Whether you're interested in learning more or are already vegan, test your knowledge of animal free living.
As vegetarian and vegan diets become more mainstream, so have misconceptions about vegan diets, including both their pros (vegan diets make you skinny, vegans never get sick) and their cons (vegans are always tired, vegans are all vitamin deficient).
We talked to nutritionists vegans themselves and authors of the new book Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant Based Diet to get the bottom of the most popular myths about following an animal free diet.
Myth1: Vegans Are Always Weak or Tired!
Fact: Because meat is packed with iron and vitamin B12, essential nutrients for preventing anemia and sustaining energy levels, people assume vegans are more prone to fatigue and other health problems.
But shunning animal products doesn't automatically make you iron or B12 deficient as long as you nourish your body with healthy, nutrient rich alternatives.
If you're not eating a lot of calories or protein and you're not getting enough vitamin B12 or iron, you will develop fatigue at some point.
But because plant based sources of iron are harder to absorb than those that come from meat, vegans need more iron than meat eaters 33 milligrams of iron daily for premenopausal women and 14 grams of iron a day for men and postmenopausal women.
For daily B12 intake, both men and women need more than 2.4 micrograms a day less than what's found in a serving of B12 fortified cereal, but more than the amount in one egg or a serving of yogurt.
Myth2 : You Can't Get Protein on a Vegan Diet!
Fact: According to the United States Department of Agriculture an adult woman needs 46 grams of protein daily, and an adult man 56, which is the equivalent of slightly more than two and a half 3ounce servings of meat.
But legumes like soy, beans, lentils, peas, and peanuts, are packed with protein, and whole grains contain decent amounts as well.
By comparison, one cup of dry beans has 16 gram or a little less than one third of what's recommended each day and one serving of cooked brown rice has 5 grams.
Myth3: Vegans Need Less Calcium!
Fact: Some research has linked low bone density and osteoporosis to meaty, high protein diets, which has lead some vegans to believe that they don't need as much calcium, a mineral commonly consumed to boost bone health, as omnivores.
It's also more challenging for vegans to consume enough calcium from their diets because, unlike vegetarians, they don't eat dairy.
As a result, some vegans and vegetarians have lower bone density than non vegetarians, though the vegetarians studied did not have a higher occurrence bone fractures.
