I’ve always wondered why people go 100% vegan, they don’t eat, use nor own any animal products. I can understand that some people do it for their love of animals, others to live a healthy life, but I have always wondered how everyone can afford the lifestyle when having to buy and live off of things you can’t easily access at a local corner store.
Yes, vegans live off a diet of mostly rice, beans and veggies which do usually cost less than meat and dairy, but what about the variations of delicious foods that some vegans also buy, products such as soy, almond, rice, tofu and coconut based drinks and cuisine? They for sure have to cost more than a jug of 2% milk from a gas station or a 4$ cheeseburger from McDonald’s, but how much more?
I decided to figure out how much vegan food I could buy with 20$ and then compare with how much non-vegan food I could buy. Let’s say that you need to buy a nice basic dinner for yourself to have at home, but you only have 20$ in your pocket. For a vegan meal, I would buy a salad. According to my research from www.spud.ca, the leafy greens would cost $7.99 and the vegan salad lemon dressing would cost $5.49, which already costs $13.48. Next I would buy a drink, which in this case I would buy some soy milk that costs $2.99. Your final total would be $16.47, and then with taxes it would equal $18.44.
Now moving on to the non-vegan meal. From www.walmart.com, I could buy a five pack of Kraft Dinner’s mac and cheese which only costs $4.74, which could cover way more than one meal. I could also buy a huge value pack of pretzels that only cost $2.00 and a jug of apple juice that costs $2.48. Already with only three items, which is the same amount that the full $20 can buy for vegans, I have only spent $9.22 and I could buy many more things with my remaining money.
Obviously, this little experiment can be modified depending on which products you buy and where you buy it. From my experience, it is very clear that being a vegan can make your food expenses higher because you can buy less food than you would not being a vegan.
Another thing is that a lot of vegans also prefer to buy and eat organic foods, which adds even more cost to their load.
Finally, I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that the cost of being a vegan can fluctuate depending if the vegan likes splurging on fancy versions of a omnivores diet or if they would choose to stick to a raw diet of foods like vegetables and plants.
Feature photo courtesy to http://vegankit.com/eat/
