Turns out, a seagan diet has nothing to do with Carl Sagan (bummer). Rather than letting celestial bodies dictate your food choices, which honestly seems kind of complicated, eating seagan is easy: It’s a vegan diet with the addition seafood. Get it—sea-gan? Seagan diets aren’t exactly new. The term showed up on Urban Dictionary all the way back in 2007, and you can bet that even before that, there were some folks who ate a plant-based diet that also included seafood—even if they didn’t actually describe their diet as seagan. But with this month’s release of the new book Seagan Eating, seaganism might be poised to become the next big thing. MORE: 9 Meatless Meals That Are Super-High In Protein Why would adding seafood to a vegan diet be a good idea? Of course, if you’re vegan for ethical reasons, it’s not. But from a health perspective, the benefits could be big. Though experts agree that a carefully planned vegan diet can meet all your nutritional needs, vegans do tend to have a harder time getting enough iron, calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D. “Adding fish and seafood to the diet makes it easier to get enough of these nutrients,” says Rachel Begun, MS, RDN, culinary nutritionist and special diets expert. For instance? Salmon, sardines, crabs, and clams are all good sources of vitamin B12. And fish happens to be one of the few naturally occurring dietary sources of vitamin D. Eating small fish containing edible bones, like sardines and herring, can be a way to get more calcium, too. What’s more, the iron found in animal foods, including fish and shellfish, tends to be more bioavailable compared to the iron found in plant foods, Begun says. Then, there’s the issue of omega-3s. A few weekly servings of fatty fish like salmon or tuna delivers DHA and EPA omega-3 fatty acids, two types of omega-3s that are tough to get from a vegan diet without a supplement. (Foods like walnuts, flaxseeds, and pumpkin seeds contain ALA, another kind of omega-3. Technically, the body can convert ALA to DHA and EPA, but it’s not very efficient at it.) MORE: Shocking New Report Shows Your Wild Salmon Isn’t Wild And though there’s no guarantee that eating seagan will help you lose weight, the odds might be stacked in your favor. Plenty of research shows that people who follow a vegan diet tend to weigh less than those who eat an omnivorous diet. But adding protein-rich fish to a vegan diet could help with feeling fuller longer. Sure, you certainly can meet your protein needs through plant foods alone, and plenty of vegans do. But “if a vegan diet is lacking in protein, it can be harder to stay satiated throughout the day, and that may lead to overeating,” Begun says. The bottom line? As long as you’re choosing low-mercury seafood, there’s nothing to lose in adding seafood to a vegan diet—and plenty to potentially gain. No guarantees that you’ll become as smart as Carl Sagan, though.
