The difference between vegan and alkaline diet

I often get the question: So you are vegan then? and I have to respond with yes and no. When I say I am alkalarian, people raise their eyebrows and are like “What is that?”. Let’s go in detail into the differences between vegan and alkaline diet.

An alkaline is mostly a vegan diet but a vegan is not always alkalarian. Same for whole food plant-based. Whole Food Plant-Based is a vegan and might be an alkaline diet. And an alkalarian is mostly vegan and Whole Food Plant-Based.

Are you confused yet? Let’s break it down.

Vegan

A vegan diet means that the person does not consume any animal products; no dairy, no meat, no fish, no honey. This is a diet that is mostly concerned with animal welfare and the environment. A vegan diet is completely plant-based. Where you might have heard that a plant-based diet is good for your health, a vegan diet however is not always very healthy. I have met a lot of fast-food-vegans how I like to call them. They eat lots of sugar and processed foods still. For example: Oreo cookies are vegan, but we all know that they are absolutely not good for your health. Most bread is vegan. Bread often just fills you up and often leaves the intestines blocked. Or what about mock meat? Highly processed food with lots of chemicals in it.

Whole food Plant-based

Someone who follows a Whole Food Plant-Based diet wants to avoid all animal products and all that is processed. Someone on a Whole Food Plant-Based diet makes everything from scratch and also technically doesn’t use any oils. This means no olive oil, no cold pressed coconut oil, no hemp oil, no avocado oil etc. Just the whole foods of these products.

Alkaline

An alkalarian on the other hand does use oils (always cold pressed and not heated), makes everything from scratch, but also tries to avoid all types of sugar, fungus and yeast.
All types of sugar means also high sugar fruits, fungus means fermented foods and mushrooms and yeast means fermented foods and risen breads.
Alkalarians are focussed on the balance of the pH in the body to not stress the body. The blood pH is always around 7.365 and the body does everything to keep it that way. When eating too many acidic foods (food with a low pH when consumed,) the body needs to do everything to keep the blood pH right. It will need to get rid of the acidity. This works well when not stressing the body with junk and drinking lots of water. This way the acid flows out of the body naturally through defecation, urination, transpiration and respiration.
But what if we only eat acidic foods, don’t drink enough water and we don’t do any sports? The body gets over acidic. For example: for the body to neutralise 1 glass of coke (pH 2), you would need to drink around 36 glasses of water…. All this over acidity leads to health problems; from lethargy to diabetes to auto-immune disease.

Why did I say an alkalarian is mostly vegan and WFPB? If you look at the alkaline food chart (subscribe to our newsletter and it will be send to you) you will see categories of foods: Very Alkaline, Highly Alkaline, Medium Alkaline, Neutral, Moderately Acidic, Very Acidic. It is recommended to eat at least 80% Very, Highly and Medium Alkaline foods and max 20% Neutral to Moderately Acidic foods. And 100% avoid Very Acidic foods.

However under moderately acidic foods you will find ocean fish and goat’s cheese.
This would mean that alkalarian is not completely vegan or WFPB, because ocean fish and goat’s cheese can make 20% of it’s plate.
However for best health results it is best to eat as little as possible of the Moderately acidic foods. Especially with the ocean being polluted and therefore our fish too and often goat’s cheese not being 100% goat’s cheese and also very processed. Same goes for vegan cheese, this is also a processed food. This is why I usually eat these foods occasionally. I eat fish when I really don’t have another choice, which is mostly when I travel. Most important is that I know how to counter the acid and detox it out of my system.

To an alkalarian keeping the body’s alkaline-acid balance is what matters most to stay healthy. That this lifestyle is also very animal and environment friendly is a big plus.

I hope this helps a lot, especially when people ask you to explain the difference.

Wishing health and wellness,

Daphne