Animal rights/suffering, health, environmental impacts, affordability and conscience.

Basically, it made sense for all of the reasons because I have yet to live in or visit an area in the world where being vegan, or at the very least maintaining a healthy plant based diet is not achievable. Mind I have only been in north/Central America and the majority of Europe, but even in the last 25 years there has been a huge shift in recognition, availability and catering to the diet aspect of being vegan. It’s easier every day to make the shift.

Animal rights. I love MSG (it’s literally just salt, not poison). I still eat fast food. I’m not healthy, but I do love not murdering animals.

Multiple factors. First of all, animal suffering, you know what I mean. Second, health concerns. I’ve noticed that consuming meat products causes nearly constant diarrhea for me. Third, I completed a training as butcher (3 years here in Germany) and I’ve seen the absolutely disgusting sides of the meat business first hand. Fourth, as of 2022, most vegan products here were priced the same or a little cheaper than animal products. All in all, it just made sense to go vegan.

I was vegetarian for 30 years, then the farm area an hour or so down the road had extreme flooding. (Because the farma wete in a drained lake bed) Farmers lost all their cows and chickens to drowning, so we decided not to support that anymore and went vegan…its been 4 years no. Wasn’t that hard, and our diet is healthier now

Animal rights. Veganism is an ethical standpoint, not a health fad. Also, MSG is perfectly healthy, and it’s also delicious, and… it’s also vegan? MSG and vegan food are not mutually exclusive.

Predominantly environmentalism. Buying vegetables over meat is just radically lower impact. I buy local (or, better, grow it myself) as much as I can can too.

Ethics certainly is a concern, as is health. Though, I have a lot of allergies, which makes it challenging at times. Still, I’m used to not being able to eat a lot of food, to restaurants not having anything I can eat. So I already was cooking most if my food from scratch, so it wasn’t the hardest pivot, even if my diet is objectively quite restricted

The realization that cow math doesn’t work out. Cows need to be pregnant to give milk. A pregnancy will typically result in a calf being born. In practice, a milk cow lives 5-6 years, with a calf born every 12-14 months. So, that’s about 5 new cows per 1 milk cow.

You necessarily have to kill cows to prevent those numbers from exploding, even after just one generation. Basically, vegetarianism is not possible, because you do not prevent the slaughtering of cows by refusing to buy the outcome.

I found out how milk is made :(

I was at a protest once, there was someone holding a sign:
“I’m vegan because I watched the videos you refuse to look at”
This is pretty much it. First decided that the killing of billions of sentient beings is wrong, then dared to look at it. That’s something you can’t unsee, I cried a lot. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.

We hatched chickens in elementary school to learn about reproduction or something? I don’t remember the actual details, I think it was 1st or 2nd grade. I kept mine and she was my pet and I loved her. All the other stuff I learned later cemented my decision and it took a while to sink in – I had her as a child and only actually became vegan as an adult – but at the core I remember Pepper (she was white with little black spots, get it?) and she convinced me I can’t have eggs or meat just by being my friend.

I’m not vegan but I try to eat vegan as much as I can. It makes sense for both health and environmental reasons. The only reason I don’t stick with it is cost and time. It’s maddening that plant-based options are treated like luxury bourgeoisie goods instead of affordable common sense alternatives to animal products.

Idk. Tried Veganuary, it wasn’t much of a hassle, so I just stuck with it. If it has a positive impact and isn’t hard to do (in my situation), might as well do it, I guess?