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VEGANISM

The Hardest Thing About Being Vegan

Being vegan is so easy, apart from this one problem

Pathless Pilgrim
6 min readMar 19, 2024

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A young woman affectionately hugging a cow while the cow snuggles her head into the woman’s arms
Photo courtesy of We Animals Media

I went vegan in 1986. Back then there wasn’t a fraction of the choice we all have nowadays. In some respects, things have come on a long way since then.

Walk into any mainstream supermarket today and you’ll see an almost bewildering choice of vegan plant milks, vegan cheese, mock-meats, desserts and more.

It’s never been easier to be vegan.

Nevertheless, people still ask what is the hardest part of being vegan. I usually tell them that being vegan is easy, especially when you imagine yourself in the animals’ place.

But if I’m pressed, I would have to say that the hardest thing about being vegan is the realisation that most people just don’t care.

I don’t mean they don’t care that I’m vegan. That’s not an issue.

There is a popular joke I’m sure you’ve heard: “How do you know if someone’s vegan? Don’t worry — they’ll tell you.” The implication being that vegans are only interested in virtue-signalling and talking about themselves.

On the contrary, I don’t very often tell people I’m vegan in real life. Nobody at work even knows I’m vegan.

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Pathless Pilgrim
Pathless Pilgrim

Written by Pathless Pilgrim

Vegan for almost 40 years with a first-class degree in law. Animal rights, ethics & social justice. Download my FREE eBook at: lllpg.com/Veganism/

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