Every case is different, and you should talk to your doctor if you’re worried about your cholesterol levels. But for vegetarians or vegans with high cholesterol, the cause is often two common culprits…
1. Substitute Food Products
Dairy-free milk, imitation meat, margarine, vegan baking mixes, and other alternative products are great for filling the gaps in your diet—but many of them contain dangerous ingredients.
Many dairy-free products are loaded with unhealthy seed oils like sunflower oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil, and grape oil. These oils come with a wide range of health risks and are likely to cause inflammation (5). That inflammation may end up raising your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and could lower your HDL (“good”) cholesterol (6, 7).
You can run into the same problem with imitation meats. They may taste good, but many soy-based meats are loaded with soybean oil, canola oil, or other vegetable oils. Which means that they can have the same effects as the dangerous oils mentioned above.
2. Highly Processed Packaged Foods
The snack aisle is tempting to everyone, whether you eat meat or not. When you eat a plant-based diet, you might become so used to checking ingredient labels for animal products that you forget to check for other unhealthy ingredients.
Many cookies, chips, condiments, and dressings have no animal products, but several do contain vegetable oil, refined sugar, and other telltale signs that they’re highly processed (ie if it has more than five ingredients).
Because of this, studies show that highly processed foods are linked to lower levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol and many other adverse health effects (8, 9, 10).