Debunking myths and misconceptions about veganism
30 Second Summary
In this article we delve into the most common myths and misconceptions about veganism, from the idea that vegans don’t get enough protein to the claims that a plant-based diet kills more animals than an animal-based diet. Misinformation is one of the biggest barriers to people accepting veganism, so this post will debunk those falsehoods with science, facts, logic, and truth to back it up.
One of the biggest challenges in the animal rights movement is having to counter the endless stream of misinformation directed towards veganism. You’d think that the truth behind animal suffering would be enough to turn anyone vegan, but unfortunately, there are a wide range of excuses yet-to-be vegans present to avoid having to face those facts and commit to veganism.
And to make matters worse, a lot of the time, these excuses are completely unfounded! Let’s dive into some of the misconceptions around veganism and finally put them to bed…
“Vegans don’t get enough protein”
Ding ding! Top of the excuses list is this one. And right off the bat, it doesn’t make any sense. How can you know how much protein someone else is getting in their diet? Protein exists in non-animal based foods - you just have to know which foods provide it, and how much of it you need to eat. The same way you do with any diet.
“If you are a whole-foods plant-based vegan, meaning you’re eating a variety of foods, it’s probably going to be pretty easy to meet your protein needs.”
A plant-based diet has a whole range of options to get your protein from. Tofu, tempeh, seitan, lentils, chickpeas, beans, oats, peas, kale, broccoli, quinoa, rice, peanut butter, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, flaxseed, and every type of nut to name but many. As long as you are using a combination of these in each of your meals, you can easily get your daily intake.
Time to scratch that one off the excuses lists, people.
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“Vegans kill more animals than meat-eaters”
It’s actually mind-boggling that this one is even doing the rounds. The idea that a lifestyle choice exclusively dedicated to not harming animals is killing more animals than one where you literally pay for animals to be killed is… I mean, it’s just ridiculous.
But the reason people use this excuse is down to the dreaded crop-deaths argument. This is the claim that statistically more animals are killed clearing land to grow crops compared to slaughtering one animal to produce lots of meat products.
There’s several layers to the falsity of this claim. Firstly, it’s not just one animal. Around 83 billion animals are killed every year for food. That’s such an unfathomable number of deaths it can be difficult to comprehend, so I’ll repeat it again to really let that figure sink in. 83 billion animals are killed every year for food.
Adding to that, a plant-based diet is actually responsible for less crop-deaths than an animal-based one, as the majority of global crops produced are fed to livestock, with 88% of soy crops fed directly to animals reared for food. This means we are using far more land growing crops for animals than we are growing crops for people. Additionally, vast acres of land are being cleared for animal agriculture, meaning an animal-based diet uses significantly more land, and consequently kills far more animals in the process than a plant-based one. In fact, it is estimated that if the world went vegan, agricultural land use could be reduced by 75%, which is a hugely significant difference.
The animals impacted by crop-deaths is still obviously a concern, but with the onset of progressive approaches like vertical farming, we can continue to find ways of reducing land use and minimising animal displacement. This is impossible to explore if we continue using animals for food. With animal agriculture rapidly increasing in line with a growing population, more and more animals are killed in an animal-based diet every single year.
The biggest impact you can have in reducing the number of animal deaths is by going vegan.
“Vegans are privileged”
The idea that vegans are privileged is pretty rich when it comes out the mouths of those who pay huge corporations to clear acres of land to farm animals, employ people on low incomes to murder those animals, dismember their bodies, smother them in chemicals, package them, and then distribute them to every single supermarket across the world, so customers can pay for the convenience of picking that body part up and taking it home to cook.
How is that not the most privileged thing you’ve ever heard of? And if this misconception is being proposed on the idea that meat-alternatives are more expensive than animal-products, then that’s only true for a very small proportion of options in a plant-based diet. Vegetables, fruit, rice, pasta, beans, and all other foods commonplace in the vegan diet are some of the cheapest items in the supermarket, and you can source plenty of modestly priced plant-based options which aren’t going to break the bank, so the idea that vegans are privileged is based on nothing more than the price of one or two plant-based burger brands.
“Vegans are extreme”
To create a beef burger, you have to separate a male calf from its mother, wait until they’re 13-14 months old, then shackle them by their back legs and slit their throats, tear their body apart, and ground them up into burger shaped discs.
To get a glass of milk, female calves will be forcibly impregnated once a year and have each of their calves stolen from them, before being strapped to machinery and forced to produce 7 gallons of milk a day. When their milk production declines after 5-7 years, they are shackled by their back legs, their throats are slit, and they are torn up and ground into meat products.
All male chicks in the egg industry are macerated as soon as they hatch as they are considered non-profitable. Pigs are killed by being forced into gas chambers. 202 million chickens are slaughtered every single day.
Vegans eat plants.
Which one sounds more extreme to you?
“Plants feel pain too”
I can’t believe I’m having to write a response to this one, but it comes up just enough for it to feel necessary to refute. I struggle to accept the idea that anybody truly believes this. It feels like the ultimate troll response to veganism, but just on the off chance there are those out there who genuinely equate plant sentience and pain awareness to the animals’ experience, let’s do a quick scientific breakdown.
Plants do not have nociceptors, nervous systems or brains. These are critical to the experience of pain, as without them, pain cannot be sensed. Animals do have nociceptors, nervous systems and brains, and so they are capable of experiencing pain.
It really is as simple as that.
“It’s a personal choice”
The issue with this misconception is the idea that a personal decision to take an action detaches the individual from the real life consequences of that action, and when those actions create victims, the choice becomes problematic. Because we could argue that kicking a dog is a personal choice. Punching a child is a personal choice. Committing genocide is a personal choice. But all of these “personal choices” create victims and cause suffering. And so we have a responsibility to make the right choices.
Sure - you can call eating animals a personal choice, but that isn’t a good enough reason to justify the choices being made.
“It’s okay as long as the animals live a long and happy life”
This is the biggest misconception of them all. That the animals we eat lived happy, long, healthy lives without fear, pain or suffering. And then at the end of that life they receive a quick shot to the head as if nothing ever happened.
This is what we want to believe. These are the social narratives employed to ease our conscience when we choose to consume animal products. But this idealistic fantasy is nowhere near the reality.
The truth is, nearly every animal raised for food will be slaughtered before they reach one year old. Chickens are slaughtered after 6 weeks. Ducks will be slaughtered after 7 weeks. Pigs are put into gas chambers when they are 6 months old. Lambs have their throats slit between 3 and 6 months old. A cow’s natural lifespan is 20 years, but most will be slaughtered between 1 and 2 years old. And male chicks in the egg industry and male calves in the dairy industry will all be killed on the day that they are born.
Almost every single one of these animals being turned into animal-based food products will be sent to a factory farm, where the sound and stench of death surrounds them as they are lined up and slaughtered, one by one.
And so the only myth you need to worry about is the term “humane slaughter”, because it is impossible to humanely kill someone who does not want to die.
Additional resources:
Majority of European crops feeding animals and cars, not people - Greenpeace
If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares - Our World in Data
Don’t animals die due to crop farming, too? A vegan response - Viva
What Is Vertical Farming? Everything You Should Know About This Innovation - Eden Green
Do Plants Feel Pain? No, and Here’s How Scientists Know - Sentient Media
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