“How do you know someone is vegan? Don’t worry they’ll tell you!”
This loud minority of vegans, estimated to be around 0.1 per cent of the global population (75,300,000), have made a name for themselves and not always the most glamorous one.
In this article, I will aim to explain all the reasons why people hate vegans (and hopefully shine a better light on the beautiful minority I’m a part of).
Is all publicity good publicity? A quick Google search of “vegans” brings up a whopping 827.000.000 results. If people are searching about it, then surely they must be curious enough to find out why.
In early 2019 Youtuber “Sv3rige”, Gatis Lagzdins, 29 alongside friend Deonisy Khlebnikov, 22 hit headlines in the UK for skinning and eating a raw squirrel at a vegan market in Soho, London. This is not the first time they’ve done something like this either.
But is fighting vegans with raw meat really that effective?
American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once wrote, “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.”
The hatred doesn’t stop there…
Waitrose magazine editor, William Sitwell, stepped down in late 2018 after emails were leaked in which he joked about “killing vegans one by one” to a freelance journalist, who was pitching a series of plant-based recipes.
Natwest bank faced a huge PR nightmare when a customer called to ask for a loan and instead was told “all vegans should be punched in the face”.
So why all the vitriol?
A Youtube video by Innuendo Studios aims to explain why “bold and inconvenient decisions”, such as not drinking or veganism, tend to anger people so much. He argues that when people meet someone who has made the bold choice to challenge the norm, whether it be veganism, atheism, non-alcoholism or something else, it makes them question and feel guilty about their own choices, thinking “if they’re right, what does that say about me?”. It might also explain why people may react so defensively.
Journalist Alex Miles from the Elephant Journal, goes further to suggest the dislike of vegans arises from the cognitive dissonance that eating meat produces: the contradiction between liking animals and eating them.
Vegans challenge cultural norms, threatening the status quo rejecting justification for eating meat and this makes people anxious.
And what about the really annoying ones? Such as the ones storming into restaurants shouting “Meat is murder”. Maybe being annoying is exactly what helps it stick in peoples minds before they go and research it themselves later. Events like this, of course, do not guarantee vegans, but ultimately they will make people further question the origins of their food. Is that such a bad thing?
The tide is slowly changing! The online magazine, The Economist labelled 2019 as the year of the vegan – describing how a quarter of 25 – 34 year olds describe themselves as vegan or vegetarian. To quote the subheading “where millennials lead, businesses and governments will follow”. According to Global Data, veganism rose 600 % from 2014 to 2017 in the US.
So what is changing the image?
With rising awareness of climate change, people are beginning to recognise that eating less meat would be not only better for themselves but also the Earth. 16 year old activist Greta Thunberg rose to fame alongside the climate protest movements: Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion. She persuaded her parents to go vegan, stating their refusal to make the easy decision was stealing her generation’s future.
The trend hasn’t shied away from big business corporations as more begin offering vegan options, such as the famous Gregg’s vegan sausage roll or the McVegan burger. But vegan companies are not missing out either, Beyond Meat with its bleeding beetroot patties is valued at a huge $3.4 billion dollars.
Vegan activist Earthling Ed is at the forefront of multiple vegan activists creating debate and conversation. He’s hit over millions of views on Youtube, given multiple talks, including one at a TED conference, and runs his own activism company Surge. He aims to create dialogues between people of opposing views, such as his attendance here at the Oxford Farming Conference.
It doesn’t stop at activism, social media is turning #foodporn into beautiful vegan recipes, such as successful booksellers and online cooking video experts: Bosh and So Vegan.
In conclusion, this growing minority may be loud and annoying but one cannot deny that they are working collectively for a better future.
Good article!