Why Being Vegan is Nutritious and Delicious
An analysis to determine which of two last-minute meals (one vegan, one not) contains more nutrition
A food-planning snafu left my husband, Harry Alford, and me finding ourselves at home this past Wednesday night with “nothing to eat.” The result was surprising in more ways than one.
A typical (non-vegan) last-minute meal at our house might involve heating Whole Foods Tandoori Chicken Samosas, steaming broccoli, and calling it a meal. However, that would be a fail in our effort to be vegan. Instead I embarked on a slightly more time-consuming and labor-intensive meal by pulling together random foods we had at home.
Lots of Color and Big Flavor
Some time ago, I learned that it was important to “eat the rainbow” by being sure to add color to my meals. It was immediately obvious that my Wednesday vegan make-shift dinner was much richer in color than it would have been had I fallen back on our old go-to. Harry and I were also both pleasantly surprised at how flavorful the meal was.
So Many Nutrients (including protein)!
After eating, I wondered how this meal stacked up nutritionally to the samosa and broccoli dinner. Harry was sure we had consumed less protein; I was less convinced but thought he could be correct. In an effort to get to the bottom of our debate, I did a nutritional analysis of the two meals.
I expected the vegan salad meal to have a wider variety of nutrients. However, I was surprised to see the magnitude of difference between the nutritional value of the two meals. Side-by-side, the vegan dinner out-competed our usual go-to in almost every category, including the highlights below.
- 6 grams more protein
- 20 grams more polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (the good kinds!)
- 16x more fiber
- 10x more potassium
- 10x more vitamin A
- 2x more vitamin C
- 2x more iron
How does the vegan salad meal stack up to recommended daily nutrient consumption? Very well, as you can see here.
In addition, a vegan hack that I used when making the salad that can be used in a multitude of ways (e.g. adding nutrition to that steamed broccoli I mentioned earlier) is incorporating nutritional yeast. You can see its nutritional benefits in the table above; it’s tasty so give it a try!
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