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Going vegan cut people's food bills by about 16%, or $1.51 a day, in a randomised trial, with the savings on meat and dairy easily outweighing extra spending on fruit, vegetables and beans.
Researchers at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington DC, led by Dr. Hana Kahleova, looked again at their 16-week trial of adults with overweight, in which volunteers were randomly assigned to a low-fat vegan diet or asked to make no changes. Food records from 223 people who completed the study were matched to US Department of Agriculture prices. The vegan group saved $1.77 a day on meat and $0.74 on dairy, while spending a little more on vegetables, fruit, pulses and whole grains. The control group's costs did not change significantly, as the full paper shows. The results are published in JAMA Network Open.
The savings come to more than $500 a year, according to the Physicians Committee release. Dr. Kahleova said:
We knew that a vegan diet significantly reduces your risk of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity - and now we have proof that opting for beans instead of beef will also lead to significant savings on your grocery bill.
So much for vegan food being expensive.
The same trial previously showed a low-fat vegan diet cut 5.9kg in 16 weeks and boosted insulin sensitivity, and in July a meta-analysis found going vegetarian lowers LDL, blood sugar and weight in people at high heart risk.
Healthier and cheaper. What's not to love?