Things Not to Say To Your Vegan Friend

Mind your own protein please.

Kind of Wild is a weekly newsletter on vegan travel and ethical luxury. I am a 40-something published author, podcaster, public speaker, charity PR specialist and writer. I speak four languages and live in Brighton, UK. I’ve been vegan for over a decade. I want to save the world - but I also want to experience it.

The joys of being vegan: saving animals, amazing food, going to animal sanctuaries, great community, more energy, cashew cheese, smaller environmental impact, better skin, cool and innovative fashion, never having eat liver again, a bit of a clearer conscience in this tormented world.

The difficulties of being vegan: interacting with people who aren’t (well, that and goddamn milk powder in every food on Earth).

As someone who’s been vegan for over a decade, I’ve heard it ALL. From ancestors to canines to what I’d do if I was on a desert island (can we make that a dessert island, please? With vegan tiramisù and maritozzi?), there isn’t a cliché sentence I haven’t rolled my eyes at patiently debunked. If you’re a long-term vegan too, I know you’re nodding along. Here are my favourites, and by “favourites”, I mean “things I hope never to hear again.”

Here’s hoping no one will say this BS in the future

Where do you get your protein?

Cue collective groans of frustration from the world’s entire vegan population. Your vegan friend will probably sigh in silence (or aloud, if they are more the blunt type) before they rattle off The List: beans, lentils, peas, pulses, tofu, tempeh, nuts, seeds, fortified vegan meats. And probably other foods I can’t remember right now. Protein is present in so many of the foods we eat, and we don’t need as much of it as we are currently eating. If you are curious about a plant-based diet yourself and are wary of protein deficiencies, there are ways to reframe this, such as by asking, “I’ve been thinking of going more plant-based myself, could you recommend some of the more protein-rich things you eat?” This is more inclusive and signals curiosity rather than judgement.

My brother’s husband’s mechanic’s hairdresser’s cat’s second cousin was vegan for ten minutes in 1993. He died of malnutrition.

I’ve had this thrown at me, and I just don’t know what to do with it. It’s not every day that I have the patience to explain that every diet under the sun can be good or bad depending on the actual choices, and that health and well-being are about so much more than food. Vegans are not nutritionists, but so often social interactions force us to act like we have absolute knowledge of every vitamin and mineral that the human body can possibly need. It’s exhausting. If the occasion allows, I would like to respond, “oh, is that a beer you got there? My relative was an alcoholic. He died from it.”

But can’t you make an exception? Treat yourself!

I remember once in a former job, a colleague said to me that I should have “one day a year when you can eat what you want.” I tried explaining that I eat what I want every day, but I could tell that she didn’t believe me. The thing is, for vegans, it’s not a treat. We don’t see animal-derived products as indulgences; we don’t even see them as food. I’m specifically talking about long-term vegans here - new vegans might still miss some of the foods they no longer eat. But this makes it sound like we are torturing ourselves with our choices on a regular basis and need a “treat” to be able to cope. Even worse when followed by “we won’t tell anyone” (vomiting emoji).

Does this look like the face of a girl who is NOT treating herself? No indeed. It does not.

Vegetarian is okay. But vegan is so extreme.

On behalf of vegetarians, thank you so much for the approval! How on Earth were vegetarians surviving before the reassurance that you think they are, in fact, okay? Secondly, this puts vegans in the position of having to defend themselves - always fun at a party or another social interaction. I just want to eat my tofu hot dog in peace, without having a debate. But if you must know, there is absolutely nothing extreme in realising that if we don’t want to eat animals’ flesh, it’s logical to not want to partake in other, closely related industries that also kill them. And speaking of that, this often comes from ignorance - not many people are actually aware that animals are also killed for milk and eggs. I often swallow my frustration here and drop a few facts on how the dairy industry separates newborn calves from their mothers, causing enormous distress to both the mother and the baby. I talk about how “ethical eggs” are a scam and remind that newborn male chicks are tossed into a grinder, gassed, or left in a bag to suffocate as they aren’t useful for the industry. Choosing a bean burrito doesn’t sound so extreme now, does it?

If you don’t like meat, why do you eat things that look/taste like it?

Who said I don’t like meat? I did! Fried chicken used to be my favourite food on Earth. I loved fish, too. Many other vegans feel the same. We didn’t stop eating these things because we don’t like them. We stopped because they are the products of extreme exploitation and abuse. So, having substitutes that taste similar, without the cruelty, is a godsend. Seems weird to criticise it.

But if we didn’t eat animals, they would overrun the world and at the same time go extinct.

It hasn’t yet dawned on many people that farm animals only exist because we breed them into existence. These animals aren't natural - they’re here because we’ve created them. If we stopped breeding them, they’d gradually be phased back out of existence. Instead of dedicating 20% of all land on Earth to farming animals (yes, you read that right) to this violent industry, we could re-wild these areas, bring back the biodiversity lost to animal agriculture and protect the species that actually exist in nature. But, you know, none of that is likely to happen, as people want bacon.

Just pick the meat out of it.

Just shoot me.

Me getting my protein

I’m fine with vegans, as long as they don’t force their opinions on me.

Interesting how you never hear anyone say, “I’m fine with children’s rights activists, as long as they don’t force me to respect children”, or “Hey, all good with me if you’re against war. Just don’t try to talk me out of my war-loving ways!” I suspect this is because veganism asks something of you that goes beyond signing a petition. It’s asking you to change your daily life and habits, and makes you realise, somewhere deep down, that perhaps you should. Vegans “forcing their opinions on you” just reminds you that if you are against cruelty to animals as you claim to be, you’re living out of alignment with your own values. This can be a painful truth - so you prefer to ignore it, which is hard to do with those pesky vegans bringing it to your attention. This is actually why vegans are disliked.

And hey, I’m the same whenever someone criticises Amazon. I instinctively go into defensive mode because I want to keep shopping there! It’s so convenient and easy (next-day delivery!). But if I sit with this for a minute, I realise that they are right and I am wrong. Shopping there goes against my own morals. I might still succumb to Amazon after having this insight, but that doesn’t make them less right and me less wrong.

A controversial one that I am actually fine with:

I only eat a little meat.

I like it when people say that they only eat a little meat. It means that they are trying! They are making an attempt to lower their meat consumption, which can only be good for animals. In the past, I have indeed nodded at that meme with the drawing of a pig saying, “and I am only a little dead.” But now I do think that we need to be more flexible and understanding. Some of us need to drop the martyrdom act and come to terms with the truth: that ten vegans will not save as many animals as ten thousand people who only eat a little meat. Yes, I know that the goal is ten thousand vegans, I understand that. But the only way that will happen is through a gradual shift, which begins with only eating a little meat. I myself only ate a little meat during a transitional time in my life - one that many new vegans go through. And if we act judgmental and unhelpful during that time, we won’t make it easier on those potential vegans. So yes, encourage “only a little meat.” Most of us were there before we made the switch.

If you’re vegan, what are some of the most frustrating things you’ve heard from non-vegans? And if you’re not vegan and have said any of these to vegans, don’t sweat it. We’ve heard it all before! And I’m sure I’ve said my share of ridiculous stuff to people whose lives are different from mine. You can still sit with us - and you want to, we’ve got really good pizza.