Vegan Life

GHANA: Embracing Veganism

Credit: Mahorgany

Vegan activism can start anywhere, but for Ghanaians, it started in a vegan Cafe in Accra, which organized its very first ever full vegan seminar, encouraging people to ditch meat for a full plant based diet.

Marketing Manager for Mahorgany Health Foods, Muriel Tekou said "the purpose of the event, aside celebrating the vegan lifestyle, was to educate more people on veganism and encourage them to start paying attention to the nutritional value of what they eat as well as inspire them to make the best and healthiest choices by eating organic food which supports our environment and contributes to the fight against climate change."



The event was well represented by panelists, who tackled the health benefits of adopting a plant-based diet, including how to easily transition from meat diet to plant-based diet, and how diet can impact the environment and climate change.



CEO of LifeWholeness Wholistic Center and President of the Vegetarians Association of Ghana, Kolawole Braimah, shared that he lost 44kg since he became Vegan and urged Ghanaians to change their mindset regarding their eating habits. "Evidence shows that people who lived on plant-based diet lived the longest, the evidence is there," said Mr. Kolawole.



Braimah described the consumption of meat as unhealthy, arguing that "meat consumption creates mucus and an inflammation in the digestive system".



Chairman of Darshield Village Farms, Dr. Kwashie Darkudzi asserted that "the activities of meat consumers contributed two or three times more to climate change than those on plant-based diet".



Mahorgany Health Foods encouraged people to "Take the Veg Pledge" and go vegan, through what they call, "baby steps," which could also benefit the health of participants, according to Muriel Tekou, citing that in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified red meat -- including beef, pork, lamb, and veal -- as a Group 2 carcinogen, meaning it probably causes cancer in humans. WHO classifies processed meat -- like bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausages, and beef jerky -- in the known carcinogen Group 1 category, that's the same category as tobacco and asbestos.