To ask why you aren’t vegan

[Whereisthecoffee]

I’m not vegan , I know it’s good for the planet kinder to animals etc but it’s something I just can’t seem to get to grips with. I’ve been thinking about starting vegan January but I’m not sure. Thinking about my choices and it’s prevalence in the media has made me curious about others so tell me why aren’t you vegan? I think my main reason is convenience.

Oh yes, and I love fish and seafood so would really struggle to give that up!

I'm in a similar boat OP. Seriously contemplating veganuary but it seems like it will be a lot of hassle. Im mainly interested due to the purported health benefits with environment and animals just being extra pluses.

There is simply not the choice and most fancy dishes have to be made from scratch as the range of ready prepared vegan friendly stuff is a lot less in supermarkets.

The cost of a lot of the vegan specific alternatives also seems to be high (e.g. £5.50 for two beyond meat burgers in the freezer aisle). A lot of the brands also lump on organic and stuff like that which adds to the price premium.

I also think I'll miss out on lots of great tasting food when I go out with friends etc.

If the market was much more developed then it would be easier knowing that most chain restaurants would have some great and inventive vegan meals on their menus and that you can easily pick up something like a seitan steak for a reasonable price from the supermarket. Unfortunately doesn't seem to be quite there yeah. Bit of a catch 22 given the industry probably needs more people like me to get on board and create the demand for restaurants and retailers to supply more vegan alternatives

Honestly, because I couldn’t give a shit about so many of the ‘arguments’ against eating animal products. I really don’t care enough to stop eating eggs, cheese, meat and fish.

A collection of protesting snowflakes would simply make me buy even more meat

I’m Hindu from a part of India where people don’t eat dairy and eggs are considered the preserve of meat eaters. The reason why I’m not vegan is that until my gran (and grandad) started eating dairy and making my dad and his siblings eat it, life expectancy for men and women in my family was 30-33 (sudden death). Life expectancy only improved after that point.

We have a DC with life threatening food allergies - meaning that all forms of dairy and egg (as well as soya and a number of fruits) are off the menu for everyone in the house in order to keep him safe.
We use a ton of vegan alternatives in cooking in order to make family meals safe for him.
Considering all the things we have already cut out, and replaced with things that don’t taste anywhere near as good as the real deal, the last thing on my mind is cutting out meat as well. It’s the only thing left in our diet that makes me think “oooo yum” when I can smell it cooking!
That’s why I’m not a vegan!

Cheese fan here too🙋🏻‍♀️ I tried being vegan for a while but honestly I hated half the alternatives and ended up losing weight unhealthily. I use a dairy free coconut milk alternative now on my muesli, so that's the one good thing that came out of it! (I've always hated cows milk).

I’m not vegan because I don’t like to label myself. Instead I try to make as many good choices as I can and buy sustainable local food as much as possible

Nothing wrong with being carniverous, veggie or vegan.

Each to their own, so leave it out, i.e. the lecturing and sometimes agitating protests.

The world will not change overnight. Especially when non vegans are being TOLD what to do.

Plus it is very hard work being vegan. My brother is one, and he would drive you to drink. Which is acceptable to me being non vegan lol. It is kind of a religion of sorts. But anyway. Tolerance is the key.

Because It isn’t good for the planet.

I agree with veganism on principles and applaud people who can do it, but i just find it a massive faff, and unsatisfying. I like eggs, I cant stand margerine, and I like cheese.
Milk I can live without as i use oat milk in drinks and cereals

I get bad stomach if i eat too much brassicas or legumes. So cant eat too much beans/peas/caulis/broccolis. Soya im not supposed to have too much of. I cant stand mushrooms. Being vegan just means giving up so much. I can do it for a while, and then i just stop as its miserable. Im perfectly capable of making lovely vegan food, but I also like variety.

Because I like meat, red meat. And bacon. And cheese. HTH

I enjoy meat and cheese too much. I like vegan food, I’m a if it tastes good I’ll eat it type.

I came on to say what a couple of people have already said...because I'm human and therefore and an omnivore. Humans are designed to eat anything we can get our hands on to sustain us. I like meat, but if push came to shove, I could give it up. I'd really struggle to give up eggs and dairy as they are in everything I like, cream, butter, cheese, yoghurt, cakes, biscuits, you name it. Yes there are vegan alternatives, generally not as nice.

I don't think I'm going to be 'judged' by some higher being. (Maybe by trendy vegans.) For one I don't believe in that stuff and even if I did, why make humans omnivores then expect us to give up half our diet?

I don't like enough variety of vegetables to become vegan or even vegetarian.

I enjoy eating meat, chicken and fish.

I also love soured cream
milk in my tea
brie
milk on cereal
smoked cheese
ice cream
butter

I have been vegetarian at university because I couldn't afford meat (back in the 90s) so maybe it also makes me feel poor.

I also associate veganism with righteous judgemental people because if someone is vegan they tell you they are even if you are not eating with them. It seems like a pedestal to stand on and judge others.

My sister has been vegetarian for over 30 years and yet when we go to her house for Christmas dinner my BIL cooks a turkey crown because other guests are not vegetarian. She never makes comments on people eating meat, never has. It is a personal decision.

because lots of the moral stuff is bullshit.especially in places where there are higher welfare rules for animals.epsecially in the uk.so the American screaming animal cruelty is in lots of countries bollox.
it wont save the planet.especially with more factories.land etc being taken for making, forming vegan products.
eating meat has been fine and part of the life cycle for centuries.
its about balance.plant and animal based.
"some" vegans are aggressive,bullies,shove it in ur face intolerant of anyone else and make up emotive crap to sway you.
meat when done well can be lovely.
vegan products are not up to scratch.

Because apart from chips and beans, most vegan food tastes rubbish.

Also, I don’t believe it’s healthy, as you have to really work hard to comeback anywhere close to a nutritious diet, and no b12 etc

I am a bit like you except I'm vegetarian and have been for about 5 years now and pescetarian for about two years before that. I didn't find the jump that big because I never ate much meat/seafood anyway, I have always found the thing I've missed the most has been crappy takeaway junk food because you can't really replace that on the cheap. Like I'd love a donner kebab or a chicken burger but I wouldn't. I'm veggie on ethical grounds cos of the animal suffering and eventual death just for our consumption, it doesn't sit right with me.

H/e I feel major guilt about not being vegan, like all the time, considering the cruelty in animal product farming, like with the male chicks as you said, and dairy industry too ofc. So my crappy 'reasons' which probably aren't really justifiable but nevertheless:

1. I think to be vegan you do need to be a good cook, or alternatively have a good amount of money, cos you can buy convenience-type vegan food, but it's much more expensive than convenience-type veggie food, e.g. even Quorn products, the vegan ones are significantly more expensive than their usual range. We are broke, and also time-poor since having DD who is 6 months and a very 'difficult' baby, so it's rare that I cook a proper meal from scratch now , and we couldn't really afford to replace all the convenience-type foods we eat with vegan versions. We went through a phase when I was pregnant where we drank soy milk in our tea and cereal just to reduce our animal product consumption but it was working out significantly more expensive than just buying dairy milk so that was the main reason we stopped that. And I'm not really exagerrating about our income, it's very low and we have debts, I owe my parents a few grand from the past year or so probably, that we used to pay rent, bills, debts etc so yeah that's embarrassing so anything that drives up our food shopping costs isn't really possible atm.
2. I feel a bit jaded because I don't beleive it's possible to live a properly 'cruelty-free' life nowadays, like people said food that is imported from far away is bad for the environment and there's often ethical problems with the treatment of the workers who harvest it etc and I do worry about that kind of thing and wonder whether it's really better that human beings suffer through us eating that stuff instead of farm animals, I know that is speciest but I guess I am tbh (and I'm not sure anyone isn't even if a lot of vegans claim not to be, I mean if in a hypothetical thought experiment if you could only save one, a kitten or a human baby who would you pick? I really struggle to imagine any vegan would just flip a coin and be happy with the decision to save the kitten if it fell that way. Plus there's the implications of the way you live your life, I mean why live in a house then or drive a car or anything else that is necessarily harming other species every day like insects etc?)
3. I think I would miss a few things too much, like milk chocolate, and cheese. But tbh if I could afford to buy really good substitutes that were vegan then I'd probably be able to get around that one. I eat a lot of milk chocolate and cheese atm.

Because I love food. Our meat comes from a local farmer; we buy half a pig or cow, or a whole hogget, at a time and it goes in our freezer. I would also miss proper butter, cheese, cream etc too much, and I couldn't not eat the wonderful eggs our utterly spoiled rescued battery hens lay.

Because eating grain based food degrades the soil, releases tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, causes soil erosion (we only have a few decades of harvests left in the topsoil), kills multitudes more animals and wildlife indirectly than directly consuming an animal (earthworms, field mice, rabbits, butterflies, deer, rodent control around granaries), requires huge quantities of fossil fuel based fertiliser.

Whereas animal grazed grasslands are wildlife rich havens. The grazing animals fertilise the soil with their dung. Pastoral land and soil actually absorbs carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, fossil fuel inputs not required. When you support the soil and nurture the soil, you support myriad more lifeforms. Wheat, soya, corn are monocultures where nothing but the crop survives... vast amounts of -cides are required to maintain the crop growth. -cide = death.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize

Because meat and animal products contain fat based vitamins like vitamin A, D3, K2 that are not found at all in the plant kingdom. Many people are poor converters of beta-carotene to Vit A. Ditto for most of the minerals... heme iron in meat is much more absorbable than the plant form.

Because plants don't want to be eaten either, like any organism. Animals evade being eaten by locomotion; plants use chemistry. Many plants contain chemicals which are anti-nutrients (eg phytic & oxalic acid), endocrine & immune disruptors (eg lectins & saponins). Soy and wheat are notorious for causing thyroid disruption.

Because it's impossible to eat a vegan locavore diet with minimal food miles in the UK... imports of food from the other side of the world by polluting ships and planes are required... avocados, rice, almonds, palm oil, sugar cane, bananas etc etc. All cash crops, with ecological problems of their own. Almonds are sucking California dry and contributing to bush fires. Rice from paddy fields is a huge cause of methane emissions. Palm oil is decimating orangutans. Just give me some local butter, smidge of honey, lamb chop and cheddar and a few bits of veg.

Don’t want to be.

#Tastes like shit
#Direct contact with hipsters
#It would make hunting a little unethical

I thought the studies had shown that even vegan food flown in was more sustainable than raising animals for food locally?

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361?via%3Dihub

Also, all of the major dietetics groups in the world agree that veganism is healthy for every stage of life:

www.bda.uk.com/news/view?id=179

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

You don't need endless supplements, all you need is B12 and most of the animals are supplemented with B12 anyway because of the sterile lives we lead and depletion of nutrients in soils. B12 is a product of a bacterial process. We would have made it ourselves when we ate dirty food and drank untreated water.

It does take a bit of looking into at the start but it's pretty easy, just veganise meals you already like, that's what I did.

I thought it would be a pain the arse but after looking into it I couldn't support any of those industries. Land of Hope and Glory on youtube is a documentary on youtube that shows standard practice treatment in th UK. There was also a new documentary this year called Dominion which was an eye opener. For health, What the health on netflix is interesting.

Because a vegan diet shrinks your brain

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/diagnosis-diet/201709/the-vegan-brain

I am vegan. I went straight from eating meat to being a vegan and I can't believe I was eating meat and dairy products for so long. I feel sick thinking about it now.

I looked at the Instagram account www.instagram.com/vegan_universe/ and my mind was made up. My food shops are almost half the price now too!

Because I am not in any way convinced that in the British climate vegan-organic agriculture is ecologically preferable to mixed farming with a moderate production of meat and dairy.

That is speaking as an organic vegetable producer who currently operates a system based on vegan-organic principles (because I don't want to keep livestock for reasons of life/work balance, and aim for a closed-cycle system).

Anyone who is not vegan, but feels guilty about it, might be interested to read Simon Fairlie's book "Meat: a benign extravagance" (review here - irritant warning - contains link to article by George Monbiot)