When you explore the full range of possible menu options, you’ll find that sticking to a vegan diet on a budget isn’t difficult at all. In this article, we look at seven ways anyone can save money while enjoying healthy, satisfying and cruelty-free food:

1. Learn to Cook for Yourself
2. Shop Locally and In-Season Whenever Possible
3. Or Grow Your Own
4. But Remember That Fresh Isn’t Always Best
5. Inexpensive Staples – Buy in Bulk
6. Find Recipes You Love – And Make Extra
7. Understand the True Costs of Eating Meat

1. Learn to Cook for Yourself

More so than any kitchen gadget, one of the best ways to economize on a vegan diet is to learn to do your own cooking. A vegan diet can be cheaper if you cook for yourself, and meals can be healthier than premade processed foods — many of which are high in salt, sugar and additives.

The best way to get started is right at your fingertips. The internet is filled with recipes and videos about vegan food preparation. Start with meat-free takes on meals you know and love already, then get creative with new dishes and innovative tastes.

When you select recipes that have ingredients within your budget, preparing your own vegan meals is an enjoyable way to explore vegan cuisine and save money at the same time. Wholesome, home-cooked vegan meals are healthy, ethical and economical — precisely because you know every ingredient that goes into them.

2. Shop Locally and In-Season Whenever Possible

A vegan diet can be cheaper when you plan your meals ahead of time and take advantage of seasonally available fruits and vegetables. The cost of produce varies wildly based on your geographical location and the time of year — eating in season gives you the freshest food for the best price.

Avoid the grocery store by signing up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)  or shopping at your local farmer’s market. You’ll be supporting homegrown businesses, enjoying tastier food and supporting the environment by lessening the demand for expensive shipping of produce from warmer parts of the world.

3. Or Grow Your Own

If you’re serious about saving money while staying vegan — and you have the necessary resources of time and space — there’s no substitute for growing your own fruits and veggies. Your location will play a significant role in what you can grow successfully, so be sure to do your research before you begin. Check online for articles about how to grow veganically in your area.

Daunted by the prospect of growing your own vegetables? You don’t need a green thumb to maintain an apartment-friendly kitchen garden. Fresh herbs are packed with flavor that can brighten any dish, but buying them at the grocery store can add to your budget. Fortunately, growing your own is easy and low cost. Start with the basics, like thyme, basil and rosemary, and then consider expanding your garden with next-level flavors like tarragon, sage or mint.

A kitchen garden is a great place to grow sprouts and microgreens without a lot of hassle.

4. But Remember That Fresh Isn’t Always Best

One misconception some people have about maintaining a healthy vegan diet is that all produce should be fresh.

For many foods, canned, frozen or preserved alternatives are an excellent way to supplement what’s in season for more varied, delicious meals. Foods like tomatoes are often more affordable when purchased  canned. For certain applications, they can taste better, too. For example, unless you have access to ultra-fresh, vine-ripe tomatoes, most chefs will recommend using canned for sauces, soups and stews.  Berries, spinach, kale, green beans, peas etc. are some of the fruits and vegetables that when purchased out of season can be more economical and flavorful when frozen.

Finding these little cost-saving hacks is one of the many joys of learning how to cook smart and stay vegan on a budget.

5. Inexpensive Staples – Buy in Bulk 

Of course, there’s more to a vegan diet than fresh fruits and vegetables. Legumes and grains are important sources of protein and other nutrients. They’re also incredibly affordable, and can be the key to eating a plant-based diet on a budget. To find the best deals, however, it may be necessary to venture beyond the supermarket.

Dried pulses such as lentils and chickpeas can keep a long time with no loss of flavor, quality or nutritional value. For these items, shopping in bulk is the best way to go. Whether it’s a self-serve health food store, a food co-op or a large chain, bulk suppliers often have both lower prices and better variety than your grocery store.

Consider buying a set of mason jars or other glass containers to keep your purchases organized and accessible. You may also consider investing in a pressure cooker, which is a useful tool for saving time and energy when cooking beans and grains.

6. Find Recipes You Love — and Make Extra

Food should be a joy no matter what type of diet you adopt. Because you’re looking for advice on how to be vegan on a budget, another useful tip is to eat food you really enjoy. Find a few go-to recipes that are delicious every time you make them.  Cook extra and freeze and set aside for low-effort, on-the-go meals that satisfy.

Vegan curries, lasagna and stews all freeze well and are easy to scale upwards. When you have fast access to food you love, you’ll be less tempted to resort to takeout or other options that run up your overall costs.

7. Understand the True Costs of Eating Meat

Our final tip isn’t specifically about saving money while following a vegan diet. Rather, it’s about adjusting your perception and understanding of the true cost of a vegan diet vs. meat diet in terms of human health, animal suffering and environmental consequences.

Many people are unaware that animal agriculture has been receiving government subsidies, which means that we are all helping to fund animal products.  For decades the animal food industry has been implementing efficiency practices which has become known as factory farming. For the animals this has resulted in them living in severely cramped and dirty conditions. Even with so called “humane meat”, the animals suffer and their lives are cut short.

Waste runoff from animal agriculture pollutes nearby water systems.  All animal agriculture produces greenhouse gases, in fact, animal agriculture produces more of these gases than all of the transportation systems combined (buses, cars, trains and planes).

A vegan diet isn’t just healthier for the environment it is better for people too. The staggering cost of health care for people with heart disease and other chronic illnesses that animal foods contribute to takes a financial toll on our country as a whole.

Learn More

You can read more about the heavy, hidden toll of animal farming and aquaculture elsewhere on our website. The bottom line, however, is that converting to a vegan diet is part of living a more compassionate, ethical life. If you can do it on a budget using the above tips, you’re doing the right thing for both your wallet and animals everywhere.

The post Grocery Hacks: Money-Saving Tips for a Hearty Vegan or Plant-Based Diet appeared first on North American Vegetarian Society.

Such an instance presents an excellent opportunity to educate. Compassionate consumerism includes explaining to manufacturers that you only purchase products that are free of animal ingredients. Companies do respond to consumer demand, but only after being made aware that a vegetarian/vegan market exists.

Communication with product manufacturers is likely to be much more fruitful If you follow the suggestions below:

• Be specific. When trying to find out if a product is free of animal ingredients, avoid asking whether or not the product or a particular ingredient is vegetarian or vegan, because the person you are speaking with may not understand the true definitions of these words. Much better is to use the term “animal-derived” in your dialogue. and to specify what this means. Explain that it includes milk and eggs or their derivatives, insects and their products, and all ingredients derived from or extracted from animal flesh.
• Get it in writing. If you are told by a customer representative that a product Is definitely vegan, then ask for it in writing. By doing so, you will be much more likely to get accurate information.

The post Making The Most of Consumer Action appeared first on North American Vegetarian Society.

Well yes, it’s probably true that a tiny bit of animal enzyme won’t cause bodily harm (no harm to the human’s body, that is!). So why would any- one bother to avoid it?

Many vegans would probably answer that question with the same words they might use to explain why they do not eat, meat: it is cruel to use animals for our consumption when we can easily get by without them. Given the facts about the animal production industry, many (non-vegan) vegetarians are likely to want to start reducing their consumption of less obvious animal ingredients.

Surprisingly, some people who consider themselves vegetarian continue to consume products that contain remains of slaughtered animals such as gelatin (made from ground-up skin and bones, found in Jell-O, supplement capsules, and photographic film) and rennet (made from the lining of calves ‘stomachs, used to coagulate hard cheese). Some of these people may be unaware that these hidden animal ingredients even exist. Others know about them but feel that they are just minor components of a product, and that their presence is therefore not important.

So, how important are hidden animal ingredients? To the meat industry, they are extremely important! Every ounce of marketable product – from hooves to urine – contributes to the profit margin of the industry as a whole. For example, elastin, a protein found in the neck ligaments and aortas of cows, is purchased by companies that manufacture skin-care products; Hyaluronic a protein found in umbilical cords and in fluids around joints, is used as a cosmetic oil. According to the National Rendering Association, the sale of animal by-products grossed more than two billion dollars last year. Purchasing goods that contain animal ingredients supports the meat industry just as much as buying foods that contain meat, eggs, and milk. Plus, as consumers, each of our purchases is a vote of approval. As experience has proven, if enough of us are willing to purchase veggie burgers (for example), then companies will strive to meet this demand. Likewise, if we buy products free of animal ingredients (especially from companies that intentionally avoid them) we help to ensure their availability and profitability.

Many people who do not eat meat for ethical reasons do use animal by-products that are obtained while the animals are still alive. Dairy is a good example, as many vegetarians who consume it rationalize their behavior by pointing out that cows are not killed in order to provide humans with this particular by-product. These vegetarians may not realize that dairy cows spend their entire lives in a cycle of imposed pregnancies to maintain lactation, and that within 24 hours of birth, nearly all of their calves are taken away. Not only are they deprived of their mothers’ milk, but the male calves born out of this process are also forced into the veal industry. Some of them are killed immediately for veal; others are chained by their necks for 16 weeks in tiny wooden crates prior to slaughter. Their mothers (the dairy cows) are killed for fast-food hamburgers and other cheap ground-meat products once their milk flow is no longer economically advantageous. Because of these and other production methods many people believe that the dairy industry involves more cruelty than that of the meat business.

There are other animals beside dairy cows that are used for by-products while they are still alive. Musk oil, a secretion painfully obtained from musk deer, beavers, muskrats, civet cats and otter genitals is used in perfumes. Also, captive wild cats, caged in horrible conditions are whipped around the genitals to produce this scent. On farms in North Dakota and Canada, female horses are impregnated and then confined from the fourth month through the end of their 11 -month pregnancies so their urine can be gathered for Premarin, a brand of estrogen. After the mares give birth, they are reimpregnated and their foals are usually slaughtered for meat. When the bodies of animals raised for their by-products cease to be productive, they too are slaughtered.

Some vegetarians who purchase items containing animal by-products believe that it is okay to do so because animals are not specifically raised for their by-products. Their rationale is that using items such as pepsin and lard (both originate from pigs’ stomachs) is not unethical, because the animals are going to die anyway for their flesh Others believe that the ultimate destination of each part of an animals’ body is irrelevant; what matters is that their lives are filled with suffering.

To illustrate this on a human level, consider the wigs manufactured during World War II made with hair cut from the heads of concentration camp prisoners. Although the people were not specifically imprisoned for the output of hair for wigs; their lives were filled with immeasurable suffering, they were eventually killed, and the camps profited by selling their hair. Many people share the belief that all beings, human and non-human, are capable of feeling emotions and sensing pain, and refuse to be part of a system that treats animals as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves who exist for their own reasons.

The post Why Avoid Hidden Animal Ingredients? appeared first on North American Vegetarian Society.

To further complicate the matter, some products labeled no animal ingredients” may contain animal products, as no federal guidelines exist to monitor this claim. Many manufacturers persist in the misinformed belief that ingredients such as honey, silk, whey, casein, bone and gelatin are not derived from animals, and label their products as animal-free, even if they contain such items.

Hidden animal ingredients may not be visible to the naked eye. They may be hard to detect on a product label and even harder to taste. They may not be as viscerally repugnant as a chicken on a rotisserie or a leg of lamb. Nonetheless, they are animal products, and we owe it to the animals who suffer for human palates to do our best to avoid them.

Although some companies such as Tom’s of Maine have traditionally been diligent about correctly labeling their products as to whether they contain animal ingredients, this is not the case with most others.

It is virtually impossible to avoid all animal-derived ingredients. From glycerol in brake fluid to tallow fatty alcohol in paint, animal products are everywhere. However, a growing number of people are trying, to the best of their ability, to avoid as many products as possible that contain animal ingredients. Most of them are already aware of the origins of whey, casein, honey, and silk. But how can we learn how to decipher ambiguous ingredients such as arachidonic acid, oleolic acid, propolis, castoreum and cochineal, all of which are animal-derived?

Almost everybody likes to talk about food, so if you want to learn about products that are free of animal ingredients, then just ask someone whose been following a vegan diet for some time. This is a good place to start because you are likely to get a lengthy list of food items, personal care items, and maybe even information on price and availability. However, limiting yourself to someone else’s food likes could get boring, so the next step is to obtain a reference guide of consumer ingredients and their origins.

If the idea of cross referencing product ingredients during a so-called “quick” trip to the grocery store seems worse than going hungry, then consider the fact that this shopping process gets easier through practice, just like everything else in life.
If you are looking at a product’s ingredient list and find words that you don’t understand, it may take a minute or two to find out what they mean and where they come from by using a reference guide. Chances are, the next time you come across that ingredient, you will remember its origin. Likewise, once you start using products that you have identified as being free of animal ingredients, you will remember them for future shopping occasions. Beware, however, that product manufacturers do sometimes make ingredient changes. It is wise to occasionally check the labels of even your tried-and-true favorites.

Many conscientious consumers say that once they become accustomed to reading labels, they are able to do quick scans for certain ingredients, rather than starting with the first ingredient on a list and working their way down. For example, many of us have learned through label-reading that many commercial breads contain whey or milk powder. Scanning for these items takes just seconds, compared with the minute that it might take to review an entire list. If the ingredient in question appears, then the product can be put back on the shelf. Scanning the entire label only becomes necessary if the scanned-for ingredient is not there. Another time-saver is choosing products with few ingredients. This has obvious health advantages, too, as short ingredient lists often mean less processing.

You may occasionally encounter products that contain questionable ingredients, such as biotin, which MAY OR MAY NOT BE derived from an animal. In such instances, contacting the manufacturer is the only way to determine the ingredient’s source. You are also likely to discover products labeled “no animal ingredients” that do actually contain animal products. If this happens, consider contacting the manufacturer to inform them that they are mislabeling the product, and explain that the ingredient (such as honey, casein, or milk) is derived from animals.

Does this mean that if “questionable” ingredients are listed on products labeled ‘no animal ingredients” that this always requires a call to the company? Not necessarily. If you contact the manufacturer to ask what they specifically mean by the statement “no animal ingredients” and find that their product guidelines are specific enough to ensure no animal ingredients are ever used, then it is probably safe to assume that all of their products labeled “animal-free” are, in fact, free of animal ingredients.
Many people believe that learning about animal ingredients, reading labels, and communicating with product manufacturers is a minor effort compared to the great reward of knowing that they are taking an important step towards living more compassionately. We can go beyond this though, by also educating our friends and family about this lifestyle choice so that they understand why we will refuse their stew flavored with “just a dash” of Worcestershire sauce (contains anchovies). Who knows? This might open the door for our loved ones to incorporate compassionate consumerism into their own lives.

Hillary Morris is an animal rights activitist who bas been closely involved in the vegan movement for several years. Maribeth Abrams is an Associate Editor of Vegetarian Voice magazine.

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