What Is the Pegan Diet, and Why Is It the Next Big Thing?

The pegan diet is a specific style of food consumption, which was created by taking inspiration from two of the popular diet trends, the Paleo vegan diet. Professionals claim that this diet helps in balancing blood sugar and reducing inflammation.

But what is a pegan diet? The pegan diet has been developed by combining certain primary principles from the vegan and paleo diets. And this diet is majorly based on the belief that is nutrition-dense and whole food items, which have the potential to balance blood sugar and support your health system. Although this diet is derived from two of the popular diets, it has its own specialized characteristics.

What Can You Eat on a Pegan Diet?

The pegan diet food list is majorly formed of fruits and vegetables with a moderate intake of organically farmed meat and fish. This diet also allows the consumption of seeds, nuts, and legumes.

Any heavily processed food items, such as oils, grains, or sugar are not accepted during this diet, however, can be consumed in minimal amounts.

The pegan diet is a strategic eating habit, not just a short term diet plan. The primary objective of this diet is to sustain you indefinitely.

During this diet, you can consume low glycemic vegetables and fruits, such as non-starchy vegetables and non-starchy berries. These foods can help in minimizing your blood sugar.

The pegan diet encourages the consumption of organically formed, pasture-raised, and grass-fed poultry, pork, whole eggs, and beef. Along with these animal proteins, you can also consume fish, especially the ones with lower mercury content, such as wild salmon and sardines. But this is not a typical diet where you can consume equal amounts of vegetables and meat.

75% of the pegan diet is developed of fruits and vegetables, whereas only 25% is left for animal proteins.

Some other food items that you can consume while following the pegan diet are, all kinds of nuts except peanuts, all kinds of seeds (but not seed oils), olives, avocados, cold-pressed olive oil, avocado oil, coconut, unrefined coconut oil, algae ( to absorb the Omega 3s), quinoa, black rice, millet, oats, teff, amaranth, lentils, pinto beans, black beans, and chickpeas.

Benefits

Many people ask, is the pegan diet healthy? The answer is, yes. Pegan diet can have significant positive effects on your body’s health. And this is due to the general consumption of farm-fresh, non-starchy vegetables and fruits.

You can absorb all essential nutrients from the diverse food elements of your diet. These food items contain enough amount of natural vitamins, fibers, plant compounds, and minerals, which is extremely good for your health.
It can help prevent several diseases like diabetes and cholesterol. They can also reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.
This diet puts a significant amount of emphasis on eating healthy, unsaturated natural fat from seeds, nuts, fish, and other plant compounds, which can have a positive effect on the health of your heart.
This eating style also helps in improving your body functionality as you eliminate all the ultra-processed and saturated fat from your regular diet.

What Foods to Avoid While Following the Pagan Diet?

The pegan diet plan is more of an eating style rather than a diet, but some of the food items are strongly discouraged in this diet. These food items are considered unhealthy for the body according to the format of this diet.

Food items that are generally avoided in the pegan diet,

Dairy products: yogurt, cheese, and cow milk. But milk from sheep or goat is permitted in smaller quantities. And organic grass-fed butter is allowed for some people.
Legumes: almost all legumes are forbidden, except the ones with low starch and the ones mentioned above.
Gluten: grains containing gluten are forbidden.
Gluten-free grains: some gluten-free grains are also forbidden from consumption during this diet. But for some people, those who do not have any blood sugar issues can consume a limited amount of gluten-free grains.
Sugar: this diet strongly forbids consuming any form of sugar, be it added or refined.
Food additives: flavorings, preservatives, artificial coloring, and other kinds of food items consisting of additives are strongly forbidden during this diet.
Refined oils: any highly processed or refined oils are also forbidden in this diet. Oils such as sunflower oil, corn oil, soybean, and canola have to be avoided.

All of these food items contain some amount of sugar, fat, and preservatives, which is not good for the body as it can increase inflammation and blood sugar levels within your system.

Diet Plan

This is the general diet plan of the pegan diet.

Pegan Diet Breakfast:

Oats, omelet with organic eggs, fruits and vegetable smoothie, coconut and Chia seed pudding, avocado toast, or green salad.

Pegan Diet Lunch:

Healthy green salad with avocado and vegetable stew, vegetable soup, grilled or roasted vegetables, and grilled or roasted organic poultry.

Pegan Diet Dinner:

Grilled, seared, or roasted animal protein, such as pork or beef with green and berry salads, stir-fried shrimp or sardines with steamed vegetables, and quinoa salad.

Risks and Side Effects

The pegan diet has been developed with proper calculation, and it does not have any general side effects, except that if you have allergies for any particular food.

Conclusion

The Pegan diet is a whole food organic diet that has only a few meat options. All of the food items consumed during this diet have to be unprocessed and unsaturated. The Pegan diet meal plan advises that all the meals are to be consumed either raw or home-cooked and should be consumed by baking or grilling, without using too much fat or oil.

The primary focus of this diet is to reduce blood sugar and inflammation. This diet also helps in keeping the body energetic. It is also advised to keep up an exercise routine during this diet, walking 10000 steps a day might also help.