The reasons to become vegan are well-known, (here are some reasons to go vegan), and it’s not as hard to go vegan as one would think. This post is specifically about why I never went vegan earlier than when I actually did.

Cows grazing and lounging near brick houses on a green hill. Sheep far away on another hill

Reasons for me to not go vegan

  • I did not grow up in a vegetarian family, and the inherent casteism of Indian vegetarianism[1] (it’s mostly about ritual purity rather than actual care for animals, since they’d be vegan otherwise) alienated me from vegetarianism, and by extension, veganism.
  • If you start thinking about minimising suffering from a utilitarian perspective, there is almost nothing you can do to not be involved in it, at least indirectly. There is intense slavery in the globalised supply chain[2], for example, and if one wished to clean their hands of everything wrong with the world, there’s not much they could participate in.
  • I always thought people positioning veganism as the only moral option was unfair on indigenous people who live(d) sustainably as part of their surroundings, rather than engaging in destructive practices.
  • I thought PETA was annoying.
  • I used to live with someone who ate a lot of chicken, and could not be arsed to cook a separate meal for myself.
  • I had trouble eating vegetables when I was younger. This might be because I hated the way they were cooked at home.
  • Vegan food is still niche in India where even though there’s a sizeable vegetarian population, dairy is everywhere. I believe if you tell the average Indian you don’t consume dairy they’re going to think you’re crazy.
  • I felt people would no longer take me seriously if I told them I was vegan.

My current thoughts

Being vegan for me is specifically about not being complicit in unnecessary animal deaths. It is okay to decide what I wish to eat on my short life on this planet. I don’t want to eat animals and I don’t want them to be grown for food, when perfectly serviceable alternatives exist. I don’t have to participate in this just to prove some sort of point to myself. I no longer feel like have to solve all the issues in the world to care about this one thing.