While veganism has become much more well known in recent years, it is still often very misunderstood by many people. Some of those misconceptions involve the idea that vegan diets are too limited and that without animal products it isn't possible to create a wide variety of high quality, good tasting meals. Other concerns revolve around the perception that certain vitamins and proteins the body needs are not provided by a strictly vegetable based diet. However, both these concerns are unfounded and someone who familiarizes themselves with the many different options available within a vegan diet will soon find that they can make vegetarian based alternatives to most any recipe that are both easy to make and delicious. In addition, those vegan recipes are much healthier than those using animal byproducts and with a little planning can easily provide all the essential nutrients required by the body. Another advantage to veganism is that vegetable based products do not go bad as soon as animal byproducts and do not present as serious a health risk as meat even when they do.



One area in which vegan recipes easily surpass animal-based recipes both on ease of preparation and taste is baked goods. Part of the reason for that is that baked products don't contain a lot of animal products to begin with, provided that you use quality ingredients without artificial fillers, sweeteners, or flavorings. For instance, the only major difference between this vegan banana bread recipe and regular banana bread recipes is that it doesn't contain butter and eggs. Besides eliminating the inherent messiness of melting butter and cracking eggs, the canola oil and apple sauce that replace them are much healthier and less fattening. Plus you will never even notice the difference. In fact, this recipe creates a very moist vegan banana bread that tastes as good if not better than any non-vegan banana bread recipe.

Finally, vegan food isn't just for vegans anymore. Once you know how to properly prepare vegan alternatives, you can use them to provide healthy, delicious variety to your meal choices even if you don't want to completely abstain from animal based foods. You will soon discover that vegan food is much more than tofu and soy masquerading as meat.

**All photos in this hub (except the cartoon) were taken by the author while preparing this recipe**

