Blog on difference between a Vegan and Vegetarian

For years there are several questions that have never seemed to find the right answers. For example “what came first the chicken or the egg?”. Similarly, just as the people around the world were coming to terms with the concepts of vegetarianism, a new term was coined. Yes, the term we are talking about is veganism.

Now, for those people who don’t follow either of the diets, the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan may get rather blurry. So, in this blog, we will take a look at all those fine lines that make a vegan different from a vegetarian.

In the simplest of terms, vegans are vegetarians but with a lot stricter rules of what not to eat. A vegetarian is a person who chooses to opt for a diet that is meat-free, however, may end up consuming products that come from animals such as milk and dairy. In the same way, vegans are people who also go the meat free way with an added rule of not consuming any product which is a by-product made from animal or their skin.

There are several categories and types of vegetarians and vegans and once we go through these types, we will be able to understand the differences between a vegan and a vegetarian as well.

Types of vegetarians

Lacto Ovo vegetarian: A diet that excludes meat and flesh but includes milk and eggs.

Ovo vegetarian: A diet that consumes either only eggs or includes all dairy-based products such as cream, cheese and milk but excludes the eggs.

Demi vegetarian: Those who include fish, eggs and other dairy products but not meat.

Semi vegetarian: those people who voluntarily control their meat intake

Types of Vegans

Ethical vegans: those people who put their ethics of love for animals before their stomachs and completely avoid all forms of meats and dairy products.

Plant-based vegans: those people who live on plant-based foods that grow from the ground only.

Raw vegans: they avoid any animal by-product and anything that is cooked above the temperature of 115-degree Fahrenheit.

The major difference between vegans and vegetarians is that vegans believe in consuming a diet that is completely cruelty-free and this includes all by-products such as dairy, honey and even cream. In the case of vegetarians, people avoid all the meats but end up consuming some by-product of animals like ghee, honey and other dairy products.