Is the vegan revolution over? An “anti-vegan backlash” has “made Britain fall back in love with meat,” according to the Daily Telegraph. Studies have found that 18-24 year olds in the UK increased their meat intake in 2024, sales of fake meats are falling and vegan restaurants are closing their doors.
It’s not just about putting oat milk into your coffee and saying no to bacon
Well, if veganism is falling out of fashion then vegans must take a fair amount of the blame. As a vegan myself, I’ve noticed that this ethically rooted movement has begun to focus too much on money and not enough on morality.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen vegans try to convince people to go plant-based by telling them about all the fake meats, plant milks and dairy-free cheeses they can buy these days, rather than helping them to make the philosophical shift that’s necessary to take up this cruelty-free lifestyle.
The Vegan Society’s definition of veganism is “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude – as far as is possible and practicable – all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose”.
So it’s not just putting oat milk into your morning coffee and saying no to bacon. It’s also avoiding leather, wool, cruel sports and anything else that’s tied up with animal cruelty. You won’t get someone to adopt that philosophy and way of living by appealing to their tummy. You can only do it by speaking to their heart.
In other words, if you encourage people to try meat-free burgers and plant-based cheeses you might get a few to try vegan, but you won’t get them to stay vegan unless you also help them think honestly about animal cruelty.
Relying on food seems a risky tactic anyway. Vegan meats and cheeses are becoming tastier all the time. Some of them are now basically indistinguishable from the ‘real thing’.
Or at least I think they are. Vegans are the least equipped to make that call because it’s so long since most of us ate meat or cheese. I haven’t eaten meat for ten years, and I’ve not had dairy since 2016, so who am I to say how much these vegan products taste like the ones they’re impersonating?
I think we came off the path when we stopped talking about animals and started talking about people. The animal rights philosophy has always been rooted in ethics and morality. Yes, some people found it all a bit self-righteous and pious, but few doubted that it has a kindness at its heart.
Over the past 15 years, however, people have stopped talking about animal rights and they’ve started talking about veganism instead. The conversation has shifted from the animals to people who don’t eat them.
The movement around those people has become less concerned with ethics and more obsessed with consumerism. While animal sanctuaries, charities and pressure groups struggle for support, vegans queue up to buy the latest plant-based gimmick at chains whose bosses’ hands are red with the blood of cows, sheep, pigs and chickens.
We’ve celebrated the fact that supermarkets offer more vegan options, but we don’t think so much about the fact that more animals are being slaughtered every year. The vegan revolution has been great for vegans, but it hasn’t been so good for the animals so far.
I’m not sure that veganism is as doomed as the headline writers would have us believe. I think the fall in sales of fake meats is because the cost-of-living crisis has encouraged vegans to cook delicious, plant-based meals from scratch, rather than buying expensive processed foods. It’s sad that vegan restaurants are shutting their doors, but that probably reflects that plant-based options are now mainstream.
Still, it does feel like veganism is having a bit of a wobble. If so, this is a good time for vegans to remind ourselves that we won’t get people to open their hearts and radically alter their lifestyles by bragging to them about how many vegan sausages there are, or by insisting that vegan cheddars taste just like the real thing. Doing so is like trying to convince someone to believe in God by telling them the pews at the local church are rather comfortable these days. A few might turn up on Sunday to try out these new pews, but it takes more than that to make them see the light.
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