I won’t waste time explaining it, because it should be fairly obvious why these types of people are a problem.

To be clear— our goal at PlantBasedBegins is to encourage and challenge people to reduce their meat consumption; not necessarily to cut it out all together.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are “Super-Vegans”

(They don’t call themselves Super-Vegans— I just made that up. But it’ll make it easier for me to explain.)

Super-Vegans are people that have already gone fully plant-based, sometimes have been for years, and are usually strict in avoiding animal products all together. They envision a future where no animal is ever used for human benefit, in any way. A lot of them have extremely strong opinions, and there are many who are passionate animal rights activists. And they’re right— animals do deserve much better treatment.

But sadly, that’s not something everyone is going to agree on any time soon.

Here’s another example of a comment (from a “Super-Vegan”) on my first PlantBasedBegins article: “You completely missed out a core value of Veganism; saving the animals. Did you know thousands of animals are raped, tortured, and brutally murdered everyday? [Edited for length]. Veganism is not just for environmental reasons. Going vegan for 31 days or 3 months does not give you enough experience to write a credible article on Veganism.” (…hence why I didn’t title this site “VeganismBegins”)

Yes, encouraging Veganism is really important for our personal health, for the planet, and for animal welfare. But it’s not realistic to expect and entire country to change their eating habits overnight.

This is why people walk away from Veganism feeling guilty, confused, and wanting to avoid the subject all together.

Constantly lecturing people for their current food choices gets us absolutely no where.

It’s easy to see why “Super-Vegans” are eager to get their message across; but the way they communicate that message is doing more harm than good for the overall Plant-Based movement.

Lastly, there are the people who don’t really care; they just think Vegans are “annoying”

These are the people that don’t necessarily hate vegans; they don’t necessarily think plant-based foods are a bad thing; it’s just not really for them. They’re probably confused why there’s so much hype around veganism in the first place, and probably tired of hearing Anti-Vegan and Super-Vegan argue about it.

This group of people includes: my parents, my friends, my coworkers, my old teachers, my neighbors, my grandparents, my dog, my boyfriend, and probably 90% of all the other people on Facebook. Welcome everybody!

Here’s the problem—

If I said “Hey, alcohol isn’t really great for your health. Maybe try giving it up for a little and see how you feel?” …a lot of people would probably take my advice, no question.

But what if I asked you to avoid only cow products for 10 days?

That can’t be too hard, right? Most people can avoid doing most things for 10 days; especially if they’re given a good reason to.

So why is it considered “crazy” for someone to avoid meat and dairy?

I thought if we could just change the way we talk about food, then maybe we could get more people on the same team.

The truth is, we don’t NEED more people eating plant-based foods 100% of the time.

What we need is more people who are willing to give plant-based foods a try. We all need to consider plant-based alternatives, and work together to reduce the demand for animal products.

We don’t need people aiming for perfect vegan diets— we need people to lead their communities toward a healthier, greener lifestyle.