Is veganism healthy? This Vancouver office tried it for a month to find out

After a month of plant-based eating, it's finally time to order pizza.

This celebration requires cheese. Lots of cheese.

"It's been a hard month," Sean Jensen said between gigantic bites of pizza. "But this is delicious."

This is the first non-vegan meal for Jensen and his co-workers who switched to a plant-based diet for the month of January to see if it would improve their overall health.

At the start of the challenge, each person tested their blood, body mass index, visceral fat and peripheral fat levels.

After 30 days of veganism, the group of seven — one person dropped out of the challenge — ran the same tests to see if they were any healthier.

Dr. Raj Attariwala, who runs the clinic, says he lost eight pounds but it was mostly muscle.

"I have to tighten my belt but I gained fat," he said. "I'm a skinnier, fatter guy than I was before."

Testing veganism

The employees at AIM Medical Imaging have access to the company's Prenuvo full body MRI scans, which allow them to measure the benefits of their diets in great detail.

The team also had tests and analysis work done at the nearby medical clinic Preventum.

Everyone lost weight. Most people saw improvements in their blood tests and visceral fat levels went down modestly.

Attariwala says, however, everyone lost muscle except for one person who started an exercise program partway through the challenge.

"We see that we're thinner and think that we should be healthier, but the truth is we're not," he said.

"My body was basically sucking energy from my muscles instead of from my fat."

The takeaway

Most people found that meal planning was challenging and expensive. It was hard to find healthy sources of protein and it was difficult to stay away from foods that were high in carbohydrates.

AIM employee Erica Ferreira says the positive is she learned a great deal about planning meals.

"I'll definitely think about what's going in my body a little bit more from now on," she said. "It was a good experiment."

For Attariwala, who didn't make any changes to his fitness routine, the biggest takeaway from the experiment is the importance of working out.

"It's not just diet, it's exercise, too," he said.

"I'm going to try to eat less and move more."

Mmm, pizza

Around the lunchroom table at the pizza party, the discussion centres around how many foods appear to be vegan — such as breads or sauces — but actually contain eggs, honey or some other kind of product that comes from animals.

Jensen says he absent mindedly ordered a cappuccino during the challenge and didn't realize he was drinking dairy until he had finished his cup.

"You just have to be so careful," he said.

"When you're out and you think of a place where you can just pick something up quickly, what can you get that's not yam fries?"

Throughout the challenge, everyone also came to appreciate Vancouver's vegan restaurants and realized there are many delicious options.

Jensen isn't giving up meat, and he's certainly not quitting cheese, but he plans to scale back on both.

"I guess you can call me a vegetarian," he said.

"A vegetarian who eats meat."