The Smart Girl's Guide To Going Vegan
Health & Fitness|January/February 2017

Whether it’s for Veganuary or for longer, a vegan diet has never been so popular. Before you jump on the animal-free bandwagon, read on for expert tips make the change the healthy way

Yanar Alkayat
The Smart Girl's Guide To Going Vegan

Veganism has come a long way. Once reserved for hessian-wearing hippies and animal rights campaigners, a plant-based diet is now a fashionable, international trend with celebrities such as Beyoncé, Stella McCartney, Ellie Goulding and Thandie Newton, as well as super-bloggers, giving it some gloss. Venus and Serena Williams converted to a vegan diet some years ago, Carl Lewis is a famous vegan athlete and there’s a growing trend for bodybuilders bulking up without meat, showing off their looks on Instagram.

Just 10 years ago, when I decided to transition from life-long vegetarian to vegan, I was met with few foodie choices and many strange looks. I would shy away from using the V-word and had trouble convincing others that my diet was healthy or positive.

GREEN TREND

Now it’s no longer a fringe lifestyle and more than half a million people in the UK follow vegan principles, by excluding meat, fish, seafood and dairy (some avoid honey, as well). This figure is up 360 per cent from 10 years ago. Almost four million, around five to six per cent of the population, are now vegetarian and a third of Brits identify themselves as flexitarian. According to the Vegan Society, these trends prove veganism is now one of Britain’s ‘fastest growing lifestyle movements’.

This story is from the January/February 2017 edition of Health & Fitness.

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This story is from the January/February 2017 edition of Health & Fitness.

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