‘Vegan’ has become somewhat of a buzz word recently, in fact, Collins dictionary defined that it is on the short list of new and notable words that have become popular in the last 12 months.
With the growth of veganism, however, comes the sceptics and harsh comments. We see many people speak out against the movement and a torrent of online users who preach for veganism but do so in a negative way.
So, the question is, do vegans have a raw deal?
A few weeks okay William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose food magazine, responded to an e-mail from journalist Selene Nelson who suggested a feature on plant-based recipes. In his response he suggested to instead have a series on “killing vegans, one by one”.
After receiving backlash he decided to resign, however, he said “It was a stupid email but should not be a career-ender. Vegans are not a race or gender or sexual orientation or a differently-abled group. They just choose to eat plants”.
His first comment was horrendous, but that second one? That’s just ignorant. People do not go vegan because all they want to do is eat plants. People go vegan because they care about animal welfare, the environment and their health.
If everyone on the planet went vegan the world’s food related emissions would drop by 70% by 2050, according to a recent journal from the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
The World Health Organisation reported that if a global vegan diet was applied there would be 8.1 million fewer deaths per year worldwide.
According to a research published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition a meat eaters diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian.
So, no William Sitwell I don’t think people choose a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle because they simply “choose to eat plants”. However, William is definitely not the first to have a ridiculously controversial opinion on veganism online.
In 2015 the White Moose Café in Phibsborough went viral for ‘banning’ vegans. The owner, Paul Stenson, took to social media saying “Given the torrent of abuse and unjustified negative reviews we have been receiving from the vegan population over the past 24 hours, all vegans are now barred from our café.
Any vegans attempting to enter the café will be shot dead at point blank range”.
It’s obvious that Stenson, like Sitwell, is being outlandishly controversial and just looking for attention. However, their negativity and ignorance on the subject sends a terrible message about the vegan community to non-vegans.
On the other hand there are also vegans who give the vegan community a bad name, and what in my opinion, people like Stenson and Sitwell think all vegans are like.
These vegans are commonly known online as ‘the vegan police’. They speak highly negatively about meat-eaters, vegetarians and anyone who is partially vegan. Basically, they ‘call out’ people online who don’t follow a 100% vegan-based lifestyle.
All in all vegans definitely have a raw deal. They get slack from ignorant meat-eaters on one side and for ‘not being vegan enough’ on the other.
However, isn’t this vastly similar to almost anything in life? We can never win no matter what we do and people will always have disagreements.
So stick up for your own beliefs, but don’t be ignorant towards others.