Why I’m No Longer Labelling my Diet

VegFest 2015

I’ve wanted to write this for a long time, but it’s such a contentious subject and I haven’t necessarily felt in a position to talk about it. But Veganism is obviously something that is rising in popularity in the UK and it’s always a topic of discussion that gets people going. People usually have decided what side they’re on, and it always makes for a lively conversation. I’m no scientist, and I won’t pretend to be. What I want to say mainly draws on my own experiences, conversations I have had and media I have consumed, and how these have influenced me to distance myself from Veganism.

Around 6 years ago, I read ‘Eating Animals’ by Jonathan Safron Foer, which was the first time I remember becoming aware of the realities of modern animal agriculture and the forms it takes. Factory farming, overfishing, hormones, animal cruelty, and the ramifications of these processes on the environment, and human and animal health. I came to the conclusion that I would stop consuming meat, and so I did. Very slowly, over the period of probably a year. I stopped red meat, then poultry, and finally fish (and later eggs and dairy). To me, it seemed that Veganism was going the ‘whole way’, and vegetarianism didn’t quite cut it.

It was only a short amount of time, though, that I was a fully-fledged Vegan, probably less than a year. My experience of it was mostly positive, but outside of the 'community', it was fairly difficult to navigate. None of my family are even vegetarian, some of my friends are, but Veganism is a different thing altogether. I can’t speak for anyone else but it impacted my social and personal life in a big way. It becomes you. It’s more than a diet, it’s a form of activism.

Social media had a huge part to play in influencing my decision to cut out meat. I can safely say that this is probably the case for many millennials who have decided to ditch meat. It became trendy, and a huge part of the Wellness community. It was sold by influencers as the answer to curing your health and ensuring a long and disease-free life, and as a solution to saving the planet. As a teenager, I was understandably extremely impressionable, and I didn’t question any of this information, really. There was dietary advice, ‘what I eat in a day’, before and after photos, and an abundance of images of perfectly curated bowls of food, green smoothies and pretty, smiley faces.

Then there were the hugely influential documentaries on Netflix, ‘Cowspiracy’ and ‘What the Health’. I remember thinking at the time: ‘why doesn’t everyone see that the answer is so simple, given the extent of the problems that animal exploitation is causing us and the planet?’. I was consuming videos on YouTube, blogs, and going to Vegan events. All of this content made Veganism desirable, aesthetic, and most importantly, ethically superior.

After a while, I started seeking evidence-based information, seeking the work of Vegan Dieticians, and reading Medical Journals. I wanted to be as informed as I could for my own health, but also because as a vegan, there are constant demands to explain yourself when you undertake this lifestyle. When reading evidence-based studies, though, there was always a consideration that the truth about the effects of consuming animals on human health, were being hidden. A significant part of the argument is that as consumers in the West (probably mostly applicable to America), we are being lied to when it comes to the promotion of a healthy diet. This is due to the understanding that huge meat and dairy corporations control the government, and so have the power to dictate what information the public receive. Because of this, I became sceptical of all mainstream advice. Whilst most doctors would endorse including more fruit and vegetables, and perhaps less processed meat in a diet, I think it’s fair to say that most wouldn’t recommend going vegan. I believed that they, too, were misinformed when it comes to this lifestyle. Especially considering the fact that doctors are barely taught about nutrition throughout their medical degrees.

However, as I began to read more, I noticed some things that made me less and less comfortable with identifying as vegan. I want to reinforce that I am not qualified in anyway to talk about Nutrition or the like. I also want to mention again that this is purely anecdotal. Veganism obviously works well for some, and it can be a step in the right direction.

1. Pseudoscience: The Vegan documentaries are full of it, cherry-picked, biased information from studies. They are reduced to the most black and white of conclusions, demonising meat. ‘What the Health’ is the worst culprit, reducing and distorting evidence, and creating fear-mongering. There have been various arguments against the reductionist and conflated statements that eating meat causes cancer, and various other diseases.

2. Restrictive: In my experience, a lot of young people who are influenced to become Vegan don’t take into consideration the fact that you need to be very conscious of what you put into your body if you are not consuming animal products. The goal isn’t to just take food away, but to replace the nutrients you won’t be getting. Veganism doesn't simply equate to being 'healthy'. Most importantly, B12 and omega-3. You can also easily become deficient in iodine and calcium if you aren’t careful. A B12 deficiency can cause irreversible neurological damage. There’s also something to be said for the idea that banning a food that you desire, causing an unhealthy relationship with food. There’s a chance that this situation can cause bingeing, or simply an understanding that certain foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which is damaging and untrue. I realised this when I discovered Dietician Laura Thomas PHD (Vegan herself), who advocates Intuitive Eating. She is a Qween, and I highly recommend her book ‘Just Eat It’. All due respect to people who don’t feel this way, but I’m sure a lot of people experience this conflict.

3. White Privilege: From what I’ve seen, the movement is (unsurprisingly) dominated by white, middle class people. This is something that really motivated my distancing from Veganism. I’m aware that I am privileged, and it’s important for me to acknowledge that, but I don’t want to be a part of something that can be seen to actively erase the histories and cultures of POC. Food is integral to the history of a culture, and mainstream Veganism can be seen as erasing that culture, similar to the acts occurred throughout colonisation. As well as this, the treatment of animals for consumption has been conflated with the history and suffering of black people. I’ve seen it myself, on a Vegan group on Facebook I once saw someone comparing factory farming to slavery. As Aliyah Hasinah states on Gal-dem's website, ‘there’s a long racist history of dehumanisation and comparison to animals at work to justify the genocide and systematic killing of black people up to this day’.

4. Demonisation: The Vegan community can be gloriously culty. In my view, it is completely pointless and detrimental to the vision of Veganism, to demonise meat-eaters. If you want to encourage someone to do anything, would you call them a murderer to incentivise them? Dietary choices are exactly that, a choice. They incorporate so many factors that do not deserve the judgement of anyone else. Sharing the message doesn’t need to involve militant and hateful accusations. Everyone’s preferences and means are different, and castigating people for that will do nothing. However I do acknowledge that within any movement, some people will adopt extreme views, and obviously not all Vegans take this approach. 

My understanding currently is that leading a conscious lifestyle whilst consuming small amounts of well-sourced animal products is not a contradictory way of living, because the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. None of this takes away from the clear fact that current methods of animal agriculture are a problem, or that animal exploitation at the scale it is currently at, is an issue that needs to be addressed. Today, more than ever, we need to live with intention, not only for our health or the treatment of animals, but for the planet.

I’m still learning how to navigate this, but what I have concluded for the moment, is that I am not labelling myself as Vegan. There are plenty of other, integral ways that you can be proactive in living a sustainable and empathetic life. The fact that I even get to choose what I eat is a privilege worth acknowledging. Personally, I don’t ever envisage myself eating meat again, but I’ve realised that the argument is a lot more complex and multifaceted than I first thought, and more grey than black or white. I want to remain open-minded, so I’ve decided putting a label on my diet/ lifestyle, and pigeon-holing myself, isn’t necessary anymore.