Vegan vs Paleo diets: Which is better?

There is a general notion that the contemporary diet is to blame for a lot health complications. It promotes the risk of a variety of chronic illnesses, including type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and others, since it is heavy in unhealthy fats, highly processed foods, sugar and salt.

Keeping this in mind, many individuals feel that giving up meat or returning to their forefathers’ diet is the ideal way to avoid all of these concerns and begin living a healthy life. That is why people start to compare the vegan vs paleo diet and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these two.

To determine which of these two diets, vegan vs paleo, is best for you, you must first understand their basic concepts.

Paleo diet

The Paleolithic diet, alternatively referred to as the paleo diet, stone age diet, hunter-gatherer diet, or caveman diet, is based on the idea of eating foods that were accessible during the Paleolithic era.

It generally implies you should eat whatever your predecessors would before contemporary agriculture, which includes fish, lean meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. It excludes dairy, legumes, and grains, which became a part of our diet relatively late. Paleo diet supporters claim that since the human body has not adapted to digest dairy, grains, and legumes, their use may raise the risk of several health concerns. The Paleo diet also involves regular activity and adequate hydration.

So, while this diet demands high consumption of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which are essential components of healthy nutrition, it prohibits the intake of grains and legumes, which are high in fibre, vitamins, and minerals, and restricts the consumption of dairy, which is one of the primary sources of calcium in a regular diet.

Benefits of the paleo diet1. Helps maintain healthy blood glucose levels2. Improves insulin sensitivity.3. Lowers your blood pressure.4. Weight loss, along with a smaller waist circumference.5. Enhances cholesterol balance.6. Enhances satiety.7. Reduces mortality rate.

Vegan diet

For instance, when you look at raw vs cooked foods, you’ll often see that raw food has a higher nutritive value than cooked food.

In essence, vegan diets or a raw plant-based diet are extremely effective for improving energy levels, alkalinising your bodyand countering certain types of illnesses.

A vegan diet consists exclusively just plant-based foods. It excludes all animal-derived products, which include meat, dairy and eggs. Some people will avoid consuming honey as well. For some, being vegan is a nutritional commitment, while for others, it is a lifestyle.

Vegan diets include plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, beansand seeds. In addition, consuming different foods will provide various essential vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and protein.

However, people who follow this diet should get the key nutrients they usually get from animal products. Iron, protein, calcium, vitamin B-12, and vitamin D are some of the said nutrients.

Benefits of the vegan diet:1. Certain nutrients are higher in a vegan diet.2. Might benefit you in losing extra weight.3. Leads to enhanced kidney function and decreased blood sugar levels.4. May help prevent some types of cancers.5. Decreases risk of heart disease.6. Helps with arthritic pain.

So, this or that?

As you can see, both diets may give good health advantages if you carefully curate and avoid potential risks. This is because that a nutritious diet may take various shapes. There is no one way to eat for maintaining good health, and everyone reacts differently to different diets. Some people succeed on a vegan diet, whilst others prefer the paleo one.

Each of these eating patterns prioritises vegetables and limits the intake of highly processed meals. However, a varied diet is required to obtain all the vitamins, minerals, fibre and phytochemicals for optimal nutrition; many combinations of foods can help you get there.

Moreover, a lot of recent studies have indicated that the quality of the food you consume — prioritising whole foods over processed foods — is more significant than whether it is low fat, low-carb, or somewhere in between. So please remember: while there are many healthy ways to follow both diets, there are also many harmful combinations. After all, a diet consisting only of packed chips and boxed juices is technically vegan, and consuming countless meals of red meat every day might be paleo: however, neither is encouraged.

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