Embarking on a vegan lifestyle can be a transformative journey, driven by ethical, environmental, or health considerations. Books serve as invaluable resources, providing answers to essential questions and guiding individuals toward a successful plant-based transition. This article explores a selection of inspiring and helpful books about veganism, covering a range of topics from nutrition and ethics to practical cooking and philosophical insights.
Understanding Veganism
Veganism is more than just a diet; it's a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty. This includes abstaining from animal products in diet, clothing, and other aspects of life. For many, the transition to veganism is motivated by a desire to live cruelty-free, protect the environment, or improve their health.
Essential Vegan Books
Ethical Considerations
Animalkind by Ingrid Newkirk: This book explores the deep connections between humans and animals, advocating for the ethical treatment of all creatures. Newkirk challenges societal norms around animal exploitation in various industries, urging readers to rethink their relationship with animals and adopt a more compassionate approach. The book emphasizes the intelligence, emotions, and rights of animals.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer: This non-fiction book examines the question of what food means to humans. Foer explores why we eat animals when there are numerous plant-based alternatives and whether we would still eat animals if we knew how much they suffer. Foer became increasingly concerned with these and other questions after becoming a father and experiencing a growing interest in the essence of life itself. At night, he entered animal farms to document the cruel conditions that we subject animals to.
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows by Melanie Joy: Social psychologist Melanie Joy takes a psychological approach to animal consumption, exploring the belief system around meat eating, which she refers to as “carnism”. Readers will learn how we are conditioned by dominant belief systems, as the book chronicles the many ways in which we numb and disconnect ourselves from our natural empathy for animals.
Read also: The Raw Vegan Diet Explained
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer: Peter Singer, a philosopher and scholar of ethics, takes a theoretical but practical approach to the extensive topic of speciesism - the unequal treatment of living beings on the sole ground that they belong to a certain species. Singer criticizes the ubiquitous exploitation of animals for food and research purposes.
Nutritional Guidance
Vegan for Life by Jack Norris and Virginia Messina: A comprehensive guide to maintaining a healthy and balanced vegan diet. The book covers essential nutrients, including protein, vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids, offering practical advice on how to meet dietary needs without animal products. It also debunks common myths about vegan nutrition, providing evidence-based information to ensure long-term health.
Plant-Powered Protein: Nutrition Essentials and Dietary Guidelines for All Ages by Brenda Davis, Vesanto Melina, and Cory Davis: This book proves that plant-based sources of protein are comparable-if not even better-than animal-derived protein. Apart from all the incredible scientific explanations, you’ll enjoy 30 plant-based recipes, pantry suggestions, and cooking tips to make the most of your newfound knowledge.
Culinary Inspiration
Plant-Based on a Budget: Quick & Easy by Toni Okamoto: With 100 WFPB recipes, Okamoto’s sophomore release focuses on making healthy eating affordable and efficient so people of all economic backgrounds can prioritize their well-being. Okamoto cites both her family’s long struggle with chronic disease and her experience living below the poverty line as the primary motivators for creating this collection of inexpensive recipes. Okamoto’s latest book is packed full of tasty meals that are inspired by her Mexican-American upbringing, including Sopa de Fideo, Potato Tacos, and Sheet Pan Nachos.
Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero: Two vegan cooking powerhouses, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, have updated their seminal vegan cookbook to include twenty-five new recipes! Veganomicon is the ultimate cookbook for many because of its easy approach, rigorously tested recipes, beautiful photographs, and tips to set up your kitchen and stock it with vegan-friendly ingredients.
Read also: Vegan Diet for Diabetes Management
Plant-Based Delicious: Healthy, Feel-Good Vegan Recipes You'll Make Again and Again by Ashley Madden: Her second cookbook puts a healthy vegan twist on comfort food favorites and incorporates exciting flavors that entice your taste buds with culinary combinations you’ve never tried before. Some of the recipes you can look forward to include Brown Rice Poutine with Miso Gravy, Moroccan Potpies with Almond Pastry, Spicy Sheet Pan Cauliflower Tacos, and Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Cheesecake. Plus, all the recipes in Plant-Based Delicious are also gluten- and oil-free, ensuring that people of a wide range of dietary needs can enjoy tasty meals.
The Clean Vegan Cookbook by Jackie Akerberg: In The Clean Vegan Cookbook, Akerberg steers clear of meat substitutes, oil, or excessive sugar. You can look forward to making Bang-Bang Baja “Shrimp” Tacos, Curried Red Lentil Coconut Soup, and Power-Packed Blueberry Pancakes!
Health and Wellness
How Not to Die by Michael Greger, M.D.: Some of the most deadly diseases in Western society, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, can be prevented and, in some cases, even reversed by changing one’s diet. How Not to Die details his findings and provides tools for readers to make better dietary choices for themselves. In order to illustrate the relationship between diet and health, Greger provides relevant facts, explained in casual, easy-to-digest language.
How Not to Age by Michael Greger, M.D., F.A.C.L.M.: Greger explains how plant foods can slow down, and even interrupt, the aging process. He posits that the right diet can help you avoid age-related diseases and relinquish your reliance on expensive face creams, allowing you to focus on eating your way toward lasting vitality instead of spending a small fortune trying to retain your youth.
The Plant-Powered Plan to Beat Diabetes: A Guide for Prevention and Management by Sharon Palmer: Her latest book educates readers on how to use their diet as a tool to manage diabetes. Tucked inside the chapters of The Plant-Powered Plan to Beat Diabetes you can find delicious recipes, loads of scientific research, and step-by-step meal plans to make a shift in your eating habits extra easy.
Read also: Vegan Diet for Bodybuilding
Plantifully Lean by Kiki Nelson: Equal parts vegan cookbook and motivational self-help guide, Plantifully Lean is the culmination of Kiki Nelson’s firsthand knowledge about taking control of your health through a plant-based diet. Nelson’s battle with high blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol led her to discover a WFPB lifestyle that helped her naturally lose weight without counting calories.
Specific Needs
The Plant-Based Dietitian's Guide to Fertility: From Pre-Conception to Healthy Delivery by Lisa Simon: UK-based dietitian Lisa Simon offers a comprehensive guide on how a plant-based diet can optimize both male and female fertility, and includes inspiring anecdotes about her own journey to overcome infertility through changing up what she ate. This Holy Grail guide also features tips on managing stress, getting proper sleep, and making lifestyle changes that will impact your health long after your little one is born.
Ageless Vegan by Tracy McQuirter: McQuirter offers tips for people interested in switching to veganism, methods to ensure they're successful, and advice for vegan eaters to up their game.
Mayim's Vegan Table by Mayim Bialik: This cookbook is full of delicious family-friendly recipes that are easy and quick, and kid-approved!
Cultural and Historical Perspectives
Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky: Modern Plant-Based Recipes using Native American Ingredients by Lois Ellen Frank, Ph.D., and Walter Whitewater: The collection of more than 100 recipes focuses on the eight key ingredients that constituted the bulk of the Native American diet: corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla, and cacao. Interwoven throughout the sumptuous recipes are engaging discussions on indigenous history, food sovereignty, and environmental sustainability to ensure your meals come with a side of important cultural context.
Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals by Roanne Van Voorst: In Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals, acclaimed anthropologist Roanne Van Voorst invites readers to explore this question, shifting the focus from the present, looking forward, to the future, looking back. Whether it is pigs, cows, chickens, or fish, industrial farming methods cause suffering to countless animals, all of whom are sentient beings and have complex social lives.
The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer by Dan Buettner: This gorgeously photographed book outlines the key principles of Blue Zones and how to apply them to your own life, no matter where in the world you call home. Featuring engaging interviews, tasty recipes, and actionable to-do lists, The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer will inspire you to switch things up so you can make the most out of your time on this beautiful planet.
Introductory Guides
That's Why We Don't Eat Animals by Matthew C.: A vibrant and accessible book that makes a compelling, heartfelt argument for adopting a vegan lifestyle. Through engaging storytelling and colorful illustrations, Roth highlights the ethical, environmental, and health benefits of choosing plant-based food. The book encourages readers to reconsider their relationship with animals and food, offering a joyful, positive perspective on veganism.
The Vegan Starter Kit: This book is a bit more information-heavy rather than being a straight-up cookbook. The Vegan Starter Kit includes lots of useful information about going vegan, nutrition, protein sources, vitamins, and concerns you might have if you're an athlete, pregnant, or living with various health conditions.
Addressing Misconceptions
- Plant-Based on a Budget: Quick & Easy by Toni Okamoto: There is a general misconception that a plant-based diet is more expensive than a diet containing meat and dairy. With 100 customizable recipes, Akomoto encourages her readers to create their own substitutions based on the ingredients they have on hand, thus saving money while also reducing food waste.
Additional Resources
The Oldways 4-Week Vegetarian & Vegan Diet Menu Plan: This book addresses the important nutrient-rich plant foods of the pyramid that can be eaten every day.
Vegan Passport: This multi-lingual vegan phrasebook is the ideal travel companion; small enough to slip into your pocket yet big enough to include the languages of over 95% of the world's population - so wherever you end up, we have you covered! Compiled by George D.