Welcome to Small Bites, Sound Bites, a midweek segment of food for thought podcast where I share short, succinct, thoughtful responses to typical questions, myths, and misconceptions related to plant-based eating, veganism, and animal protection.

You can get written transcripts of this podcast by going to joyfulvegan.com slash donate.

There is a contingency of people who want to preserve the word vegan to refer to people who stop eating animal products, and wearing animal products, and attending animal related entertainment for ethical reasons, and they want to preserve the word plant-based to reflect people who stop eating animal products because it's a diet, because they're doing it for quote-unquote health reasons.

And the reason I think this contingency of people have this desire is because they think that the word vegan gets confused and conflated in the general public's imagination, and so they want to make sure it's as clear as possible, and differentiate the ethics of being vegan from the health motivations when you're plant-based.

Personally, I'm not hung up on that. I don't have a problem with people using whichever term makes the most sense for them. In the end, all I can do is articulate what it means to be vegan, and hope that people are attracted to it.

I tend to use vegan to refer to me or people, and I tend to use plant-based to refer to food, and I would never, ever presume to tell people what words to use and not use. If you calling yourself plant-based reflects your authenticity and your behavior, great, go for it.

If calling yourself vegan reflects your authenticity and even your aspiration, then go for it. When I say veganism isn't a diet, I'm not talking about telling people they can't say the word vegan, for instance, if they're motivated by health reasons.

What I mean when I say veganism isn't a diet is that there are a million ways to be vegan. There are a million ways to eat vegan. There are any number of diets you can adhere to within the context of not eating meat, dairy, eggs, fish, and honey. I eat vegan, right?

Because for me, that's what being vegan is in terms of the food. It means I'm not eating five things, but there's no such thing as a vegan diet in that there is a huge spectrum of ways to eat those five things.

You can not eat meat, dairy, eggs, fish, and honey, and consider yourself vegan and eat gluten-free or fat-free or whole foods diet or soy-free, right?

The point is, it doesn't say a lot for me to say I'm vegan other than that I don't eat meat, dairy, and eggs. And the reason I'm saying this is because you hear the general public, people I talk to will say things like, oh, is vegan healthy, right?

Or veganism is not healthy, right? And my point is, no, just saying that someone doesn't eat meat, dairy, and eggs doesn't say anything about whether it's healthy or not.

It really has to do with what you incorporate and what kind of diet you're following within this context of not eating meat, dairy, and eggs, right?

So gluten-free is a diet. Oil-free is a diet. Soy-free means you're adhering to a particular diet. Atkins is a diet, paleo is a diet.

Raw foodism is a diet. And you can eat any of those, you can be in any of those categories while still being vegan, while still not eating meat, dairy, eggs.

I'm throwing in fish and honey because I'm just trying to find two more five things that I don't eat. So when someone says, you know, is it healthy to be vegan, isn't it unhealthy to be vegan?

I think we really need to go deeper when someone says that and say, what do you mean when you say that? Because you can make a blanket statement and just say, of course, it is definitely more healthy to not eat animal products, but you can eat an entire spectrum, not eating animal products.

It doesn't really say what I am eating. It just basically says, here are a few things, I'm not eating.

Let me know what you think about that. I look forward to hearing from you. You can find me at joyfulvegan.com.

Thanks for watching.