...to wonder why people are so rude about vegans?

[CheekyWombat101]

Obviously not everyone, but in general, I can’t go a single day without hearing a comment or spotting an eye roll if the word ‘vegan’ is spoken out loud. It’s like a dirty word. Ironically a word usually brought up by someone who isn’t vegan, but starts the conversation and then takes offence at it. It’s really bizarre.

Over and over again you hear associated words like... fad, militant, extreme, unhealthy...

Why? Why do some non-vegans take such an interest, and such an offence to it all?

Non-vegans who don’t care or are supportive - you are awesome! Please keep doing what you’re doing, it’s really refreshing.

How foolish

Why? The OP asked why some people react the way they do,I answered . It's not foolish. You might not agree with it but that it's not foolish.

If I knew a vegan who didn't make such a song and dance about what they eat I wouldn't (inwardly) roll my eyes. As it is I just know the evangelical ones and one particular friend who can't seem to talk about anything else these days apart from what she eats!

I think too, that if people wish to eat vegan foods, they shouldn’t attempt to replicate meat and fish. Plant based by all means, but make it recipes that don’t try to look like something they aren’t.

Why? How does that impact you?

I eat a lot if Cauldron sausages, especially when I’m low carbing as they’re quite low in carbs and a good protein source

I don’t eat them because I secretly hanker for meat sausages. I eat them because it’s a change if flavour and textures to vegetables.

I don’t eat Linda McCartney products because to ME they’re too ‘meaty’ I don’t eat ‘Quorn’ Because it’s full of weird shit, not real food.

When I’m
Not low carbing I’ll also eat veggie burgers - not because I wish I was eating ‘real/meat’ burgers but for the same reason they exist. They’re a good size/shape for a burger bum and they taste good. They don’t taste like meat burgers they’re totally different

So, again, how does that impact anyone else?

Why do meat eaters make ‘sausages/burgers’ out of meat -they don’t look like cows or pigs

Ps. Just to clarify I WAS VEGAN for quite a few years, but I’m not now, I’m ‘just vegetarian. Though I prefer being vegan. Need to eat low carb for my diabetes, and that’s hard enough including non vegan products, I find it virtually impossible as a vegan and travelling extremely difficult to eat completely vegan (vegetarian is challenging enough in many places/ situations).

Well, for example, when a poster wrote on here yesterday she was mostly vegan - which she was, most of the time she was vegan, but not always - vegans jumped down her throat and slated her. In the last couple of weeks people have been called idiots, shouted at for their food choices, told they were ‘misappropriating veganism’ and told that they couldnt call themselves ‘mostly’ anything. Because they’d decided there’s some sort of superior, holier than thou attitude that allows them to tell others what they can and can’t do or say. Who CARES if someone is ‘mostly’ vegan? They are, but apprently can’t utter the word vegan. The problem is those vegans who shout the loudest give the others a bad name, like with most things.

@Amanduh I'm pretty sure that it wasn't only vegans were saying that to that member though, so why just focus on them?

one particular friend who can't seem to talk about anything else these days apart from what she eats!

That’s bloody annoying, but definitely not just ‘vegans’

Personally I HATE talking about it and I’m never the one to bring it up, other people generally do OR worse still start in the ‘is there anything here you can eat, you can’t gave ‘thus’ ‘this’ or ‘that’ like I’m a two year old who can’t read a menu for myself. Then people start tapping on about preachy vegans! 🙄

@Amanduh That was the first thing that came into my mind! Being polite and eating a dish prepared by a friend that had fish sauce in, doesn't mean she can't call herself a vegan!

ChippingInLowCarbing

I just know all the gobby ones

However I worked with a vegan once who started a campaign to stop us all eating meat and animal products in the staff room as it was offensive to her, she would also lecture, show pictures, leave leaflets etc, there was also a vegan stall at a local market handing out leaflets to everyone, including children saying "What is your cheese made from? Murder, torture, rape....".

This is what gets on peoples nerves with some vegans, it's as though they are better/more informed/more intelligent. I know vegans who don't push their views on you as I don't push my meat eating views on them. All in all I don't care what people eat, it's up to personal decision and I respect that. I just don't want to be lectured, that is all!

You’ll get 100 comments from people saying vegans try to evangelise or are aggressively smug etc but I think that the truth is, thinking too much about the meat and dairy industries makes people feel guilty and uncomfortable, and so they go on the defensive because they don’t want to face up to what they’re contributing to.

This!

I was guilty of this when I was a vegetarian I admit. I am now happy to be vegan. It makes sense for health, the environment, and animal welfare.

I don't tell everyone about my diet, and am a 'moderate' vegan, in that I will eat something with a small amount of dairy or egg if offered, in order to not offend a host. I will also eat leftovers that would otherwise be binned if they have dairy or egg, as food waste is ethically indefensible.

@Amanduh

But the majority of people slating her weren't even vegan. The posters who had issues with her terminology were, for the most part, self confessed meat eaters.

Even on this thread there have been a couple of posts from people who are clearly not vegan talking about how it's because of feeling guilty and knowing veganiam is the better choice...yet people are replying to them angrily about this is why people hate vegans.

I've heard of people disliking vegans because of a select group of vegans behaviour before but getting arsey with them because of what meat eaters say and do is a new one to me

In response to some of the vegans talking about ethical issues on this thread: I was vegetarian for 22 years. For ethical reasons. I've done my bit towards preservation of the planet and our animal friends, etc, but after this length of time I was unable to sustain it because I developed specific health issues related to eating a mainly carbohydrate diet.

Such issues might not affect every non-meat-eater. It might not affect a vegan until they've been vegan for decades; or indeed, at all. But high-carbohydrate (and almost all vegan food falls into that group) equals high insulin production, which in my case, equaled galloping, rampant candida. This took a year's attendance at a GUM clinic - possibly as the only patient there under a GP referral :) - and a horribly restrictive diet for aeons, to shift. You can take it from me that it wasn't pleasant.

Starting to eat meat and fat-based products was disgusting at first, and to this day (5 years later) there are a lot of meat products I can't eat. But the hell am I going to be preached at or asked to justify my choice of diet after suffering through that lot.

A couple of vegans have tried their spiel, but been rapidly shut down. 'Nobody likes a smug git' usually does the trick

This is slightly off topic but a few people have complained about having to cook several different versions of meals when vegans come to visit. I don't understand this. I'm not vegan (I was, about 20 years ago, but that's a different story) but if I have vegan dinner guests I cook a vegan meal for everyone - there's no reason omnivores can't eat a vegan meal now and then? I have a favourite chickpea and butternut squash curry which when served with rice is even gluten free, too.

I've heard of people disliking vegans because of a select group of vegans behaviour before but getting arsey with them because of what meat eaters say and do is a new one to me

They're just being told that they're not actually meat eaters and are vegans in disguise so back to vegans are assholes again

Vegans, particularly purists, can come across as very focused on themselves and the minutiae of their own lives. It can be a way of making everything about you. It's a modern day thing - looking inwards at yourself instead of outwards into society. I'm not saying that I don't approve of veganism, just that I think it can be used in that way.

"there's no reason omnivores can't eat a vegan meal now and then? I have a favourite chickpea and butternut squash curry which when served with rice is even gluten free, too"

But there is if that person doesn't like it. I wouldn't eat your chickpea and butternut squash curry, because I don't like chickpeas, or butternut squash, or for that matter curry. That doesn't make me a bad person, I just don't like most Vegan meals, just like Vegans don't like my meals, albeit from a different ethic. I think the main issue is not the liking, but the disapproval.

How foolish

Why? The OP asked why some people react the way they do,I answered . It's not foolish. You might not agree with it but that it's not foolish.

If I knew a vegan who didn't make such a song and dance about what they eat I wouldn't (inwardly) roll my eyes. As it is I just know the evangelical ones and one particular friend who can't seem to talk about anything else these days apart from what she eats!

Its foolish because if they didn't tell you or 'go on about it' how would you know!

there's no reason omnivores can't eat a vegan meal now and then? I have a favourite chickpea and butternut squash curry which when served with rice is even gluten free, too

I don't mind pure just veg, but I seriously don't like soy. I don't think soy is healthy so I don't want to eat it.

I went vegetarian in 1992 aged 14, simply as I felt hypocritical to call myself an animal-lover while still eating them. I never 'preached', yet happily answered people's ocassional questions on why I was vegetarian.

Over the years, I was either the butt of somebody's jokes, had people trying to invite me into debate at meals, or even things like weddings when they see my food is different, or I would get shouted at and lectured by a minority of omnivores. All very boring.

Fast forward to 2017, I started seeing sponsored posts on Facebook about why veganism is important and how the diary industry is more cruel than the meat industry, and even though I did biology at school, it didn't even occur to me that cows were forcefully pregnated against their will, then once pregnant their baby is taken from them so that the farmers can hook them up to a machine to produce milk until mastitis sets in, all the time the cow mourns it baby. Don't even get me started on the egg industry.

The 'eureka' moment for me was seeing a video of a baby cow being put into a 4x4 to be taken to a veal farm and the mum chasing the car as fast as her legs would carry her, mooing in such a distressed way. It broke my heart.

So I went vegan last year and it's the best thing I've ever done. I wouldn't have known what goes on without those vocal vegans and vegan groups on Facebook.

18 months on, the hostility has stepped up a notch. Again, like when I was veggie, I just get on with it, only talk about it if asked, or as part of a wider discussion like this, but the way some react to me compared to when I was veggie is another level.

I hear comments like all vegans should die, people say we must be physically weak / ill / vitamin deficient / mad. Been told we force our views on others, when most don't, it's omnivores who see the opportunity to force their views on us when learning we are vegan.

I really don't get all the vegan hate. Most do it for the animals, many for the environment and lots for health. It's been scientifically proven the impact of processed meats in the diet and what intense farming is doing to the world.

Oh and I'm on some vegan groups on Facebook and you see some absolute twats in there thll.k.at give vegans a bad name. A couple of weeks ago, so bloke and his GF were buying vegan food from M&S and at the conveyor belt, noticed some meat beyond the divider with the other customer and started talked loudly about how disgusting it was having death shoved in their faces. They got into a row and then later posted on Facebook thinking they'd get support from fellow vegans. They got ripped to shreds, only two people out of the hundreds of comments backed them up.

I love cooking and my friends love my cooking, I find cooking for people opens their eyes to how good the food can be. Takes the mystery away. My DP is omni and happily eats vegan a couple of days a week as it's easier and he loves the food.

Now when someone tries to get into an argument, I ask if they actually want a healthy discussion, if not to pipe down. I begrudgingly accept their choices, so they should begrudgingly accept mine.

I think it's because veganism is so much more prevalent now. So rather than vegans being eccentric outliers, they are among us and their choices can be seen and have some effect on us.

I think that the truth is, thinking too much about the meat and dairy industries makes people feel guilty and uncomfortable

This is how I feel too. I eat meat and dairy, while feeling very guilty about it. It's not just concerns about animal welfare - I eat organic high welfare animal products because I can afford to, it's also the environmental toll. I have B12 deficiency and couldn't be vegan or I might die, even with supplements. Also I like meat and dairy too much. But let's face it, vegans who don't eat soya are doing a lot more for the planet than many of us.

@NinjaInFluffyPJs what's unhealthy about soy? The Chinese live off it and have one of the lowest cancer rates and longest life spans in the world.

Are people particularly rude about vegans? From what I can see, some people are just opinionated and anyone and everyone can be on the receiving end. I don't see that vegans are specifically targeted.

Because they put it on their bio on social media like it's an identity or something. I am going to put 'straight omnivore' on mine. In short I DON'T CARE STOP GOING ON ABOUT IT. Just do what you want and don't bother me with it.Everyone has to be so special and interesting when in fact it's so dull.

Because a lot of people are aggressive and nasty.
There are plenty on this thread.
I know a lot of vegans and contrary to the jokes, most you wouldn't even know because they don't preach or even really mention it unless relevant i.e. someone offers them non-vegan food.

Not read the thread..

But I love the vegan trend as my DC who is allergic to eggs and all dairy has a lot of options now.

Surely a variety of foodstuff is a good thing?