describe all their meals
they don’t follow a vegan lifestyle, so they might buy and use items made from leather, wool, silk, down and so on
What does veganism mean?
The people who define plant-based in the way I’ve described above, see veganism as an ethical choice and don’t think it can be limited to food.
They perceive vegans as striving to abstain from any activity or product that involves the suffering, torture, captivity, death or exploitation of other living beings.
They believe that vegans can’t be vegans if they buy leather, wool, silk, down and so on. They define veganism as being ‘vegan by mouth’ and ‘vegan by wallet’ i.e. anything and everything that they purchase would be vegan. This definition doesn’t cut it, as it would actually affect the gifts that they would accept as well.
Is any of this written in stone
In short, the answer is no! With so many people referring to the same with different definitions, it’s best to clarify what you mean if you’re going to use it.
“Neither the USDA nor the FDA currently have a definition for the term “plant-based.” Same goes for the medical and research community.”
Changes over time
There is some confusion because the way plant-based has been defined has changed over time.
“A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of foods derived from plants, including vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and fruits, and with few or no animal products.
A plant based-diet is not necessarily vegetarian.
The use of the phrase plant-based has changed over time, and examples can be found of the phrase “plant-based diet” being used to refer to vegan diets, which contain no food from animal sources, to vegetarian diets which include eggs and dairy but no meat, and to diets with varying amounts of animal-based foods, such as semi-vegetarian diets which contain small amounts of meat”
“I taught cooking classes for the national non-profit, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and during that time, the phrase “plant-based diet” came to be used as a euphemism for vegan eating, or “the ‘v’ word.”
It was developed to take the emphasis off the word vegan, because some associated it with being too extreme a position, sometimes based exclusively in animal rights versus a health rationale.”
“Several sources use the phrase plant-based diet to refer to diets including varying degrees of animal products, defining “plant-based diets” as, for example “diets that include generous amounts of plant foods and limited amounts of animal foods”, and as diets “rich in a variety of vegetables and fruits, legumes, and minimally processed starchy staple foods and limiting red meat consumption, if red meat is eaten at all”.[10] Others draw a distinction between “plant-based” and “plant-only””
“In various sources, “plant-based diet” has been used to refer to:
- Veganism: diet of vegetables, legumes, fruit, grains, nuts, and seeds, but no food from animal sources.
- Fruitarianism: vegan diet consisting primarily of fruit.
- Raw veganism: vegan diet in which food is uncooked and sometimes dehydrated.
- Vegetarianism: diet of vegetables, legumes, fruit, nuts, and grains, that may include eggs and dairy, but no meat.
- Ovo-lacto vegetarianism: includes dairy and eggs
- Ovo vegetarianism: includes eggs but no dairy
- Lacto vegetarianism: includes dairy but no eggs
- Semi-vegetarianism: mostly vegetarian diet with occasional inclusion of meat and/or poultry.
- Macrobiotic diet: semi-vegetarian diet that highlights whole grains, vegetables, beans, miso soup, sea vegetables, and traditionally or naturally processed foods, with or without seafood and other animal products.
- Pescatarian: semi-vegetarian diet with eggs, dairy and seafood.
- Flexitarian: semi-vegetarian diet that includes limiting meat intake daily and/or being vegetarian only on certain days of the week.”
Frustration
For those of you who want a shortcut in describing what you eat, how you live, what you support and the things you won’t or don’t partake in; it’s frustrating that these terms are used in a variety of ways and in effect, dilute or nullify the meaning of them.
Someone was telling me that she’s vegetarian but doesn’t eat eggs, and when she’s said that to people, they’ve started analysing her and asking why she’s wearing leather shoes or implied that she was hypocritical for consuming dairy.
Others have shared that they’ve said they’re vegan and when asked what it means, they got flustered and said it means vegetarian and no dairy, although they didn’t mean that. They actually were ‘vegan by mouth’ but didn’t have the ability to articulate that they don’t eat any animal products or explain what that meant.
I know people who have gone dairy-free after being motivated by ethics and animal rights. However, they didn’t realise that vegan means more than going dairy-free and they incorrectly labelled themselves as vegan, only to be told that they’re not vegan because they eat honey and eggs, or buy and wear animal products, such as, leather and wool. They were at the beginning of their journey and simply didn’t know how veganism was defined.
It may not be what you want to hear, but it wouldn’t be honest or fair for me to say that you can use a specific term and everyone will know what it means. The terms have changed and people’s understanding of the terms may or may not have been ‘updated.’ In addition to that, our own understanding determines the way we define things, which will have an effect on what others hear and believe.
“All vegans eat a plant-based diet, but ethical vegans try to exclude all forms of animal exploitation.
For instance they avoid wearing or buying clothing made from wool or leather, or toiletries from companies that carry out animal testing.”
“I’m a vegan, but you can be really unhealthy as a vegan, too. Vegan just means that you don`t use animal products, so you don`t wear leather, you don`t wear wool, and you don`t eat animal products. But you can eat french fries and stuff like that all day long.”