From dailycal.org
By Janzy Paraiso
I grew up eating animals, yet my heart disintegrates every time a dog dies. My family wasn’t big on questioning where our food came from, but as an adult, I’ve come to educate myself on the connection between factory farms and the oppression of nonhuman animals. And yet, since I eventually chose to embrace veganism, my decision has resulted in an awkward interaction or two.
Considering animal agriculture’s impact on the environment and the amount of suffering it produces, it’s surprising how much stigmatization veganism receives. As a vegan, I’m habitually met with anti-vegan rhetoric in online discourse, characterizing vegans as condescending, shoving their “superior” lifestyle down others’ throats, making everyone else feel guilty.
However, veganism is a boycott like any other. Sure, we can toss around the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” phrase. But it’s farcical to deny that there are more and less ethical choices, and subsequently, progressives should veer toward more ethical choices when possible, while pushing for structural change.
We are empathetic progressives willing to challenge unjust systems. We don’t tell beauty influencers touting cruelty-free products to shove it; we look for the Leaping Bunny emblem the next time we buy a cleanser. We don’t tell people condemning fast fashion to eat s---; we brainstorm how we can reduce our dependence on it. We can shift our outlook about veganism in the exact same way: it’s more about a communal push toward compassion than some kind of freakish fad diet.
Almost everyone loves animals and would never intentionally hurt one. So we pretend the meat on our plates has no connection to the mass slaughter of animals — 80 billion per year — needed to meet global demand. This has a consequence psychologists call meat-related cognitive dissonance, in which consumers dissociate meat from animals.
In 2023, Oxford University surveyed 55,000 people and found that “even the least sustainable vegan diet was still more environmentally friendly than the most sustainable meat eater’s diet.” Still, findings like these are largely ignored by politicians and most of the people in my life, while social media discourse situates veganism within the realm of restriction — a practice restricted to health gurus and white people.
Like other boycotts, veganism is not perfect. Since when does a movement need to be perfect to participate? We don’t need perfection; we need steps in the right direction. We need to shift public opinion. Veganism is aligning everyday choices to stand against exploitation — a similarity with every other progressive movement.
Perhaps the failure to meaningfully engage with veganism has to do with avoidance rather than simple opposition. Around the time that everyone was watching vegan documentaries, I decidedly evaded them. I knew that if I saw one, I’d have to deal with the disturbing guilt it would provoke. I knew that intellectually, it would be hard to manage — I’d be faced with my own dissonance, coercing myself to make a choice that would be deeply challenging and disorienting in our meat-dependent society.
But what if discomfort is the point? The needle can only be moved if we convince a large portion of our society to make the better, more environmentally friendly choice more often. To reach those people, their beliefs must be challenged, and discomfort is one way to achieve that.
I remember my fifteen-year-old self ridiculing a girl in my church youth group for being vegetarian. “Kill the cow,” I taunted her. “Give me my cheeseburger!” Aside from being far less gracious, I wasn’t capable of embodying empathy, both for the girl in my youth group or the animals she elected not to consume.
So if veganism is a form of matching consumer choices with values, why is it so stigmatized? I’m not used to speaking that blatantly about the way I eat, yet it manifests anytime I’m eating around others. When people learn about my food choices, there are a few common responses. One is defensiveness. Another is an anecdote about how they used to be vegan but can’t anymore for health reasons. The most popular is a list of all the issues with veganism. Suspiciously, none of the responses seriously engage with the exploitation the animals face.
In 2026, why are we shaming vegans for protesting against an industry that farms living beings like crops? I’m not going to tell you step-by-step how to be more vegan when you have the entire internet available to you. I’m asking you to consider what you consume and discover what difference you can make.
I’ve yet to hear a halfway decent argument for justifying the systematic exploitation of animals. It’s time for the political left to turn and face it.
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