🌱Vegan diet
A vegan diet leaves out all animal products: meat, fish, dairy, eggs and honey. A well-planned vegan diet can be healthy, but vitamin B12 has to come from fortified foods or a supplement — plants do not provide it.
🔬What it means
On this site “vegan” means no meat, fish, seafood, gelatin, milk and dairy, eggs or honey, and no ingredients made from them.
Because whole food groups are left out, a vegan diet needs a little more planning than a vegetarian one — especially for vitamin B12, calcium, vitamin D, iodine and omega-3.
✅What you can eat
- 🫘Beans, lentils, chickpeas, peas, tofu, tempeh and soya — the main protein sources.
- 🌾Grains: oats, wholemeal bread, rice, buckwheat, quinoa, pasta without egg.
- 🥦All fruit and vegetables, especially green leafy ones.
- 🥜Nuts, seeds and nut butters, including walnuts, flaxseed, chia and tahini.
- 🥛Fortified plant drinks and yogurts — a good source of calcium, B12 and sometimes iodine (organic ones are often not fortified).
- 🥣Other fortified foods: breakfast cereals, yeast extract, fortified nutritional yeast.
🚫What to avoid
- 🥩Meat, poultry, fish and seafood in any form.
- 🧀Milk and dairy: cheese, butter, ghee, cream, yogurt, kefir.
- 🥚Eggs — also in fresh pasta, mayonnaise, cakes and glazes.
- 🍯Honey and gelatin (gummy sweets, marshmallows, some desserts).
- 🥫Hidden sources: whey, casein, milk powder, lactose, meat or fish stock, fish sauce, anchovies in Worcestershire sauce, lard.
- 🍷Some wines and beers are clarified with animal products — look for a vegan label.
⚠️Nutrients to watch
Vitamin B12 is the key nutrient a vegan diet cannot reliably provide without fortified foods or supplements. Eat fortified foods regularly or take a supplement. Without it, deficiency develops slowly — often over years, because the body stores B12 — and shows as tiredness, pins and needles, a sore red tongue, mouth ulcers, problems with memory or mood. Left untreated, it can cause anaemia and nerve damage that may be permanent.
Eating an animal product by mistake is not dangerous for health, unless you have an allergy to it. Other nutrients to plan for:
- 🦴Calcium: fortified plant drinks and yogurts, calcium-set tofu, kale, pak choi, okra, tahini, almonds. Spinach contains calcium, but the body absorbs little of it.
- ☀️Vitamin D: sunlight in summer, fortified foods, and a supplement in autumn and winter as many health services advise (choose one marked vegan).
- 🧂Iodine: iodised salt or fortified plant drinks; ask about a supplement. Seaweed is not a reliable source — some kinds contain far too much.
- 🐟Omega-3: walnuts, flaxseed, chia and rapeseed oil; supplements from algae give the forms found in fish.
- 🫘Protein, iron and zinc: eat a variety of beans, lentils, soya, grains, nuts and seeds over the day.
🚑When to see a doctor
See a doctor if you have lasting tiredness, pins and needles, numbness, a sore tongue, memory problems or low mood — a blood test can check B12, iron and other levels. Do not wait for symptoms to get worse: B12 deficiency is easy to treat early.
Pregnant or breastfeeding women, babies, children and teenagers on a vegan diet need careful planning — talk to a doctor or dietitian. A breastfed baby of a mother short of B12 can become deficient too.
📱How Me Nutrition helps
Every dish in the app and on this site shows diet labels, including vegan, and the major allergens of a typical recipe, with the ingredient that decides it. Recipes differ, so always check with whoever cooked the dish.
Dishes that fit: 349
Sources
Written from the sources below; not reviewed by a doctor. Not medical advice. How we count →