Hey all,
So I recently decided to go vegan. My personal reasons for ditching animal products were because of environmental factors, animal welfare, and trying to maintain consistency with the values I hold to their logical ends.
I was curious. I’ve seen a lot of hate towards vegans online, admittedly being someone who partook in that several years ago myself to a small degree. While I’m glad and very lucky people I know closely have been making accommodations for me, I’m also worried about mentioning or bringing it up to people I’m getting to know since I don’t want to rub them the wrong way if they possibly have these notions that being vegan and veganism are a bad thing. Namely when it’s relevant in conversation like people asking me why I read ingredients lists or can’t have something they’re offering me, which I’ve been half-lying attributing to food allergies and intolerances out of worry (I’m lactose intolerant, which helps as a cop-out).
I’m wanting to know what people dislike about vegans, whether they’re based on previous experiences they’ve had, or preconceived notions, and what would make someone a “good vegan” in their eyes. I know I shouldn’t be a people-pleaser, but knowing this stuff would definitely help me gain the confidence to be more open about myself and my personal values to others who don’t necessarily share said values.
Thanks in advance, I’ll try to respond where possible, but it’s going to be a busy day for me, though I do read all replies to posts I make.
Hey, glad you want to be a considerate, conscientious vegan! You won’t upset anyone as long as you follow these simple rules:
- Never admit that you are vegan
- Never talk about veganism
- When people are talking about meat, eagerly participate
- Do not eat visibly vegan food in public
- If offered meat or cheese, eat it without protest
- Do not cook vegan food if serving others
- When you see a cow, remark out loud how you want to eat it
That’s about all you need to know to be one of the Good Vegans. Hope this helps!
You sound like one of those people who deliberately tries to feed vegans animal products
This person is obviously joking. They are almost certainly vegan
You can’t really be a good vegan to people who hate vegans: the fact that they’re assholes is 100% on them and 0% on you.
Their hate of vegans comes from their own hangups. I imagine it’s one or more of:
- Their own uncomfortable feelings around eating animal products, which you are reminding them of.
- They think that vegans think that they’re “better than them,” and they resent vegans for it.
- Some weird toxic masculinity-adjacent thing.
- They just hate anything & everything that isn’t normal/consensus, for whatever reason.
Maybe there are other hangups as well; those are what immediately come to mind.
I was vegan for about 8 years. I just don’t bring it up often. I don’t tell people I am a vegetarian. It’s not a bragging point. It’s just one part of who I am. Don’t make it your whole identity.
Totally this. I have friends who are vegan, everyone in our group knows they’re vegan, and they never stand in judgment of those of us who eat meat or talk about being vegan or why they’re vegan unless they’re asked. Simply modeling their diet with total non-judgment has made them some of the best ambassadors for veganism I’ve ever met. Almost all of us have reduced our meat consumption over time as a result
I’m not vegan, but I find it absolutely wild that anyone thinks being kind of annoying sometimes comes anywhere near the level of moral or ethical bankruptcy involved in being complicit in the mass torture of animals for the sake of convenience. Like, okay, yeah, it’s not like we have the option of just deciding on behalf of powerful capitalists to just end factory farming. But deciding to at least try not to participate in it by changing your diet is at least something.
Don’t worry about being a “good vegan” if that means having to tiptoe around the fact that the rest of us fuel immense suffering both monetarily and through social normalization. You’re trying, and that’s great.
Just curious, why aren’t you vegan if you consider it morally bankrupt to be complicit in the meat industry?
I quit eating meat for a year once and it was pretty shit for my mental health. I do try to avoid the worst of factory farming as much as I can, though. Organic eggs (in my state regulations on organic eggs include a number of anti-cruelty measures), minimal chicken to reduce the death to meat quantity ratio, things like that. But also, I personally don’t feel as though the suffering inflicted on insect populations or rodent populations, or the damages of large scale farming, or the cruelty involved in transporting bees for pollenation are particularly okay either. I’m not really sure there’s such a thing as effective veganism in modern society unless you’re growing your own food at home, and I don’t have the energy, financial security, or access to land for that.
Nearly every product we consume leads to suffering and destruction. I don’t think being short of the point where you’re willing to radically change your lifestyle means I should deny that, though, even if all my spoons tend to be spent on shit like dragging myself out of bed and ensuring air quality that triggers my asthma and allergies as little as possible.
Humans are a mess. There’s a substantial cost in physical and psychological resources and energy to dwindling the impact of that mess, but there’s very little cost to at least acknowledging it and advocating for growing as a species.
Most vegan hate is just reactionary and you should disregard it. It’s because vegans force omnivores to confront the reality of where their food comes from, to confront climate science, and to confront your own personal social responsibility. I think it’s very silly to be concerned with being a “good vegan”. If you don’t want to get into arguments then just eat your vegan food and move on. If people take issue with you deciding to eat the food you want to eat, and having boundaries around not wanting to eat certain foods, especially given that these decisions are based on your own moral compass, then they are complete dickheads you should not be around anyway.
I also don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with being a naggy/pushy vegan. I don’t try to convince anyone to go vegan just because I figure if they want to then they will, if there’s resistance then I have better ways to spend my time. If they’re vegan-curious they’re always welcome to ask me about it. I think whether or not you try to make other people go vegan is a personal choice, and a political choice about how to most effectively enact your politics.
I think trying to have a more progressive social circle will help you, because I have honest to god never experienced one of my friends taking issue with me being vegan, and several of my omnivorous friends have confessed to me unprompted that they feel bad about eating animal products and “should” eat more vegan food (I don’t ever even talk about veganism except for just mentioning that I’m vegan when we’re getting food together). Like I said, if they take issue with the food you choose to eat/food you refuse to eat for moral reasons, they are just plain dickheads and you should stop being friends with them.
If you have any standards for behaviour in yourself then others will attack you for them. It is called do-gooder derrogation.
Eating and using animals is a cruel and selfish thing that almost all of us were raised to believe is necessary and nice. On some level everyone is aware that you can’t root for babe and also condem pigs to the gas chamber to die in screaming agony. That is painful, and many people respond to their own pain by lashing out at others.
No matter what you do there will be people who see it as an attack on their values and identity. Just be vegan in whatever way is comfortable to you.
Don’t be preachy, respect other people’s opinions. It’s simple.
“What makes a “good vegan”, and how can I be one?”
huh… not eating/consuming animal-related products?
If you’re not dictating what others should eat, then I think there would be no issue. Goodness is in behaviour, right?
I’m in India. In Hinduism, some upper castes have vegetarianism. And also most people would need to have meat or fish to achieve a balanced diet and meet nutritional goals within reasonable costs.
We also have the issue of people suspected of eating cow meat being mob lynched to death in some North Indian states.So, when I see moralistic stuff being talked about diets, I become wary about associated casteist/classist things behind it.
I’ve read that the average Western person eats a lot of meat compared to others, so not against the idea of better consumption to reduce wastage, but have seen some online discussions where people are talking about it from two contexts.
I’ve seen a lot of hate towards vegans online, admittedly being someone who partook in that several years ago myself to a small degree.
Then you probably understand that the hate is primarily a coping mechanism because vegans propose arguments that question their lifestyle. It’s a “them” problem, not a “you” problem.
If you value consistency, don’t let a few jerks push you into a behavior that isn’t true to yourself. Don’t come up with fake reasons for why you neglect to partake in rituals that don’t respect the rights of animals.
State your real reasons. This is also better for the animals. If someone then wants to start a discussion, you can still politely refuse.
Respond to right wing reactionaries who go out of their way to complain about vegans simply with “😇💌Triggered”
There. Now you are the Good Vegan™️
Don’t think you can do any ‘better’ than your lactose-intolerant cop-out.
This is going to sound Buddhist AF, but the problem is that in most cases, it’s not the vegans introducing the conflict, but rather this conflict existing within the people who take offense.
They don’t feel steadfast in their morals and often don’t feel confident in their identity or self-worth either, so when someone comes along who does something they perceive as morally superior, then this confronts them with their internal conflict, which makes them feel like they’re being attacked.So, the two ways to avoid the conflict, as others already suggested, are:
- Never bring up that you’re vegan, or
- Give them a reason why you can do the morally superior thing more easily than them.
That you’re lactose-intolerant is perfect. Especially with many people not understanding what that entails precisely, you can say that you can’t eat many foods anyways, so might as well go vegan. Or that it’s even sometimes easier to just pick the vegan variant, as you’ll know no dairy is in there.
This is still not easy to use as a cop-out. You’ll regularly encounter people who might take offense, and you’ve got basically just two sentences or so, to defuse that situation. This is why many vegans stop caring, if someone wants to be offended. It’s too tiresome to be a people-pleaser.
Basically bottle up all the wrong you see in the world because people can’t be bothered to put down their hamburger because it’s soooo delicious. Even though you keep your mouth shut and make incredible vegan food, they still can’t be bothered to change because for some reason people believe animals are beneath them.
Honestly, before I was vegan I never lost my shit whenever I was around my vegan friends so I’ll never understand why people are like this. How hard is it to be like “they have a point” and admit you’re part of the problem?
TL;DR; is don’t be a “good vegan” if you don’t want to, screw the hypocrites.
Honestly I don’t care what you want to eat. It’s your body, you can shove whatever you like into it.
Where vegans become a problem is where they’re being evangelical about their beliefs and trying to force their audience to feel the same shock and horror as they feel when contemplating the meat industry. If all I hear from you is restricted to when I offer you food and ask if you have any dietary requirements, and is of the form “I’m vegan”, that’s absolutely fine. If we’re friends I’ll adjust the menu for you, although you might have to accept it’s only your plate that gets veganified.
You going “eww” and talking about “rotting corpses” or whatever is where it becomes a problem. If I’ve asked, obviously I’ve brought your response upon myself but you should still tone it down for the non-vegans. “I’ve looked into the meat industry and I didn’t like what I saw” would be a good first response; make sure not to release any gory details unless people are really pressing you for that level of detail.
That said, none of this is based on actual experience of offensively evangelical vegans. I’ve heard they exist but haven’t met one yet. I’ve known some people for quite a while before finding out they’re vegan, veggie or whatever.
It’s not a belief. Animals being sentient is a fact. Animal agriculture being inefficient and wasteful is a fact. Animal products not being necessary for our survival is a fact.
Now you could argue that killing sentient beings is OK, but then that’s a weird moral position. And nevertheless, not a belief
As someone who deals with lactose intolerance.
Just don’t make it a big deal, if you can’t eat something, don’t eat it. Your needs are important, but other people are equally entitled to their own enjoyment.
I hate vegans who only do it to virtue signal, it is a personal journey keep it that way.
If someone is thoughtful enough to ask about your dietary requirements, they are probably “good people” and won’t care about it. They will just make allowances for you.
An anecdote about dietary requirements:
I have a sister in law who cannot eat onions/garlic/leeks etc… she does make a big deal about it, no dishes can have those ingredients when she is around.
Her intolerance is about at bad as mine, she gets bloated and gassy… So not dangerous, just uncomfortable.
It always feels difficult to deal with. My view is, if you want to make potatoes with cream sauce, enjoy it I’ll eat something else.