What Can You Eat (and Not Eat) as a Vegan?

A vegan diet is considered one of the most strict diets, but it can also come with many health benefits! Whether you choose to eat a vegan diet for ethical reasons, health reasons, or both, it’s important to familiarize yourself with a vegan diet before you set off to adopt this type of eating style.

A vegan diet includes plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds while avoiding all meat, seafood, dairy, eggs, and animal-derived ingredients like honey, gelatin, and collagen.

We’ll compare a vegan diet against other types of vegetarian diets and explain in more detail what you can eat and not eat on a vegan diet in this article!

What is a vegan diet?

A vegan diet is a plant-based diet that excludes ALL forms of animal-derived products. Vegans avoid meat, seafood, eggs, dairy, and other animal-derived ingredients like collagen, fish oil, and gelatin. 

A vegan diet is stricter than a vegetarian diet, which generally includes dairy products and eggs. We’ve summarized the difference between a vegan diet and other less-strict vegetarian diets below:

Type	Avoids meat	Avoids fish	Avoids dairy	Avoids eggs
Vegan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (“regular” vegetarian diet)	Yes	Yes	No	No
Ovo-vegetarian	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Lacto-vegetarian	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Pescatarian	Yes	No	No	No

Benefits of the vegan diet

There are several potential benefits of a vegan diet, such as:

• Increased fiber intake
• Higher intake of antioxidants from increased fruit and vegetable consumption
• Lower saturated fat intake

Potential drawbacks of a vegan diet

• Can be lower in calories and protein if not well-planned
• Potential for nutrient deficiencies like calcium, iron, and vitamin B12
• Can be high in added sugar and salt if you rely on processed vegan-friendly foods (a vegan diet is as healthy as you make it!)

What can you eat (and not eat) on a vegan diet?

We’ve summarized the types of foods and drinks you can eat (and not eat) on a vegan diet in a handy table below!

Food Group	EAT on a vegan diet	AVOID on a vegan diet
Meat/animal-based protein	None	All meat, including beef, pork, poultry, seafood, shellfish, eggs, etc.
Grains	All grains are allowed on a vegetarian diet (bread, rice, pasta, cereals, etc) as long as they don’t have added animal ingredients like milk or eggs	Avoid any grains with added non-vegan ingredients like milk or eggs (e.g. egg noodles)
Vegetables	All vegetables; legumes are especially popular on a vegan diet because they’re rich in protein and iron. Soy protein is a popular plant-based protein on a vegan diet.	Avoid any vegetables with added sauces that include milk, cheese, etc.
Fruit	All fruit	None
Fats/oils	Any plant-based fat (coconut oil, olive oil, canola oil, etc.)	Bacon grease, lard, butter
Nuts and seeds	All nuts and seeds	None
Dairy	None; choose non-dairy milk alternatives like almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk, etc.	All dairy (cow’s milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, ghee)
Drinks	All types of drinks, including alcohol and caffeine	Avoid any drinks with milk-derived ingredients
Desserts	Desserts free of non-vegan ingredients (choose egg-free, milk-free, etc)	Desserts with animal-based ingredients like dairy and eggs
Other ingredients	Any non-animal-derived ingredients (most preservatives are vegan-friendly, such as carrageenan and guar gum in plant-based milks) Artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols are allowed on a vegan diet	Gelatin, honey, collagen, fish oil, some omega-3 supplements, sauces with fish (Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies) Any milk-based ingredients like whey, casein, etc. Some vegans avoid refined white sugar because it can contain bone char (derived from animals) – if so, choose organic sugar or unrefined cane sugar to avoid the use of bone char.

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