8 common excuses for not being vegan

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17 Comments

  1. Kanika Gudekar says:

    Hi.

    I am vegan but many people tell me that “plants also have life so why you kill them? “

  2. truthspeaker says:

    not an excuse but a fact, animal food is superior to veggies, humans absorb nutrients much easier from animal foods

  3. I’m sorry but I find most excuses funny because I say them too. My favorite line is “Meat is too delicious to give up!”

  4. I am not vegan at the moment, but I really want to reduce the amount of animal products that I am eating. My biggest “excuse” / issue is that I have several food intolerances. I have IBS and I follow a low FODMAP diet. There are quite some things that I cannot eat because they give me stomach problems, amongst others: gluten, onion, garlic, most beans, dried fruit like dates, several types of fruits and vegetables and I don’t react well to soy either. Every time I try to eat more vegan meals I run into these limitations. Most vegan sources of protein are not an option for me for example. Especially when I want to eat in a restaurant, finding a low FODMAP vegan option is almost impossible. I already have difficulties finding meals to eat when I only have to eat low FODMAP, let alone also vegan. Still, I really don’t feel happy eating a lot of animal products anymore. So for now, I have decided that it will be ok if I try to eat vegetarian more often and vegan now and then.

    1. I can completely understand your predicament Karlijn! Sounds like a tough diet to have to stick to. If I’m completely honest, this is me as well but I find that it can’t be perfect and I try when I can. I am a vegan but I do avoid certain foods more than others depending on how they make me feel. All the intolerances that you listed above, I have too. I am though currently working on fixing my gut so that I can eat those foods and not have any reactions (eg looking 4 months pregnant!). Best of luck on your journey and do what you can!

  5. I consider myself “vegan-ish”, but I do make exceptions if it helps to eliminate waste. For example, I do eat eggs and cheese, but only if they are “rescued”. I get all of my produce (and sometimes eggs and cheese) from Hungry Harvest, a weekly delivery of rejected produce and other perishable foods that donates an equal volume you purchase to poor neighborhoods (only available in a few cities on the US east coast). You wouldn’t believe the completely ridiculous reasons why some produce is rejected and otherwise thrown out by grocery stores (not the right size, shape, color, not stacked on the pallet correctly (seriously)). They don’t always get eggs and cheese, so it’s not something I rely on and if they are not available I am just fine without them. I believe that it is better to consume non-vegan food if it prevents it from being thrown out, than to be strictly vegan at all times. To me, it is a greater evil to invest all the resources and suffering that goes into egg and cheese production only to throw it away because it was over-produced, than to avoid any animal product on principle. I believe the same philosophy applies to produce as well. That is why I only buy rescued produce, as well as eggs and cheese when they are available. I am interested to hear your thoughts on this. Do you know of any veggie rescue organizations in Australia?

    1. Thanks for sharing Dominic, and sorry I’m only seeing this now. I completely understand your reasoning, however, I would still be hesitant to buy those products based on my own personal principals. I am sure there are non-vegans that use those services as well and would make sure that the cheese and eggs wouldn’t go to waste. I haven’t done too much research into it but typically the produce and food that is rescued here in Australia will go to homeless shelters or to people that cannot afford to buy food for their families. Otherwise, you will also get people that dumpster dive but that’s a whole other story!

  6. Hello , posting in 2018 but not too late I hope ! lol . Great read and thinking of going plant based, however; what about getting enough lysine ? It seems that getting all of the essential amino acids are easy but not very high when it comes to this.

  7. Sorry for not responding earlier! That’s an interesting point you make! Yes, I agree but when you stick with a whole foods, plant-based diet, organic and grown locally where possible that’s the best way to avoid all the things that can cause cancer. You don’t have to be super strict and stressed about it (as stress can also lead you in that direction!) but if you try your best, that’s all you can do. When you know that certain things cause cancer or are strongly linked to it, why not remove them out of your life? That is how I would respond ๐Ÿ™‚

    Getting back to basics in life and using natural products instead of chemicals ones is definitely a great starting point as well. So much affects our health like our relationships with people we are close with, relationship we have with ourselves, exercise, mental space and if we practice gratitude to be happy. Botton line is to change what you have control over, and diet is certainly something that most of us can shift to give ourselves the best chance at living a healthy life.

  8. Some people’s excuses are very legitimate reasons that they can’t cut out meat. Say, a diabetic who is gluten-intolerant and allergic to soy. That leaves close to nothing for that person to eat that is vegan.
    My reason/excuse for not being vegan is that I don’t believe it’s the healthiest diet for me to eat, especially at this time in my life (I am exclusively breastfeeding my 1 year old son). I believe a primal lifestyle is healthiest for me. My research has brought me to that conclusion… Even so, I have battled with my thoughts this past year on whether or not to go vegan, so many times I have flip-flopped and gave myself so much anxiety over it all. I believe that eating locally raised grass-fed meat is fine as humans are natural omnivores, but my dilemma is that I can’t afford grass-fed meat. Not even close. I can hardly afford ‘humane’ grain-fed meat (and I really dislike the idea of supporting any grain-feeding farms), and I have to make myself push down thoughts about supporting that, which inevitably resurface. My other dilemma is about my personal ethics. I whole-heartedly believe humans are omnivorous and thrive best on plants and animals. But I am almost 100% certain that I couldn’t eat an animal if I had to kill it myself. It’s a constant battle in my mind. I keep telling myself that once I’m no longer supporting a growing life with my own body’s stores that I’ll probably try being vegan again, healthy this time (I tried in the past [before I had a baby] for about a month, I was a junk-food vegan, peanut butter sandwiches, chickenless patties, rice noodles, french fries, and fruit was my diet). I for some reason feel better about fish (only wild-caught alaskan salmon, because I’ve read that they are caught at the end of their life cycles, so I feel better about that as opposed to supporting farms where the animals live about a fourth or less of their natural lifespans). Whoops. Sorry for such a long comment, I’ve always wanted to share my thoughts about veganism with a vegan (I have no vegans in my life).
    I’m wondering what your thoughts are on eating bivalves as a vegan. I’ve read many times that they have no central nervous system and therefore feel no pain, so I’m wondering how you feel about consuming them. With bivalves I feel it would be much easier to be a healthy vegan.
    Thank you for your time and your blog (I’m a minimalist and obviously I’m very interested in veganism). Have a lovely day. ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Hi there!

      Thanks so much for your thoughts! You bring up some really interesting points that I think a lot of people will be able to relate with.

      Bivalves are a really tricky topic, so I’m not quite sure how I feel about them. I personally don’t eat them but I can also see how they would technically be classified vegan.

  9. Excellent article, thanks! I have only recently become vegan, but have quickly discovered how uncomfortable my food choices can make other people feel. I also live in Canberra (and am also a minimalist), so it’s great to know I’m not alone in this city!

    1. Hi Anne, nice to hear from a fellow Canberran! You’re certainly not alone ๐Ÿ™‚ It’s an unpleasant surprise right? I didn’t think about that when I first became vegan but you just have to get used to it…take care xx

  10. Lutte Kikker says:

    Great article! I am eating meat all my life and this year I started to eat much less meat (because of the news reports that red meat can cause cancer some months ago), eggs (they don’t taste as good from the supermarket anymore for some reason, we used to have chickens in our garden and their eggs did taste better) and milk products (I am asian myself and it seems that asians can’t deal with milk as well, at least in my case, milk produces slime in my throat, but I still eat yoghurt with muesli). I try to balance it with nuts, fresh fruit, juice, vegetables and so on but I don’t like soy/tofu products (probably the meat part I don’t balance out well now, so I still buy meat once a week (and sometimes only once every two weeks) in order to get something balanced now…don’t want to screw up something when it comes to my health either). Any ideas in how to replace meat without the discusting soy/tofu?

    1. Thanks for your honest and kind comment Lutte! You won’t screw up anything when it comes to your health if you cut out the meat. You can replace it with seitan (a wheat gluten product that has a very similar texture to meat), mushrooms and eggplant have a similar texture to meat as well. All the best with your journey! ๐Ÿ™‚

  11. Fantastic post, thank you for this Masha! Like you said, most everyone I talk to feels the need to justify why they eat animal products. I used to get easily annoyed at people’s ignorance, selfishness, and unwillingness to consider veganism, but I’ve gotten over that in time. I rarely go out of my way to tell people I’m vegan, but when I do I am calm, polite, and keep it to a few sentences. However, when a person is genuinely curious about (and open to) my lifestyle OR incredibly rude and disparaging, watch out! They’re about to get an earful ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks for all you do and greetings from Pennsylvania, USA.

    1. You’re very welcome Leif! ๐Ÿ™‚ Your experience sounds exactly like mine!! haha thanks for the message x