When you go vegan, prepare to answer many questions about your new lifestyle and vegan diet. Especially non-vegan people around you in your closest surroundings, like family, friends, and co-workers, might be confused and also curious. They all want to know what veganism is actually about and why you have made this decision.
Like anything else what feels unusual and deviates from “normal” societal norms, people tend to have loads of sometimes weird, sometimes funny and sometimes even derisive questions. And it’s entirely up to you how you will handle them.
In most of the cases, people want to learn and get more information about veganism. If they never heard about veganism before or don’t know anyone who chose this path, they will ask you curious questions. For you, these questions might sound silly or obvious. Try to give appropriate, clear answers and don’t laugh when you get a bizarre question like “Don’t plants feel pain, too?”
Be ready for very personal questions about your vegan life – how you live at home, how your household looks like, what you eat and wear. Remember to stay calm and be patient and understanding. No matter how hard, silly or mocking a question is, always give the most upfront answer you can.
So, what are some of the most frequent questions you will probably hear from your family and friends?
1. Where do you get your protein from?
Let’s start with the most annoying, yet the most often repeated question. While being carnivores, people think meat is the only and the best source of protein. That’s probably because of they never heard or thought of meatless alternative sources, such as tofu, tempeh and other soy product which can not only look like meat but also taste like meat!
Explain that you get more than enough protein from many plant-based sources. Mention beans, quinoa, nuts, seeds, wheat, tofu and some kinds of vegetable give you plenty of protein. Stress that no one in the whole history of this world ever died of protein deficiency!
If your family still doesn’t believe you, show them examples in a real life. Tell them about many world athletes who won their medals while being on a vegan diet. For example, Venus Williams, the second best female tennis player in the world, has adopted a vegan diet since 2011.
2. If you got stuck on a desert island with a chicken, would you eat it?
This is one of those questions which drives all vegans crazy. Let me get this straight: How big is a chance you will ever get stranded on a deserted island? With a chicken on the top of it? People are mean sometimes and they will question your ethic beliefs whenever they get a chance.
There will never be a situation when you are forced to eat meat, so don’t worry about answering this question. Tell them you would eat whatever the chicken eat to survive so you can share food!
3. Don’t you miss meat and cheese? They taste so good!
Meat and cheese surely taste good and especially when you are new to veganism, you still remember the taste very clearly. But when you think about the origin of these animal products, is the taste more important to you? More important than the fact that animals have to die for “the good taste”? I am sure your ethic values are more important!
When comes to the animal suffering, vegans don’t care about “good taste”. They care about animals’ well-being and happiness. They don’t want to be any part of a slaughter or farm misery.
Explain this philosophy of ethics to your family and friends and let them think about it. They might come to a conclusion that no human being’s life is more important than any animal’s life!
4. If you don’t eat dairy, meat or eggs, what do you actually eat?
Non-vegans think that anyone who doesn’t eat any animal products has to survive on two kinds of vegetable and fruits. Here you have a great chance to tell that you eat all the same food as anyone else, just without animal products.
The best what you can do is to let people know about other amazing plant-based products which are less known among meat eaters. Introduce the whole unexplored vegan world of goodies: beans, legumes, flowers, seeds, nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables. Kindly explain that you are not starving and you don’t eat only lettuce and spinach, but a whole lot more than this!
5. Why do vegans want things that they taste or look like meat? Why don’t they just eat meat?
Non-vegans have probably noticed how many “meatless meat” and meat substitutes they find in a supermarket and they naturally ask why. Why do vegans want “meatless meat” if they don’t like meat? The truth is that almost all vegans were not born or raised as vegans. They became vegans during their lives after they made the choice of going vegan. And before going vegan, they all ate meat and other animal products.
Vegans don’t say that the meat tastes disgusting. That would sound so pathetic after eating meat all this time before they turn to be vegans, right? It is more about texture than the taste, and vegans still enjoy this “meaty” texture which they used to like it before.
So, why not to keep eating fake meat? Vegans didn’t stop eating meat because of the taste, but because of the ethical basis. Animal-free replicas never hurt anyone and they taste as good as “real” meat!
6. Being on a vegan diet is so expensive. How do you afford it?
In my opinion, this is a reasonable question. For someone who has just become vegan recently, it might feel a bit overwhelming and yes, expensive, when they step up to a plant-based aisle in a supermarket. Like with anything else, you have to invest a certain amount of money at the first t make something work.
Veganism is not different. Vegans put a lot of effort and money at the beginning to fill a stock with plant-based food. But once they do it, they are actually saving money. Just think about it. By buying cheese, eggs or meant you spend more money than buying cans of vegetable or some nuts. In a long-term, vegans spend fairly less money on food than non-vegans.
You can save even more money when you buy your seeds, grains, and nuts in a bulk. Buy just the amount you want and won’t spend any more necessary money. You can also make many vegan products at home, and that’s all from ingredients you already have somewhere in your pantry!
7. Wouldn’t cows explode if we didn’t milk them?
This question is one of more hilarious, yet it doesn’t make any vegan laugh. Milking cows is an issue going beyond a vegan diet. It’s an issue of the right ethnic toward to farm animals. Cows repeatedly produce milk because farmers impregnate them artificially. If this cycle didn’t happen, cows would produce just enough milk to feed their calves.
It is important to understand the whole issue as a complex problem. It’s not about producing milk. It’s about raping cows and maintaining them in a cycle of pregnancy and a follow-up breastfeeding. If cows could keep their calves, there would be a way in which the milk would be utilized. In a reality, cows are taken away few hours after being born.
Explaining this issue requires a lot of patience and also some research and getting the right information. So don’t be shy to browse online, go to a local library or even visit nearby farmers to understand a dairy industry. Once you feel confident about the issue, you can talk about it and explain it to your family and friends.
8. Can’t you just pick it off?
You can expect this question while going out for dinner or meeting your friends and family at some gatherings, events, and potlucks. They surely will scrutinize what you put on your plate, and when in a restaurant, they will try to convince you ordering a meal with a tiny piece of an animal product. Because: “You can just pick it off”!
Non-vegans don’t understand how uncomfortable makes you sitting next to someone who orders a whole roasted chicken leg or a bloody beef steak. How can they understand how nauseous you feel when you have an animal product on your own plate?
Explain to them that your beliefs about not eating any animal products go beyond just a diet and that this is your life philosophy. Compare it to someone who is Jewish or Hindu; they don’t eat certain food because it’s against their religious beliefs. Your family definitely wouldn’t tempt someone like this to eat something which messes up with their religion!
9. You don’t look like a vegan! Aren’t all vegans skinny?
This sounds like a joke, right? Like with any other diet, people come with all different sizes and shapes, no matter what they eat. The genetics, upbringing and cultural background is the key! People often believe this misleading idea that if you eat only greens, you cannot put any weights. But that’s absolutely not true!
Why should a vegan look like a vegan, anyway? What defines vegan of looking like a vegan? Other people never find out about your diet unless you tell them about it. Even if people ate the same food, the same amount and the same size of meals, they would never look the same. So why would all vegans look the same?
Explain about different metabolism speed and also about so many sweet treats in a vegan diet! Now everyone should understand that veganism is no diet!
10. Can’t you just eat free-range eggs and organic animal products?
Labels such as “free-range” or “organic” still don’t change anything about how farm animals are forced to live their lives. Because “free-range” chickens have more space to move doesn’t necessarily mean they live the life as it was intended.
Only hens lay eggs while male chicks are still killed in a grinder (which is, by the way, an absolutely terrible way to die). When you think about it, being “free-range” or “organic” has nothing to do with improving living conditions of farm animals. It might sound better and not so cruel, but in reality, it doesn’t change the thing.
The same goes for so-called organic animal products, such as meat from ecological or friendly farms. Animals in such farms might have more room to wander around, but eventually, they are slaughtered in exactly the same way as factory farm animals. Can you see any possible difference between an organic and regular animal slaughter?
Be prepare to answer common questions about veganism!
There you go! With a little bit of research, asking for the right information around, and of course, from your own experience, you will always be prepared to answer any tricky question which your family or friends might ask you! My article helps you find the correct and appropriate answer for 10 questions which vegans hear the most!
Do you have any other questions about a vegan lifestyle which people ask you frequently? Let me know how you answer them in comments below!
Klara Walterova
Klara is a professional freelance writer for hire. She offers web content, blog posting, ghostwriting and copywriting. She writes for a healthy lifestyle, wellness and travel websites. She focuses on veganism and the vegan diet. When she's not writing, she develops new tasty vegan recipes, travels the world or plays with her cats. Please contact her for her online writing services on her website writtenbyvegan.com or visit her Instagram profile @writtenbyvegan.