Vegan diet can make you rich as well as healthy, study finds
3 mins read

Vegan diet can make you rich as well as healthy, study finds

Tighten your waistline – and your wallet – by going vegan.

Switching to a vegan diet can improve your health, not to mention your savings, found a new study published in JAMA Network Open.

Switching to a vegan diet can improve your health, not to mention your savings, a new study found. neon shot – stock.adobe.com

Researchers with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine randomly assigned participants to try diets without calorie restriction for 16 weeks each, with a four-week “washout” period in between to determine the differences between a normal American diet, a Mediterranean diet and a vegan one. diet.

They found that a low-fat vegan diet reduces people’s food spending by 19%, or $1.80 per day, compared to a typical American diet, which is typically filled with meat, dairy and other animal products.

The diet — one that bans animal products and instead focuses on fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes — is even cheaper than other healthy diets.

A low-fat vegan diet reduces people’s food expenses by 19% or $1.80 per day compared to a standard American diet. Voyagerix – stock.adobe.com

A Mediterranean diet — plates filled with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, nuts and seeds — costs 60 cents more per day than the average American diet.

So those on the healthy diet who switch to veganism can cut food costs by 25% or $2.40 per day.

That’s about $900 in savings per year on grocery bills.

The difference comes mainly from cutting out meat, dairy and added fats. The money saved by not buying these products offset the increased spending of 50 cents per day on vegetables, 30 cents per day on grains, and 50 cents per day on meat options on the vegan diet.

However, there was no significant cost difference when switching from a standard American diet to a Mediterranean diet.

“As grocery costs remain stubbornly high, consumers should swap meat and dairy for a low-fat vegan diet based on fruits, vegetables, grains and beans to potentially save more than $650 a year on their grocery bill, compared to a regular American diet, and more than $870 compared to the Mediterranean diet,” Dr. Hana Kahleova, lead author and director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said in a statement.

Those who switch from a Mediterranean diet to a vegan diet can save about $900 a year on groceries. Prostock Studio – stock.adobe.com

But eating a vegan diet didn’t just benefit people’s wallets.

Ditching animal products had better results for weight, body composition, insulin sensitivity and cholesterol levels, compared to a Mediterranean diet.

“A vegan diet doesn’t just save money; it could save lives by helping to avoid or improve conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease,” noted Kahleova.

Ditching animal products had better results for weight, body composition, insulin sensitivity and cholesterol levels, compared to a Mediterranean diet. marrakeshh – stock.adobe.com

Sticking to a vegan diet – even for just two months – has also been proven drastically reduce your biological age, according to new research.

Researchers found that eating only vegan food for eight weeks led to reductions in biological age estimates.

The American team conducted an experiment involving 21 pairs of adult identical twins.

Their findings, published in the journal BMC Medicine, were based on levels of DNA methylation – a type of chemical modification of DNA that changes gene expression but not the DNA itself.

Professor Christopher Gardner, of Stanford University, California, said: “We also observed reductions in the ages of the heart, hormone, liver and inflammatory and metabolic systems in participants who ate a vegan, but not an omnivorous, diet for eight weeks.”