Why People Hate Vegans

David Trammel's picture

Cutting back on the environmental load that Big Agriculture (and Big Meat) has on the planet and re-localizing our food production (both plant and animal) is going to be essential to surviving in the Long Descent. The way we grow 95% of our food now is destroying our soil and water. While much of that is the way companies prioritize profit over sustainability, some of it is our own choices. Its only been in the last couple of centuries that meat was a prevalent on our plates as it is now. What used to be a luxury has now become an obsession. (Bacon flavored Vodka anyone?)

And yet, it seems that any suggestion to cut back is met with disdain if not out right hostility.

Why do people hate vegans? - It has left the beige-tinted margins and become social media’s most glamorous look. But why does veganism still provoke so much anger?

I have been slowly cutting back my consumption of meat, to adding it to my diet just on weekends (and the occasional meals out during the week), but this is more a cost cutting objective than dietary. Now that I'm retired and collapsing into a more frugal lifestyle I'm looking at ways to live with less. Still though I recognize how much better for my health (and the planets) is if I try and eat more healthy.

Some of our message here on Green Wizards is just that. Identify ways to cut back now, before you are forced to. Still its helpful to read articles like this so that we can learn from the politics of unwelcome changes and try not to make the same mistakes with our messaging.

(I did like the term "flexitarian" mentioned in the article as someone who is "predominantly vegan or vegetarian but who occasionally eats meat or fish", to reshape a more plant based diet as "a fun, healthy, casual thing to try.")

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A additional links:

Third of Britons have stopped or reduced eating meat - Figures from Waitrose suggest animal welfare, environmental and health concerns driving sea change in UK diet

and a discussion on an environmentally sound way to raise meat.
If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer - Intensively farmed meat and dairy are a blight, but so are fields of soya and maize. There is another way

some numbers on energy use to produce typical meat and dairy goods
Is Eating Meat Worse Than Burning Oil?

Blueberry's picture

So the stores have been running specials on Smithfield thick bacon a BOGO. Thank you vegans we now have 20 pounds in the freezer. Nothing like grits, bacon and 2 eggs in the winter.

ClareBroommaker's picture

No hate here. I have no reason to hate vegans and I don't really think many people do. I think negativity directed to them over their way of living is mainly just a jokey thing. Sort of like how Blueberry just responded --jokey.

Justin Patrick Moore's picture

Q: How do you know if someone is a vegan?
A: Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Me, I've been carnivore, herbivore, omnivore. I am currently "pescatarian" -and try not to be a pestatarian. I was strict vegetarian for about 7 or 8 years, and then needed something with a bit more oomph. Fish is enough for me. I love my tinned sardines. Though I would eat some local deer etc.

I'm not sure where the "hate" comes from, but if I had to guess, its probably from self-righteousness of folks following a particular diet, and how they might flaunt it, as in the joke above. I think it's also because of the tie-in to the environmental movement, and how that is playing out as chronicled by JMG in his recent blog posts.

Blueberry's picture