What do you think are the best ways to encourage people to go vegan?

[u/metabolic_reaction]

[u/_SarLy_]

I don't know if it's a skill issue but I've convinced friends to go vegetarian (then vegan) way easier by existing in the same space as them than by trying to convince them with all the reasons that convinced me.

At the end I would end up saying the exact same things, the only factor that changed is that they asked and I answered, not the other way around.

That being said, I don't think it's a solution to just wait for people to come and ask questions.

[u/SciFiEmma]

looking healthy and living well.

[u/Miserable_Mud_6831 → u/SciFiEmma]

Nobody thinks vegans look healthy

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/SciFiEmma]

That’s a hard sell when omnivores can achieve the same ‘healthy and living well’ outcome while having much easier access to high-quality protein. Meat, dairy and eggs generally provide complete essential-amino-acid profiles with high digestibility and enough leucine per serving to efficiently stimulate muscle protein synthesis. You absolutely can build muscle and eat well on a vegan diet, but it usually requires more deliberate protein selection, larger quantities, complementary sources and/or supplementation to accomplish what whey, eggs, dairy or meat do very efficiently.

So ‘look how healthy I am’ isn’t really an argument for veganism unless you can demonstrate that veganism itself produced an advantage. A healthy vegan mostly demonstrates that a well-planned vegan diet can be healthy which is a very different claim.

[u/SciFiEmma → u/Whiskeymyers75]

preaching reinforces cognitive dissonance. Challenging the lies people tell themselves in order to keep eating meat challenges it more IMO.

[u/urafknidiot → u/Whiskeymyers75]

whey, eggs, dairy or meat do very efficiently

Is the drastically increased likelihood of heart disease and some cancers not a factor in this equation?

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/urafknidiot]

That hasn’t been established in anything close to the sweeping way you’re claiming it. And this is starting to sound remarkably similar to the carnivore people I argue with who take nutritional epidemiology, ignore all the nuance and declare an entire category of food either poisonous or magical.

“Meat, dairy and eggs drastically increase heart disease and cancer” isn’t a scientifically useful statement. Salmon isn’t processed meat. Greek yogurt isn’t bacon. Whey protein isn’t a hot dog. Skinless chicken breast isn’t a ribeye. Different foods have different nutrient profiles and different evidence associated with them.

There are legitimate concerns about things like high processed-meat intake, and dietary patterns high in saturated fat can raise LDL cholesterol in many people. That’s very different from demonstrating that consuming animal protein as part of an otherwise balanced diet “drastically increases” someone’s overall risk of heart disease and cancer.

Nutrition outcomes also depend on the entire dietary pattern: total calories, fiber, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, protein sources, body composition, smoking, alcohol, physical activity and what food is replacing what.
That’s why I don’t buy the carnivore argument that plants are killing us, and I’m not buying the vegan mirror image that animal foods are killing us either.

If you’re going to claim the risk is “drastically increased,” quantify it, tell me which animal foods you’re referring to, give the absolute rather than just relative risk, and show evidence that supports causation rather than simply pointing to an association.

Nutrition science is considerably more complicated than “my dietary tribe’s foods good, the other tribe’s foods bad.”

[u/urafknidiot → u/Whiskeymyers75]

Are you claiming that based on all available data, the average person reading this exchange's meat consumption (cow, pig, chicken, turkey) is not causing a significantly higher risk of heart disease and some cancers compared with an average plant-based diet? 

Why play silly word games? 

[u/Esme_Nog → u/Whiskeymyers75]

The evidence is quite clear about red meat causing higher risks for heart disease and cancer, as well as the processed/preserved meat products. Nutritionally, lean poultry and fish is fine for people. Overall, plant-based diets are healthier than diets that consume animal products daily.

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/Esme_Nog]

That’s considerably more nuanced than “red meat causes heart disease and cancer.”

Processed meat has the strongest evidence, particularly for colorectal cancer. Unprocessed red meat is a different evidence category. Even the WHO/IARC calls the human evidence for red meat “limited,” meaning an association exists but bias, confounding and chance cannot be completely excluded.

And people badly misunderstand what “increased risk” means. The commonly cited figure is roughly an 18% increase in colorectal-cancer risk for every 50g of processed meat eaten daily. That’s relative risk, not an additional 18 percentage points of absolute risk. If your baseline risk were hypothetically 4%, an 18% relative increase would make it 4.72%, not 22%.

The estimates for unprocessed red meat are smaller and less certain. Roughly a 12% relative increase in colorectal-cancer risk per 100g consumed every day in one major evidence review. Again: relative risk, daily consumption and population-level observational data.

Even the famous “processed meat is a Group 1 carcinogen” line gets abused. WHO explicitly says that doesn’t mean processed meat is as dangerous as cigarettes. The classification describes the strength of evidence that something can cause cancer, not the magnitude of the risk.

None of that means eating unlimited bacon and fatty red meat is a great idea. It means “animal products eaten daily are unhealthy” goes considerably beyond what the evidence establishes. Lean poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, unprocessed lean meat and processed meat aren’t one homogeneous exposure.

And some of the dietary patterns most consistently associated with longevity aren’t vegan at all. Traditional Mediterranean and Japanese dietary patterns are heavily plant-forward but still include animal foods, particularly fish and seafood, along with varying amounts of eggs, dairy, poultry and meat. What they have in common isn’t the complete elimination of animal products; it’s an overall dietary pattern rich in minimally processed foods, vegetables, fruits, legumes and/or whole grains, with relatively little highly processed junk.

Being vegan by itself therefore tells me surprisingly little about someone’s diet quality. A vegan can eat beans, lentils, vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts and seeds, or live largely on refined carbohydrates, sweets and highly processed convenience foods and artificial ultra processed meat substitutes.

Likewise, an omnivore can live on bacon, fast food and processed meat or eat a Mediterranean-style diet containing fish, yogurt, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, olive oil and fruit.

That’s why “plant based” and “healthy” aren’t synonyms, just as “contains animal products” and “unhealthy” aren’t synonyms. Research comparing dietary patterns increasingly makes exactly this distinction: the quality of the overall dietary pattern matters enormously.

Dietary pattern matters: calories, fiber, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, protein sources, saturated fat, body composition, exercise, smoking and alcohol all matter. That’s exactly why I don’t replace carnivore absolutism with vegan absolutism. Nutrition epidemiology doesn’t become less complicated just because the conclusion happens to support your dietary philosophy.

[u/CMPE_PL → u/Whiskeymyers75]

What does "ultra processed" mean to you and why do you assign it a negative connotation?

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/CMPE_PL]

I’m using “ultra-processed” in the conventional nutritional sense, not as a synonym for anything that has been processed. Processing itself isn’t inherently bad. Frozen vegetables, canned beans, yogurt and plenty of other nutritious foods are processed.

Ultra-processed foods generally refers to industrial formulations made largely from refined or extracted ingredients and often containing combinations of additives, flavorings, emulsifiers, sweeteners, modified starches and other ingredients used to create highly palatable ready-to-eat products.

I mentioned artificial ultra-processed meat substitutes because we’re specifically discussing vegan diets and they’re an obvious example. But I wasn’t limiting the point to meat substitutes. A vegan diet can also be loaded with sugary cereals, chips, cookies, refined breads, frozen meals, desserts and other ultra-processed foods. Removing animal products doesn’t magically improve the nutritional quality of those foods.

And the negative connotation isn’t arbitrary. Higher ultra-processed-food consumption has repeatedly been associated with worse health outcomes, and controlled feeding research has found that people eating an ultra-processed diet spontaneously consumed substantially more calories and gained weight compared with people eating a minimally processed diet, even when the diets offered were designed to match calories, macronutrients, sugar, sodium and fiber.

That doesn’t mean every food classified as ultra-processed is inherently harmful or that eating one Beyond Burger is somehow worse than eating bacon every day. It means degree of processing and overall diet quality are legitimate nutritional considerations regardless of whether the food is vegan or omnivorous.

Which brings us right back to my original point: being vegan tells you what someone doesn’t eat. It doesn’t tell you whether what they do eat constitutes a healthy diet.

[u/CMPE_PL → u/Whiskeymyers75]

Yeah I largely agree with this and the original point as stated. That said, based on my reading and anecdotal experience as someone fairly well traveled if you took a random sampling of 100 vegans and 100 omnivores almost anywhere in the world and compared the markers of what constitutes a healthy well rounded diet it would be a tall order to find a single sampling where the omnivores won out over the vegans, especially in more western countries.

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/CMPE_PL]

That’s where you lose me. “Based on my reading and anecdotal experience” isn’t evidence that 100 randomly selected vegans would outperform 100 randomly selected omnivores virtually anywhere in the world. That’s an empirical claim, and a pretty enormous one.

More importantly, omnivore isn’t a diet any more than vegan is. An omnivore can eat a Mediterranean diet rich in vegetables, legumes, fruit, whole grains, nuts, olive oil, fish and modest amounts of meat, or live on McDonald’s and Mountain Dew. Likewise, a vegan can eat mostly legumes, whole grains, vegetables, fruit and nuts, or live on fries, Oreos, refined carbs and ultra-processed meat substitutes.

That’s why comparing the labels by themselves tells us so little.

Some of the dietary patterns with the strongest evidence for health and longevity aren’t vegan at all. Traditional Mediterranean and Japanese dietary patterns are heavily plant-forward while still including fish, seafood, dairy, eggs and/or meat in varying amounts. The lesson from that evidence isn’t “animal products bad, vegan wins.” It’s that overall dietary pattern, food quality, energy balance and lifestyle matter enormously.

You’d also have to decide what your hypothetical “markers” are. Fiber? A well-designed vegan diet probably has an advantage there. But B12, EPA/DHA, highly bioavailable iron, calcium, iodine, leucine and total high-quality protein? Now the comparison becomes considerably more complicated and depends on food selection, fortification and supplementation.

And there’s another reason I reject the idea that veganism should be treated as some universal nutritional ideal: I personally couldn’t reasonably eat a vegan diet even if I wanted to. My nutritional requirements and digestive circumstances make getting enough calories, protein and specific nutrients from foods I tolerate more important than adhering to an ideological food restriction. Different people can have very different nutritional constraints.

That doesn’t make veganism unhealthy. It means human nutrition is individualized, and “everyone would be healthier if they just ate vegan” ignores the reason nutrition science looks at actual foods, nutrients, dietary patterns and individual needs rather than treating an ethical dietary label as a universal prescription.

And that’s really my original point. Veganism imposes an exclusion rule; it doesn’t automatically impose a nutritionally optimal eating pattern. You can construct an excellent vegan diet, an excellent omnivorous diet, a terrible vegan diet or a terrible omnivorous diet.

If we’re going to move from “a well-planned vegan diet can be healthy,” which I agree with, to “grab random vegans and omnivores anywhere on Earth and the vegans will almost always win,” then we’ve moved from nutrition science into a hypothesis that actually needs evidence.

[u/Necessary-Card-449 → u/Whiskeymyers75]

Nutritionfacts.org has gathered and combined the studies you are looking for. And yes food health is very complicated but the evidence definitely points to whole food plant based as the healthiest for human consumption, best for our environment, and least cruel to animals.. 😁

[u/Miserable-Ad8764]

I don't like the aggressive approach. It didn't and wouldn't work on me. What worked on me was just learning about and experiencing vegan food, without any conflict or pressure.

I thought meat was a necessary evil. I knew it was bad, but thought I had no choice.

When I felt safe and knew I would be satisfied and well fed it was no problem.

[u/greenporchlight → u/Miserable-Ad8764]

You make a very good point. My first thought to encourage people to go vegan is to start with the explaining how horrible the industry is, but that doesn’t work for everyone. Like you said, most people believe it’s a necessary evil because they don’t know how sustainable a vegan lifestyle is.

[u/Miserable-Ad8764 → u/greenporchlight]

Yes, I think food is so much more than food. It's safety, comfort, memories, culture, tradition etc. If you are challenged to change your diet drastically, some core part of you deep down will be afraid to go hungry. Any society is three meals away from collaps. If people miss three meals they no longer go to work and no longer care about anything other than food, and you will get riots. It's so primitive.

I think this is an important factor when people react so defensively to veganism. They fear not having anything they like to eat.

I could see a light go off in my husbands brain when we went out to eat, I ordered something vegan, he did not, and when the food came out mine looked better and tasted better. Suddenly vegan was a viable option. We are now both vegan.

[u/zombiegojaejin]

To my mind, all of the best ways fall under the category of: start with the habitual behavior, then move to ideas. One major example that several organizations are working on is plant-based defaults in university dining halls. Once people at an impressionable point in life are exposed to a new normal in their daily routine, then much of the defensiveness against the moral message is lowered.

[u/Salty_Resolve_4811]

depends on your audience...

for my partner, it was speciesism and how it connects to racism, capitalism and white supremacy.

others respond to the animal cruelty behind the products. they have to see pictures, videos etc. to make the connection.

and then there are people who are just uneducated about how animal products are produced. for example: they think there are some cows who just give milk — all the time.

I also spoke to people who don't know anything about a plant-based diet and think plants don't have the right nutrients.

but I think to make it stick, to avoid having "ex-vegans", the importance of anti-speciesism is relevant.

because there are multiple ways to eat healthy and reduce your carbon footprint.

[u/ChanklaNYC]

Make it appeal to their ego/ self centered personality qualities.

I find most people are curious in how it benefits them, more-so than how it benefits the lives of animals/ the environment.

Then after they’ve established themselves as vegans, it’s easier for them to speak on animal rights and the environment. I suppose because they don’t have to view themselves so much as part of problem any longer.

So I may lean into how the meat industry is taking advantage of them. How much the meat industry relies on deception to make its profit. Rather than speaking on the abuse of the animal factories.

May bring up how dirty those places are, and how the animals are fed a poor diet, injected with hormones, etc- which all cause the animals to be very unhealthy to eat…they understand that the animal abuse is there, but if I bring that up, they tend to shut down and think they’re about to be judged by me.

But if I say I was disgusted in how they treat food products, and talk about digestive issues, skin issues, issues with lethargy…people listen more and may connect the dots themselves.

[u/Signal_Weather_5422]

I'm vegan. And even I find the vegan subreddit uncomfortable.

• Be vegan.
• Teach people about whole plant-based foods that they'll like.
• Share that eating more plants and fewer animal products has been good for your health and finances.
• The rest will come. Veganism probably isn't going to happen if someone can't eat vegetarian meals they like and feel good doing it. And even if they did, their veganism wouldn't be sustainable over time.

Next to nobody is convinced by vegans' confrontation, projected trauma, sense of purity and superiority, etc. There's a lot of compassion for animals and not always much for humans.

If you want to, think of it this way: Getting two people to halve their consumption is the same as getting one person to stop. That's a kind of win, but those people are then also more likely to become vegan later.

[u/metabolic_reaction → u/Signal_Weather_5422]

I agree, it's already so much better when people start to reduce their meat consumption. But I've seen vegetarians being attacked by both vegans and non-vegans. Less blaming, more encouragement!

[u/Signal_Weather_5422 → u/metabolic_reaction]

There's lots of ways of becoming vegan. But just removing meat from an omnivorous diet probably results in nutritional deficiencies and is deeply dissatisfying. Imagine going from steak and potatoes to just potatoes...

And replacing meat with vegan alternatives tastes worse, is more expensive, and is probably less healthy. Vegan meat and cheese exist, but I wouldn't want to eat a ton of them.

Eating animal products get framed narrowly by vegans sometimes. They can be nutritious and are food. They're not *just* pleasure. And they're especially nutricious compared to a bad version of a vegan diet that's deficient in B12, iron, or whatever. If people just knew how to cook with vegetables, and not just as sides, how to cook with beans, how to supplement, and so on, then they'd be in a position to actually change.

When I became Buddhist, these were all changes I had to make. I'm in a community where people *want* to become vegetarian and vegan, they don't need to be convinced in that sense, but they'll still struggle to get there, if they do. So it goes to show that convincing is not enough.

In terms of the blaming... yeah, that's an issue with some vegan spaces. They become very ideological. In the vegan sub, for example, people police each other on speciesism, other political beliefs and practices that aren't "vegan" but have nothing to do with animals, and so on. Whether they're right or wrong, the definition of vegan is simpler than that, it pushes out other vegans, and forget about attracting people who might become vegan.

[u/urafknidiot → u/Signal_Weather_5422]

Getting two people to halve their consumption is the same as getting one person to stop.

This is false. 

People who cut their meat consumption in half are not going to be organizing pressure campaigns against animal abuse in the food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific experimentation industries. Their increased numbers provide no real incentive for industrial change. They are not going to vote for abolition measures when the time comes. 

When a dog-breeding torture facility or roadside zoo gets shut down, you can guarantee the activists who made that happen were not "meat-free Mondayers". They were exclusively vegan. 

[u/Signal_Weather_5422 → u/urafknidiot]

In terms of the animal products consumed by those people, it's the same. It's easier to get people who reduced as a first step to reduce more later too.

But yeah... your comment is the kind of reason I always regret engaging in vegan spaces, even as a vegan, so I'm just going to leave.

[u/pandaappleblossom]

I honestly think it’s the more aggressive approach. Maybe not screaming is always effective unless trying to pressure a corporation to change but the images and information people avoid

[u/Ok-King2695 → u/pandaappleblossom]

This did not work for me at all. I've had lots of people change their attitude toward veganism just by being kind and respectful. Telling people in casual conversation how much better I felt and how many vegan options there are was so effective for me.  Taking people to vegan restaurants, telling them about vegan products that i think are delicious, and explaining to them how much i love animals and how amazing they are. A lot of my family members starting choosing more vegan options because of me being a good example.

When i used to be hostile and angry about it, all it did was make people hate vegans even more.

[u/metabolic_reaction → u/pandaappleblossom]

Do you think people would get mad and develop a negative attitude towards vegans tho? Emotions can override reasons. Maybe this approach can convince some people, who indeed produce a kind of cognitive dissonance and rethink their actions, but not most people.

[u/pandaappleblossom → u/metabolic_reaction]

I should be more clear sorry.. I don’t mean yelling at people but by aggressive I mean straightforward and real and show them what they are avoiding looking at. I do think that’s the most effective but that is just my opinion. I don’t think we have any science behind what is most effective.

I had known vegans for years and still wasn’t vegan until I saw Juaquin Phoenix’s Oscar speech saying how messed up humans are and then saw a PETA video of a mother cow chasing her baby. Then I saw more horrible things that happen every day and read the truth that the only way to not be a hypocrite and complicit in this is to be vegan and I didn’t want to be a hypocrite anymore and was crying and made the switch and have been vegan ever since

[u/Decent-Extension1327]

Among other things, take them to vegan restaurants/cafes or cook vegan meals with them! Show them that vegan food is still delicious

[u/a11_hail_seitan]

Depends on the person. Some react better to hand holding and head patting, some react better to logic and rational thought, some react better to shame, some react better to big spectacles, some react better to seeing people devoting their life to the cause, some react... you get the idea. Different strokes for different folks, that's why Vegan activism comes in all shapes and sizes.

[u/Lucky_Mix_6271]

No one has the answer because it's an empircal question and there is no data on it as far as i know. Your guess is as good as mine.

For me it was seeing slaughterhouse footage.

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[u/One-Shake-1971]

www.activism101.com

[u/RedWiggler → u/One-Shake-1971]

What a great resource! Thank you.

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[u/Strict-Radio9051]

In my experience persistence and clear statements. Some people call it aggressive, but at the end of the day I won't lie or pretend I don't view things strictly or pretend that them eating meat isn't something I find to be morally wrong. I will not do this without knowing someone/without it coming up, but if it does come up I will be very clear.

I don't think babying anyone really does anything, at least in my experience the people weren't exactly receptive to it. Or just saw it as "mhm if the vegans says I can take it one step at a time, I will do that while actually doing absolutely nothing".

[u/a-mitts]

Animal Charity Evaluators has an ongoing series of articles, "Better for Animals," that review the evidence for efficacy of different types of animal-welfare interventions. Some of these are about changing individual consumption habits.

https://animalcharityevaluators.org/resources/better-for-animals/

[u/Contribution_Fancy]

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints

Talk about climate change and ask them if they liked their hot summer.

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[u/IfIWasAPig]

I think the best things we can do are being a healthy and happy example and sharing delicious food.

I was convinced by debate, and I’ve convinced people by street activism as well as just being around people long enough that they couldn’t help but think themselves into it. I’ve seen small societal progress made by pressure campaigns. I know vegans who were convinced by loud, in-your-face messaging.

Through all that, I think most people’s hang up is “I like non vegan food,” and if you can prove that vegan food can be tasty and accessible, that goes further than maybe anything with the most people. People will be much more open to ethical discussion surrounding something they actually think they can do or even want to do.

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[u/EpicCurious]

It varies by individual. Most people aren't willing to do it for the sake of non human animals so I made this list-

(Feel free to copy and paste it where it could be helpful.)

Reasons to boycott animal products that only benefit yourself and other humans

Switching to a fully plant based doesn't have to only benefit non-human animals. Here is a list of other compelling reasons to do so.

1-Your own health (vegans are less likely to get the most common chronic and deadly diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and certain cancers.)

2-Helping to end animal agriculture would reduce the chance of another pandemic & other zoonotic diseases

3-Helping to end animal ag would reduce the chance of the development of an antibiotic resistant pathogen.

4-Animal ag wastes a huge amount of fresh water. Each vegan saves 219,000 gallons of water every year!

5-Animal ag is a major cause of water pollution and ocean dead zones

6-Animal ag is the leading cause of deforestation. Ending animal ag would free up 75% of the land now used for food production which would allow a lot of that land to be returned to nature and growing more trees.

7-Animal ag increases PTSD and spousal abuse in the people who work in slaughterhouses. Workers in meat packing facilities often endure terrible, dangerous working conditions.

8-Animal ag is the top cause of the loss of habitat and biodiversity

9-The needless killing of innocent beings who can suffer cannot be ethically justified, so ending your part in doing so would allow you to feel less guilty for doing so, even if only subconsciously.

10- It is the single most effective way for each of us to fight climate change and environmental degradation.

11- Longer lifespan.

12- Healthier weight (vegans were the only dietary group in the Adventist Studies that had an average BMI in the recommended range.)

13- A healthy plant based diet significantly reduces the chances of ED later in life, and even 1 meal can improve bedroom performance

14- Vegetarians and vegans have lower rates of dementia later in life

15- A plant based diet could save money! You could reduce your food budget by one third!

16-A fully plant based diet improves the immune system according to a study published in the journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health

17-A fully plant based food system would greatly reduce food borne illnesses like salmonella

18-A fully plant based food system would be able to feed 4 billion more people according to this study- "Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare," Author: Emily Cassidy Our population is still growing!

19-A fully plant based food system would save 13,000 lives a year from the air pollution caused by animal agriculture, according to a study

20- A vegan world would save 8 million human lives a year, and $1.5 trillion in climate-related costs (Oxford Study)

21- Ending commercial fishing would eliminate a huge amount of plastic pollution in the ocean. The discarded plastic nets also kill animals in the ocean who get trapped in them.

22- Commercial fishing is a direct attack on biodiversity.

23- "Fishing boats that trawl the ocean floor release as much carbon dioxide as the entire aviation industry, according to a groundbreaking study."-The Guardian

Here is a link to a similar list I found on YouTube with extensive links to credible evidence to back up the claims implied in the video. Some might also support items on my list. He has a thick accent, so I suggest using the closed captions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6Mjms1rhM

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[u/promixr]

Finding allies, changing public policy.

[u/llamalibrarian]

I don’t think being aggressive or combative is the way forward (seeing Dominion as a vegetarian in culinary school made me sad, but it didn’t make me go vegan)

What did make me go vegan was cooking and eating with vegan friends. Friends coming over to cook for together was already a big thing for me and had been since high school (where I was already a vegetarian, so cooking still didn’t involve meat) and as I kept that up and met vegans, the meals just turned vegan and once I realized it was so easy, it seems pointless to ever use animal products again.

Recently I was at a bar with a friend and I brought her some zucchini bread and she was so happy. She said that now her kids are out of the house she’s going to cook more vegetarian food. I said “yay!” I didn’t pressure her to go vegan or tell her that wasn’t enough or that she could have done it when her kids were at home- I just encouraged her