This is all about Vegan vs Vegetarian vs Plant Based Diet as well as the myths about health and ridiculing people about their food choices. Today, I want to cover two things: My review of some imitation bacon I cooked as well as something I see done often online by fellow vegans who should know better.
In case you don’t know I have been vegan for almost a decade and let me explain what that means.
First off I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about the differences between being a vegan and being a plant based eater.
Vegan diet means health or not?
Definitely there is also some confusion surrounding eating a vegan diet equals health.
Basically, someone that is a vegan does not want to see animals hurt or tortured.
Therefore, vegans do not use any products or foods made from any animal.
Don’t confuse that with vegetarian because they still consume milk and cheese from cows and eggs from chickens.
Because vegans do not use animal products many believe that a vegan diet is automatically healthy because all they eat is… salad and fruits.
Truth is a lot of processed sugar filled fat laden foods are in fact vegan.
For example french fries and soda pop is vegan.
So to equate being vegan with health is wrong.
Let me give you an example.
Shaming what people eat
One day while checking some comments online I saw someone proudly showing off a vegan bacon sandwich.
Even though it looked good a supposed vegan trolled the post asking why the original poster would want to eat something that had the taste and shape of an animal.
This showed the person does not understand what being vegan means.
What being vegan really means
Being vegan is about saving animals… if that person’s vegan bacon did not hurt any animals then they should be free to eat as they please.
Not everyone that becomes vegan did it because they did not like the taste of bacon anymore.
They became vegan because they did not want any pigs killed in order for anyone to eat bacon.
So if there is a recipe or company willing to use plant based substitutes to make an imitation bacon then why not.
Now, if we are talking health… then that is a different story because many processed products may not be all that healthy.
However, as I said before… being vegan is about saving animals not your personal health.
Your choice to eat healthy or not is not related to being vegan.
For me, I try to eat the actual food not the processed version of food.
I generally stay away from junk, but again that is my personal choice.
It does not make the next vegan who enjoys junk and processed foods any less vegan.
Now that I’ve cleared that up let’s look at this vegan bacon made by Lightlife they call it Smart Bacon. Note, this is not sponsored nor am I endorsing this product just merely sharing.
It is my first time trying this version, in another video I showed the tempeh which is thicker.
My family loves this sort of thing so every blue moon we will buy it as a treat, it is not something we eat all the time.
We keep it in the freezer until we are ready, just put it in some water to get it soft.
You can peel off each slice and cook it in a frying pan.
The cooking time is not long maybe 3-4 minutes
Some people like their bacon burnt so here I am showing bacon cooked at 3 different stages so you can see the consistency.
I am going to break a piece off and let me tell you it tastes just like bacon. The only thing it does not give you is that fatty taste
So it is more like a lean bacon which for me is better.
I hope this video cleared up some misconceptions about being vegan
And at the same time you get to see how vegan bacon looks.