Many people interested in a plant based diet seem to get confused about what you’re supposed to eat. Is it the same as a vegan diet? Well there is a very subtle difference which is actually pretty important. As it happens, the clue is in the question, “Can you eat bread on a plant based diet?” … a better question might be, can you eat anything you want on a plant based diet?
Can You Eat Bread On a Plant Based Diet?
Yes, you can eat bread on a plant based diet because you can actually eat anything you want on a plant based diet, as long as it’s mostly plants. The only exception is if you decide to go 100% plant based which is equivalent to a vegan diet … then you need to be aware of what’s in that loaf of bread.
Watch: The Vegan Studio bakes the perfect vegan loaf!
(100% plant based, fluffy and delicious white bread – save this recipe)
Is All Bread Plant Based?
You might assume all bread products are plant based, right? Well hold up just a cotton pickin’ minute there my friends … did they sneak some animal protein in there?
It’s really easy to make bread purely from plant based ingredients. Flour is wheat after all and bread is mostly flour.
No doubt some frankenstein food laboratory will use precision fermentation to create a ‘lab loaf’ in the future but as of this writing, wheat is definitely a good old fashioned plant grown in the ground.
Incidentally, I did see some very clever geeks the other day who are successfully cultivating cruelty-free animal protein using potatoes as the growing medium … it actually blew my mind!
But I digress 🙂
You’ll actually find dairy hiding in quite a lot of bakery products, unnecessarily in my opinion.
And of course I would say that.
Why Is There Milk In Some Bread Based Products?
There was a period during my ‘new vegan’ phase where I was learning all about which products I could buy and those that were off-limits.
I quickly came to realise they put milk in everything!
Well, not everything … but I noticed that white gold was in so many products which I was completely unaware of when I was vegetarian.
The moral of the story is always, always read the label before you buy.
I still get caught out every now and then. I’ll pick up a pack of 4 frozen quorn burgers, get them home and then my heart sinks when I notice the word ‘milk’ in bold on the side of the packet. It’s in the bread-crumb mix or whatever.
Sometimes I let my vegan guard down!
Obviously, this is only a problem for vegans and those who decide to go 100% plant based. Because if you’re choosing mostly or even part-time plant based, you can pretty much eat whatever you want.
Even so, it’s always good to know what’s actually in the food you eat so checking out the ingredients list when you pick up those brioche buns is just a good habit to get into.
Why Do They Have To Put Milk In Everything?
Believe it or not, the reasons behind our love of adding dairy to anything and everything possible trace back to the World War II era … in the US and the UK.
Dairy production was ramped up massively for the war effort and then when the fighting stopped there was a huge surplus which nobody knew what to do with. The government had promised to buy it and they did so for decades.
So the farmers just kept on producing and the government kept on buying!
They made a lot of cheese, butter and milk powder and stored it all away in waiting for the clever marketing types to get on board … which of course they did.
Wherever there’s a few dollars to be ‘creamed off’ the top, you’ll find the middle men in attendance, adding fake ‘value’ to various products. Bread was one of those products and they added milk powder!
In Europe it was in the 70’s when we witnessed huge butter mountains and ‘milk lakes’ which were a direct result of subsidies introduced by the then EEC. The farmer was guaranteed a price for the milk so guess what happened.
The farmers produced loads of the stuff … way too much in fact.
How To Solve a Problem Like a ‘Milk Lake’
So government subsidies and fixed pricing floods the market with really cheap milk based products.
Whey powder and dried milk powder become much cheaper than plant-based alternatives … artificially cheaper of course.
It goes without saying, no-one thought to factor in the environmental and ethical costs. But that’s another story.
If you’re a baker being offered dirt cheap milk powder to bulk out your loaf of bread, what are you going to do? It’s all about the bottom line.
At times there was so much surplus that governments were simply giving it away because it cost them more to store it! Talk about unintended consequences.
This is partly why you will find milk in so many products to this day. Most governments across the globe still subsidise the cruel dairy industry in some way.
100% Plant Based For The Human Race
Our societies are evolving. We’re starting to reject the horrors of animal agriculture in greater numbers every day.
Veganism is on the rise … and I believe it is our destiny.
When we look at how the dairy industry in particular has morphed into this behemoth of animal abuse, it’s no wonder the truth elicits an immediate reaction of rejection in many people.
It certainly did for me … and I was wearing my vegetarian blinkers for 20+ years before the truth set me free!
In the article, “Why are vegans against milk?” we look at the darker side of the dairy industry but please be warned, there is some very graphic footage in the video on that page.
We started off in this article asking if it’s ok to eat bread on a plant based diet and ended up touching on why vegans do what they do!
Everything is intertwined in such complex ways.
I hope this piece has helped you answer your question today and if you have any unanswered questions or opinions to offer, please leave a comment below. We always appreciate a share on your favourite social media platform too – buttons below 🙂
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Thanks for reading and have a peaceful day.
Rohan.