You’re not alone if you don’t know if you can be vegan anymore. Every so often, I see a new story about this topic. There are a lot of challenges to going vegan. I believe just about all of them can be overcome, but you may need some direction or help to do so. So what I’ve done here is compiled a list of the most common reasons that come up when someone says they can’t be vegan anymore. See if...
Dairy farms regularly impregnate their dairy cows, usually through artificial means. They wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t necessary, so common sense tells us that being pregnant has something to do with lactating. However, I think where most people get confused is that cows are not continuously pregnant. The Dairy Cow Milk Production Process Here’s how the cycle looks like from a high level: A...
You feel guilt when you feel like your actions are not lining up with your morals. So if you’re feeling guilty about not being vegan, it’s because you recognize on some level, that it’s cruel and unnecessary to harm animals to eat. You can try to suppress guilt, but it will gnaw away at you more and more over time. I’m not just going to say “go vegan now,” because clearly that’s not...
I know that some people transition to a vegan diet slowly, but for me it was hard to see how I could keep eating animal products once I realized how wrong it was. So I went cold turkey, and I imagine you’re in the same boat. For some, going vegan overnight has huge side effects, and for others there are none. What’s clear to me now is that it depends on how much of a change your new diet is...
It’s not too hard to understand why vegans who oppose animal suffering don’t eat meat. But why don’t think consume dairy products like milk, cheese, or yogurt? It doesn’t seem like cows must suffer to produce these things when you first think about it. But, when you learn more about the dairy industry, it’s very clear that cows do indeed suffer to make these products. There are 4...
It took me 26 years to go vegan. Before that point, there were many ways that I justified killing animals for food. One of the main ones was the notion that animals aren’t supposed to feel pain when slaughtered, right? In theory, they shouldn’t, but after a lot of research, I learned that it’s often not the case (I’ve looked at if cows feel pain when slaughtered before). It was kind of...
Many people go vegan because they don’t want animals suffering on their behalf. However, clams, along with other bivalves like oysters and mussels, are one of the few animals that some vegetarians are okay with eating. Many claim that they have no brain, or can’t feel pain. The truth is that clams do have a simple nervous system, but we don’t exactly know if they feel pain or not. Let...
When I’ve talked to others about whether it’s right to kill and eat animals, one of the questions I often ask is: If there was a pig (for example) in your backyard that you had to kill if you wanted to have ham for dinner, would you be able to? Most people in that situation would say “no, unless my life depended on it.” But, there are some people who would “sure” – hunters (maybe...
When I first went vegan, I never would have imagined that some wall paint would not be vegan. But here we are…it’s another vegan grey area. There’s 3 main reasons that paint may not be vegan: It can contain dairy products, usually milk protein as a binder. Some paints use beeswax as a binder. They test the paint on animals – This can include testing putting the paint on animals...
Some areas of veganism are quite clear. For example: killing animals to eat them unnecessarily is wrong. But like most things in life, there are grey areas. For vegans, it’s mostly about how far it is reasonable to go to avoid causing suffering. In most cases, there’s not a clear right answer, and you’ll find vegans on either side of the issue. These are mostly small...