It's a very good question!

Health is not a reason for me to be vegan. I don't entirely subscribe to the healthier-than-thou attitude, as I know plenty of healthy/thin omnivores and some of the few vegans I know are very ill/unhealthy/fat. I know it's harder work to get a nutritionally complete diet (speaking as someone who's not into cooking, and also gluten intolerant!). The obvious example is B12, which even the Vegan Society recommends vegans supplement as it is almost impossible to get from plant sources.

Health is of course important to me, but I'm willing to try harder and be slightly less healthy if needs be in order to not participate in cruelty to other sentient living beings. That said, I will not turn down medication if it can solve serious issues, and as I said to someone recently, I don't think most vegans would tell a diabetic to stop taking their insulin.

As for processed food, aside for the fact that it tends to be full of rubbish, my tolerance for it taste-wise has decreased dramatically since going vegan :)

</cite>Health is one of the most commonly cited reasons for being vegan.</cite>

Really? I'm not trying to contradict you since I have little contact with other vegans, but does that come from stats or personal experience or what?

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is whether I'm vegan for health or moral reasons, and I always say that choosing veganism for health reasons would be daft. The best way to be healthy is to choose well from all the food available to you.

I think that vegetarians and vegans are often quite healthy because we're more likely to learn about nutrition. I've been vegetarian since I was 8 and have always considered my main meals to have three components: starch, protein and vitamins. It's extremely basic, but people who've grown up as omnivores often don't even apply that level of analysis to their diets. I sometimes illustrate the point with a story about my ex who thought pasta and cheese was a balanced meal, one of the the people I told was surprised to learn that white pasta didn't count as a vegetable portion.

As for junk food vegans, from what I hear they already exist. An increase in choice for those with that inclination might be an improvement.

I'm certainly not vegan for health reasons, and I'm not sure I've ever met a vegan for whom that was the reason for their choice. Crikey, there's nothing more depressing than going to a vegan restaurant and discovering they only serve mung beans on a bed of raw grated carrot and museli based punishment puddings.

I don't actually think a balanced vegan diet is any healthier than any other sort of balanced diet, and I think veganism can make it more difficult at times, because you perhaps have to make more of a conscious effort to include everything you need. As far as I'm concerned, as long as I eat a reasonably varied diet including plenty of fruit and veg, that's healthy enough for me.

I'm all for vegan fast food. I'm not going to eat it every day, but if it's been a bad day, and all I have to do is throw something Linda McCartney or similar in the oven, that's great!