Are Vegan desserts better for your health ?

Veganism lends itself to every meal… including dessert! Adept at eating meals without any ingredient of direct or indirect animal origin, vegans have developed a wide variety of recipes over the years. Beyond animal well-being, are these desserts better for your health?

How are vegan desserts different?

 

To be considered vegan, a dessert must not only not contain food that comes directly from the body of an animal (such as pork gelatine, for example), but must also not contain any ingredients derived from animal husbandry! And this is where it gets complicated, because while vegetarians can accept the presence of eggs or milk in their desserts, vegans cannot. Veganism is therefore much stricter than vegetarianism. It also includes honey, because bees use honey as a vital source of food, and taking it from bees is a clear act of animal exploitation.

 

Only ingredients from vegetable or mineral sources are therefore allowed, which does not prevent them from remaining excellent! Chocolate, for example, is not prohibited… as you might expect. Vegan desserts are therefore a real exercise in creativity: it is either a matter of rediscovering the flavour of traditional desserts by using only vegetable ingredients, or of inventing new recipes that are just as delicious.

So are vegan desserts better for your health?

The answer to this question actually depends not so much on veganism as on the type of dessert in particular. Indeed, whether or not a dessert has health benefits depends primarily on its levels of carbohydrates (sugar), lipids (fat), vitamins, and fiber. A jam, for example, may only contain fruit or sugars, but it is still very high in carbohydrates and therefore not necessarily healthier if consumed in excess. Similarly, vegetable oils have a high fat content, which does not necessarily make them healthier from a strictly nutritional point of view.

 

Finally, no matter where the sugar or fat in your dessert comes from, their excess will still be harmful to your health. What matters is the nutritional value of the dessert in question and not whether it is vegan or not. However, veganism is very close to the “healthy food” movement, which promotes healthy eating and respect for nature and living things. Thus, vegans are much more sensitive than the general population to the control of the nutritional values of their diet and the importance of a balanced diet.

 

For example, the great importance given to fruits and nuts in vegan dessert recipes generally leads to more balanced desserts than traditional pastries. In conclusion, it is not impossible to make traditional healthy desserts, it’s just easier with vegan desserts!