AIBU to ask ‘what would make you go vegan’?

[Bastetcat]

Tangentially inspired by another thread, I wonder if there are specific obstacles standing in the way of people choosing to go vegan, and if so what they are?

I tend to presume that if perfect, indistinguishable replicas for meat / dairy / eggs etc could be created then virtually everyone would go vegan, but I would be interested in finding out if that’s actually the case!

@MellowBird85 that's exactly the reason dp went veggie. Sadly it has had no impact on his athletic ability. That could be the fact his diet is still shite I suppose

Fake meat is very processed and I don't understand the appeal of it. I hate it when vegan options are all quorn and fake chicken bits. I want real food not lab made protein!

I think I'll become vegan when I have to, when sustainable and ethical animal products (ie lamb that's grown on hills that can't be used for crops, eggs from my chickens) gets so astronomically expensive that I can't afford it.

Hell freezing over.

I think we should all be aiming to eat ethically produced food from local sources. There's nothing that would make me swop eg humanely raised and slaughtered meat from a local source, for a substitute from a great distance that's required intensive farming, killed off the local wildlife and in some cases destroyed the area it's come from and been flown in from another continent.

I might consider it if I lived in an arable farming area producing ethical food, and the only animal products available were intensively farmed.

I think for me it would be better cheese substitutes and (a big one) better and widely available vegan milk chocolate.

Snap! I’ve been veggie for over 30 years, don’t miss meat and don’t like meat substitutes - but vegan cheese is so depressing. It’s the texture more than the taste; chewing it feels like having a second job, and a very menial one at that.

I hate the over processing of food - so vegan alternatives to every possible animal product would not do it for me.
I think the only thing that would make me turn vegan is a life limiting allergy to meat products.
That said we have drastically reduced our consumption of meat but that is driven by both food miles, cost and a simpler way of life rather than a wish to be vegan.

I used to think cheese would be my biggest downfall because I loooooved it, but I astonished myself with how much I didn’t miss it once I stopped eating it.

I hope that in my lifetime we see stem cell meat become affordable to all.

It will be an interesting discussion on whether it could be classed as vegetarian or not.

Nothing, I love meat and nothing tastes like it.

Not being coeliac and intolerant of soya, a source of easy quick recipes that weren't all spicy, and a husband that would entertain the idea.

In an ideal world I would be vegan, I'm eating far less meat and buying from good sources when I do, but the allergy and time barrier is just too high at the moment, and fucked if I'm cooking two different meals a night because DH won't even contemplate veganism. I'm working him towards being vegetarian :)

No animals to eat.

I honestly don't think anything could. Even killing my own meat, I wouldn't be any good with a knife but I reckon I could shoot something. I have meat with most meals but those that I don't (like soup or a veg curry) I wouldn't want a meat alternative.

The one thing that would force me to go vegan* would be if I was sick. I would give everything animal related up if I thought it would help.

*The only thing I would really really struggle to give up is honey.

No many vegan products have environmental consequences and those will worsen if more people go vegan. I have come to terms with eating animals and animal products.

The only way I will become veggie is if all animals on the planet suddenly die.

I could live without meat to be honest fairly easily. But I love dairy food. I would struggle to give that up unless forced.

If I could get food that has as high protein / B12 content as the equivalent size of meat. I don’t like having to get vitamins through tablets (prefer getting them from food) and I really struggled to get enough protein the year I did Veganuary.

If there was a better selection of things that didn’t contain either soy or mushroom.

I'm vegetarian and transitioning to vegan by gradually cutting out dairy. I've found it really easy to switch to dairy free milk and yogurt. Cheese is hard though. I really love cheese and will find it hard to give up, if there was a dairy free alternative that tastes like cheddar, I'd switch immediately.

Clearer labelling would be helpful too, to make it easier to quickly identify vegan products when I hit obvious whether or not y contain dairy (bread, biscuits, etc)

The cultural norm of having meat for every meal is what's helping to kill the planet. A generation or two ago, meat was an expensive treat. Sunday roasts were a big deal because you had meat, and the leftovers lasted a few days eked out. Meat was farmed more sustainably and bought from a butchers.

Now people can buy £3 supermarket chickens and £1 packs of reconstituted ham and frozen chicken nuggets and eat shit meat every day, multiple times a day. It's not sustainable.

Won’t eat fake meat.. have sampled too many and can’t stomach them.
I’d prefer vegetarian food. Eat many veggie foods. Struggle with vegan foods due to dubious labelling. For instance I used a packet sauce that loudly declared itself ‘Vegan,’ yet , in the small print, declared that ‘contents may contain egg, milk, nuts etc...’

When the vegan alternatives are more sustainable than locally grown/reared meat and produce, or if I get too squeamish to prepare a bird in the feather for eating.

Dairy would be fine before I give up meat.

I would never go vegan. I love butter, cheese, meat, eggs, all of them. I don’t eat loads of these and I buy good quality but I would never give them up. There’s nothing wrong with eating animal products in moderation and from good reliable source. The problem is too much of it and low quality, and the processed version.

No way could I give up cheese. I even make my own now.

Absolutely nothing

@1Morewineplease those labels are usually for allergy purposes - they mean the product doesn’t contain non-vegan ingredients, but they can’t guarantee there hasn’t been cross contamination that would trigger an allergy.

Nothing really, I could actually give up milk easily but not dairy. There is nothing that I could think of that would make me eat or drink horrible plant based milks and cheeses. Yuck.

Oh, and I’m still OK to catch it, kill it, eat it. Sorry.