Vegan vs. Vegetarian: The Full Guide

Vegan and vegetarian used to be used interchangeably in casual conversation, but they're not the same thing, and the gap between them is bigger than most people expect. Both diets cut out meat, and both tend to get lumped together as "the plant-based ones," but veganism goes further than vegetarianism does, in ways that touch more than just what's on the plate. GoMacro has been making Certified Vegan bars since the company started in 2004, so it's a distinction we think about daily, not just a label on a package.

If you're exploring either path for the first time, what actually separates a vegan from a vegetarian goes beyond the menu, and it's worth understanding before you pick a path.

What Is Vegetarianism?

Vegetarianism means cutting out meat, poultry, and fish, while still allowing other animal products like dairy, eggs, and honey. Most vegetarians fall into the lacto-ovo category, meaning they eat both dairy (lacto) and eggs (ovo), which is the most common and flexible version of the diet. Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy but skip eggs, while ovo-vegetarians do the reverse.

Because vegetarianism still allows several animal-derived foods, it tends to be the easier of the two diets to adopt and maintain, especially when eating out or cooking for a mixed household.

What Is Veganism?

Veganism excludes all animal products, not just meat, poultry, and fish, but also dairy, eggs, and honey. That last one catches a lot of people off guard: honey comes from bees producing food for their own colony, and most vegans consider harvesting it a form of using an animal for human benefit, the same logic that rules out dairy and eggs.

For many vegans, the diet is really just the most visible piece of a broader philosophy. The Vegan Society, which coined the term, defines veganism as a way of living that seeks to exclude all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty, as far as it's practical to do so, extending beyond food to things like leather, wool, and cosmetics tested on animals [1]. Not every vegan applies that standard equally strictly, but it's the framework the diet grew out of.

Key Differences Between Vegan and Vegetarian

Diet

On paper, the difference is simple: vegetarians avoid meat, poultry, and fish. Vegans avoid those plus dairy, eggs, and honey. In practice, a couple of ingredients trip people up on both sides. Gelatin, found in gummy candy, marshmallows, and some capsules, comes from animal collagen, which means it's off-limits for vegetarians too, not just vegans, despite how often it slips into "vegetarian-friendly" labeling by mistake.

Pescatarian is another term that gets tangled up in this conversation, though it's technically neither vegan nor vegetarian. Pescatarians eat fish while avoiding other meat, which puts them closer to vegetarian in spirit but outside the traditional definition, since fish is still an animal product vegetarianism excludes.

Lifestyle

For most vegetarians, the diet is the whole decision. Vegans more often extend the same logic past the kitchen, checking labels on clothing, cosmetics, and household products for animal-derived ingredients or animal testing. That extension isn't universal, plenty of people eat a fully vegan diet without applying the philosophy anywhere else, but it's common enough that "vegan" tends to describe an identity as much as a menu.

Health Considerations

Both diets are linked to some real health advantages. Research comparing vegetarians and vegans directly against omnivores found that as animal products get excluded more completely, saturated fat and cholesterol intake tend to drop while fiber intake rises [2], which lines up with the lower rates of heart disease often associated with more plant-forward eating patterns. Neither diet guarantees better health on its own, though. A vegan diet built on fries and soda still counts as vegan.

The same research also found that vegans had a noticeably harder time hitting recommended calcium levels than vegetarians or omnivores did, largely because dairy is such a concentrated source of it [2]. Vitamin B12 told a similar story, with vegetarians and vegans both showing lower B12 status than omnivores, since the vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products.

Nutritional Comparison

The pattern across the board: vegetarians get a bit of a buffer from dairy and eggs, while vegans need to be more deliberate about a slightly longer list of nutrients. None of it is complicated once you know what to watch for.

Which Is Right for You?

There's no universal right answer here, since the two diets tend to fit different motivations and different lives. A few questions worth asking yourself:

• Is your main reason for changing your diet about animal welfare, the environment, health, or some combination?

• Do you want the diet itself to be the whole change, or are you open to it extending into other parts of your life over time?

• How much control do you have over meals, whether that's cooking at home, eating with family, or ordering off a restaurant menu?

Someone motivated mainly by health might find vegetarianism gives most of the benefit with an easier learning curve. Someone motivated by animal welfare specifically might feel like vegetarianism doesn't fully match their reasoning, since it still relies on dairy and egg production. Neither answer is more legitimate than the other, and plenty of people land on vegetarian for a while before deciding whether to go further.

Vegan Snacking Made Easy

Whichever path you're on, snacking doesn't have to be complicated. Every organic plant-based protein bar GoMacro makes is Certified Vegan from the start, which means it works for vegans and vegetarians without anyone needing to check a label twice.

GoMacro's vegan protein bars are built on a blend of sprouted brown rice and pea protein rather than whey or any other dairy-derived source, so there's no lacto-vegetarian workaround required. If you're new to reading ingredient lists for the first time, what to look for in a protein bar is a good place to start, and our guide to non-GMO vs. organic clears up two labels that get confused constantly.

If you're curious how plant-based protein actually holds up against the animal-based version, our breakdown of pea protein vs. whey covers that in more depth, and almond butter vs. peanut butter is worth a look if you're comparing what goes into the bars themselves.

Sources

1. The Vegan Society. Definition of Veganism. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

2. Dawczynski, C., Weidauer, T., Richert, C., Schlattmann, P., Dawczynski, K., Kiehntopf, M. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2022. Nutrient Intake and Nutrition Status in Vegetarians and Vegans in Comparison to Omnivores: The Nutritional Evaluation (NuEva) Study. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9149309/