Vegans develop complex skills to navigate an omnivorous society, new research shows

From phys.org/news

Going vegan is a life-changing decision. Successfully committing to eating only ethically sourced, non-exploitative products—no dairy, no honey, no eggs, no animal output of any kind—can be daunting, especially in a society where most people are omnivorous. Foregoing meat and other animal products purely for ethical reasons can cause tension between vegans and their friends, families, partners, businesses and even other vegans.

These tensions are the subject of a new paper by Concordia researchers. Published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the study examines the relational fractures vegans sometimes experience and the strategies they use to navigate this challenge.

"We wanted to look at these fractures from the vegan perspective, since most people are omnivorous and familiar with trying to accommodate others' dietary needs," says co-author Zeynep Arsel, a professor in the Department of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business. "But what we studied can be applied in other contexts, such as driving electric vehicles."

Stressors on all sides

The study was led by Arsel's former Ph.D. student Aya Aboelenien, now an associate professor at HEC Montréal. Between 2017 and 2022, she conducted interviews, attended vegan festivals, protests and sit-ins to gain insight into how vegans managed interpersonal strains. Aboelenien also studied online news, videos, blogs and social media posts on sites like Reddit.

She classified relational fractures into three types: co-performance, co-learning, and marketplace.

• Co-performance fractures can arise when vegans introduce novel elements to shared practices or activities like family meals. Changes in dietary habits require accommodation from their regular dining companions. This shift can result in tension, misunderstanding or labelling vegans as "difficult."
• Co-learning fractures usually occur within the vegan community itself, when individuals new to veganism turn to other vegans for advice. Conflicts can arise over what constitutes vegan food and how—or even whether—to interact with non-vegans. However, this rigidity can confuse and repel those new to or interested in veganism.
• Marketplace fractures are caused by a lack of places where vegans can meet their dietary needs. Even as plant-based foods become more popular, most supermarkets and restaurants cater to omnivorous appetites and finding businesses that cater to vegan diets can be difficult.

"Many of the people I spoke to really wanted to discuss the personal struggles they faced, which in many instances discouraged them from maintaining a vegan lifestyle," Aboelenien says. "Many of them just retreated from veganism because of the stress in their personal relationships."

A range of responses

Aboelenien further identified four kinds of social skills vegans adopt to manage conflict. First is decoding, in which vegans try to explain their choices to friends and family members. They also continue learning about veganism from others in their community and developing an understanding of labels, menus and other food requirements in a mostly omnivorous marketplace.

They may also try decoupling: behaving parallel to omnivores while actively avoiding conflict triggers. Examples include preparing and/or bringing one's own meals to family gatherings so that they can share space, if not the food itself.

Other vegans practice divesting, where they avoid problematic food-related relationships whenever possible. This involves an uncompromising approach to the extent that they will not share meals with non-vegans.

Finally, chameleoning involves navigating between one's beliefs and a "go-along-to-get-along" posture, in which a person who considers themselves vegan will occasionally revert to an omnivorous diet to avoid conflict.

The researchers say the patterns identified in the study are easily transferable to other contexts.

"If you stand apart from the norm for ethical reasons, like driving an electric car or trying to live a green, sustainable life, others may take it as you trying to impose a moral lens on practices they've had for a long time," Aboelenien says.

"A lot of consumption is moral, even if we don't think it is," adds Arsel, Concordia University Research Chair in Consumption, Markets, and Society. "And when there is a moral element, it is bound to cause friction."

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-vegans-complex-skills-omnivorous-society.html 

Eco2026: Veganism needs a change of language, warns researcher

From camdennewjournal.co.uk

Ryan Bogle warns that hard-line warns will do more harm than good 

                                                     Ryan Bogle criticised a recent PETA campaign

A RESEARCHER has warned that hectoring lecturers will not convince more people to take up meat-free diets – and that vegans need to talk about plant-based food differently.

Ryan Bogle was speaking in the upstairs room at the Chapel Park Tavern last Thursday as differences of opinion were shared over ways to raise awareness for vegan options, the production of which are friendlier to the environment than intensive meat and dairy industries.

He said he was a vegan himself, although ate cheese on holiday and warned the crowd that he would “slag off [vegans] a lot” during his presentation.

“Veganuary” – framing veganism as a mission of self-improvement, like dry January or going to the gym – has ultimately done the cause harm, he warned, as has terminology like “plant-based diets”, which imply clean eating and dietary purity rather than focusing on other benefits.

So too has more controversial approaches by animal activists, such as PETA’s comparison between the number of people killed in the Holocaust with the amount of animals killed in Europe every hour for the meat industry.

“We need to reach out and reassess our language and communication as vegans,” said Mr Bogle.

“What I try to do is rephrase the same arguments in ways which are more outwardly friendly, rather than implying complicity or guilt to non-vegans. Bringing up the worst tragedy in history does the movement no favours.”

                                                               Ryan Bogle at the Chapel Park Tavern

Mr Bogle told how he hopes to “dethrone” plant-based health influencers in favour of messaging that focuses on the environmental and animal benefits of going vegan, citing an Oxford University study that found a vegan diet has just 30 per cent of the environmental impact of high-meat diets, which require more land and agricultural resources.

Producing meat is water-intensive, while famously a source of methane – emitting from the livestock – and fertilizer nitrous oxide.

Mr Bogle said: “In progressive movements, there are always purist approaches, and the fact that vegans are debating where they go from here is a symptom of how incredible the vegan movement has been so far in combating the meat lobby.”

But a full range of vegan views were aired at the talk and there were differences of opinion over understanding flexitarian diets in the context of expensive meat alternatives.

“The vegan movement is not plateauing, it really isn’t,” Mr Bogle said.

“Yes, we’ve lost some vegan food brands which all jumped into the market at the same time, that’s what happens when a new market emerges. Lots of companies jump in, not all of them survive. That’s how markets work, it doesn’t mean that veganism is failing.

“Vegans need to unite under the same umbrella despite the differences they have. There’s so much more at play.”

https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/eco2026-veganism-needs-a-change-of-language-warns-researcher

"Why am I a vegan? I do it for my mental health"

From theguardian.com

By Emma Beddington

Vegan restaurants are closing, RFK Jr is sounding the drum for carnivores, and the protein cult is bigger than ever. But eschewing animal products helps me ward off a sense of impotence – and despair 

Let's get this out of the way, because I’m itching to tell you (again): I’m vegan, and this is our time, Veganuary! Imagine me doing a weak, vitamin B12-depleted dance. Unlike gym-goers, vegans are thrilled when newbies sign up each January, for planetary and animal welfare reasons, but also, shallowly, for the shopping. This is when we can gorge on the novelties retailers dream up: Peta’s round-up for this year includes the seductive Aldi pains au chocolat and M&S coconut kefir.

I need retail therapy, because Veganuary has become quite muted and that’s part of a wider inflection point in vegan eating that I’m sad about. “Where have all the vegans gone?” Dazed asked in November, and now New York Magazine has investigated, with the tagline: “Plant-based eating was supposed to be the future. Then meat came roaring back.” It details a wave of vegan restaurant closures (plus the high-profile reverse ferret performed by formerly vegan Michelin-three-starred Eleven Madison Park to serving “animal products for certain dishes”), declining sales of meat substitutes and a stubbornly static percentage of people identifying as vegan (around 1%). It’s not new (rumours of veganism’s demise have been swirling around since at least 2024) and it’s not just a US phenomenon; many UK vegan restaurants have closed this year, including my lovely local.

You can be vegan and avoid ultra-processed foods – you simply have to live like a 1970s hippy!’ Photograph: Maria Korneeva/Getty Images

What’s going on? For a start, the Trump 2.0 “roaring” meat revival. As the New York Times reported last year, meat sales are up and fewer Americans are interested in curbing their intake. That movement feels partly provocative – an in-your-face rejection of woke orthodoxies around cutting your carbon footprint, consuming mindfully, or, generally, caring. There’s also the influence of US health secretary RFK Jr, saying what the seed oil-eschewing, raw milk-swilling “crunchy” tradwives and Maha cranks want to hear. His weird new inverted pyramid of dietary guidelines majors on making steak great again. The American Heart Association was underwhelmed, highlighting the link between red meat and animal fats and “increased cardiovascular risk”.

People are starting to think it’s too late, so why bother – they might as well be hung for a lamb chop

Beyond RFK Jr’s tallow-fuelled obsessions, there’s a wellness angle to ebbing interest in veganism. Plant-based eating fits poorly into the relentless protein cult: you can hit your protein goals with plants (even the new, higher US-recommended amount; RFK Jr won’t rest until the entire country can bench press Greenland), but it’s harder. There’s valid concern, too, about UPFs: making “meat” or “cheese” from plants inevitably involves some ultra-processing. You can be vegan and avoid UPFs (I do! You simply have to live like a 1970s hippy!), but it’s not a no-brainer.

I wonder, though, if other things are happening. I’m concerned that we have reached the “shrug and give up” stage of trying to combat climate breakdown and that’s also why fewer people are vegan. People are starting to think it’s too late, so why bother – they might as well be hung for a lamb chop. Plus, on climate, there’s a good argument that what individuals can achieve is exceptionally limited and that making us feel responsible is a cynical trick. Why am I diligently washing out coconut kefir bottles to recycle, when half the world’s climate-heating emissions come from the products of 36 fossil fuel companies?

More broadly, I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone by venturing that the world feels tremendously, terrifyingly bad right now. People need the odd little treat to face – and keep facing – the horrors. Is it so wrong, relatively speaking, to carpe diem and butter yourself a crumpet now and then? Of course not.

All I can say to that, really, is if you’re interested in feeling good – and who isn’t? – it feels good to actually do something. My veganism is basically self-interest, by which I mean, I do it for my health: not physical, but mental. Not supporting ecologically disastrous factory farming, not contributing to the regularly reported acts of abuse and cruelty in the meat industry, and making a – yes, infinitesimally tiny – contribution to cutting carbon emissions helps ward off my sense of impotence, and despair.

More cheerfully, something else is warding off despair right now: this daft new craze for “fibremaxxing”. Because if there’s one thing vegans know, it’s fibre. So hold on, comrades, keep the mung beans soaking. Our time will come again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/18/why-am-i-a-vegan-i-do-it-for-my-mental-health

Trying Veganuary might be challenging. Here are some tips on keeping going

From uk.news.yahoo.com

By Bethany Clark

In January some people start the year by trying to eat fewer animal products. Veganuary, as the campaign is called, began in 2014 and now attracts 25.8 million people worldwide.

One reason for trying Veganuary is a growing interest in acting in ways that reduce one’s environmental impact. And one of the key ways to do this at an individual level is to reduce the amount of meat consumed in one’s diet.

Various bodies, such as the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change and the UK’s National Food Strategy, have cited large-scale meat reduction as a way to help address the climate emergency.

                                                                         Sam Thomas A/Shutterstock

As its name suggests Veganuary is framed as a short-term challenge, by the campaign itself and other supporting organisations, such as The Vegetarian Society, with messaging focused not on what is being lost, but on new and exciting foods to cook at a time of year when people often try something new.

But for many participants changing long-established behaviour is hard. Changing eating habits is particularly difficult. Barriers to dietary change include ingrained habits and routines, social norms and conventions that allow people to justify existing behaviour. Research also suggests that the perception that reducing meat will be difficult can itself discourage people from attempting to do so.

There are, however, ways to make behaviour change easier. Drawing on research from the former government-based Behavioural Insights Team’s model of behaviour change, it’s possible to find ways to make it easier when changing dietary habits. They suggest four clear principles: easy, attractive, social and timely.

Tips to make it easier

This year, Veganuary’s focus is encouraging a gradual approach that can reduce psychological barriers. Our personal attitudes and values tend to have a stronger influence on behaviour than external motivations such as financial incentives. To support lasting change, meat reduction can be aligned with values people already hold, making it easier to act in line with them. For example, exploring the climate footprint of a bag of mince and comparing with an alternative, enabling the chance to choose a less carbon-heavy alternative. Here are some tips on what can help to make Veganuary work for you.

1. Make it attractive

January often marks a return to routines after the festive period, and this can make the long, dark winter days feel monotonous. Novelty plays an important role here: it can boost creativity and increase happiness. Trying a new dietary pattern introduces new recipes and ingredients, offering an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen. Exploring new ways of eating may also encourage greater variety in meals, such as eating a wider range of vegetables and exploring new protein sources.

2. Make it social

Social eating is an important part of many people’s lives. Sharing a meat-free meal with family or friends can strengthen social bonds through a shared experience and increase feelings of camaraderie. Veganuary does not have to create divisions between meat eaters and vegans. Talking about the challenge as a group can encourage deeper discussion about the role of meat in our diets, while support from others can also help.

3. Make it timely

Breaking large goals into smaller ones can make them more achievable and more sustainable. Taking part in this dietary change over a clearly defined period allows participants to know there is an end in sight. Research on temporary challenges such as Veganuary and Dry January (giving up alcohol) suggests that habits formed during these periods can continue even after the challenge has ended.

Behaviour does not exist in a vacuum. It is shaped by what is considered normal in society, the physical environment as well as what is available in supermarkets, and broader political and economic systems.

When attempting to change behaviour – whether through a New Year’s resolution or a short-term dietary challenge – it is important to recognise this. Systems are often in place to maintain the status quo. Doing what works for you, without aiming for perfection, can make change feel more achievable. Slipping up does not mean failure: even one meat-free meal contributes to making a difference.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trying-veganuary-might-challenging-tips-134723632.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACeV2fVUIAZKCgtndjCbnA19guga2EdomxbtzfBEcubsn7CRv3pCjW6laXJu-6rm2Atd-2ihbzEQhBxrL2UTcIEQRGBIDsW41leeS6dT_7pOX-oyDcnolHbMO31xUzkz1Im-K0fRnyQUwwq-8xA0_gyr6Uue6X2x7wsK0OCdVFvQ

Why the vegan vs carnivore debate online has almost nothing to do with how real people actually eat

From vegoutmag.com

By Jordan Cooper

The loudest voices in the diet wars are fighting a battle most people never signed up for

Spend five minutes on social media and you'll find someone insisting that plants are poison or that meat eaters are destroying the planet.

The vegan versus carnivore debate has become one of the internet's favourite blood sports. Influencers build entire brands around attacking the other side.

Comment sections turn into war zones. Everyone seems absolutely certain they've found the one true way to eat.

But here's the thing. Step away from your phone and walk into any restaurant, grocery store, or family dinner.

You'll notice something strange. Almost nobody is actually having this fight. Real people are just trying to figure out what to make for Tuesday night.

The gap between online diet discourse and actual eating behaviour is enormous. And understanding why that gap exists tells us a lot about how the internet distorts our perception of, well, everything.

The algorithm rewards extremes

Social media platforms don't care about nuance. They care about engagement. And nothing drives engagement like conflict.

A video titled "Why I Eat Mostly Plants With Some Flexibility" gets scrolled past. A video titled "Veganism Almost Killed Me" gets millions of views. The incentive structure is clear. Go extreme or go home.

This creates a selection effect. The voices that rise to the top aren't representative of how most people think or eat. They're the ones willing to stake out the most provocative positions.

Research on social media and political polarization shows that platforms systematically amplify content that triggers strong emotional reactions. Diet content follows the same pattern.

The carnivore influencer eating raw liver and the vegan activist throwing paint aren't typical. They're outliers who've learned to game the system.

Most people are quietly flexible

Here's what the data actually shows. The vast majority of people don't identify with any strict dietary label. They're not vegan, carnivore, keto, or paleo. They're just eating.

Maybe they're trying to have more vegetables. Maybe they're cutting back on red meat for health reasons. Maybe they had a burger yesterday and a salad today.

According to Gallup polling, only about 4% of Americans identify as vegetarian and 1% as vegan. These numbers have stayed remarkably stable for decades. Yet plant-based food sales keep growing.

What gives? People are adding options without subtracting their entire identity. They're not joining teams. They're just making choices meal by meal.

This quiet flexibility doesn't make for good content, so you never hear about it online.

Identity gets tangled up with lunch

Something weird happens when diet becomes identity. Suddenly, what you eat isn't just about nutrition or taste or ethics.

It becomes about who you are as a person. And when someone challenges your diet, it feels like they're challenging your entire sense of self.

Behavioural science calls this identity-protective cognition. We defend beliefs that are tied to our group membership more fiercely than beliefs we hold loosely.

Online diet communities create strong in-group bonds. The carnivore folks have their own language, heroes, and enemies. So do vegans.

Once you're in, any criticism of the diet feels like a personal attack. This is why these debates generate so much heat and so little light.

Nobody's actually trying to learn anything. They're trying to protect their tribe.

The middle ground is boring but real

I was at a dinner party last month where someone mentioned they'd been eating less meat lately. Nobody gasped. Nobody demanded an explanation.

The conversation moved on to whether the pasta needed more salt. That's how most food discussions actually go in the real world. Undramatic. Practical. Human.

The internet makes us think everyone is either a militant vegan or a steak-only purist. But most people live in the messy middle.

They care about animals but still wear leather shoes. They worry about climate change but flew somewhere last year. They had oat milk in their coffee and chicken for dinner. This isn't hypocrisy.

It's just being a person navigating a complicated world with limited time and energy. The online debate pretends these people don't exist, but they're actually the majority.

What we lose in the noise

The real cost of this polarized discourse is that it drowns out useful conversations. Questions like: How do we make plant-based options more accessible?

What farming practices actually reduce environmental harm? How do we balance personal health with planetary health? These are genuinely complex issues that deserve thoughtful discussion.

Instead, we get dunking and gotchas. We get cherry-picked studies weaponized by both sides. We get people so exhausted by the fighting that they tune out entirely.

The loudest voices end up representing nobody but themselves while the rest of us just try to figure out what's for dinner.

The debate becomes performance rather than communication. And performance rarely changes minds or moves anything forward.

Final thoughts

Next time you see a heated vegan versus carnivore argument online, remember what you're actually watching.

You're seeing two people who've built their brands on conflict, performing for an algorithm that rewards outrage.

You're not seeing a representative sample of how humans relate to food. You're seeing the extreme tails of a distribution, amplified beyond all proportion.

Real people are more interesting than this. They change their minds. They try new things. They make exceptions for their grandmother's recipe.

They don't need to win arguments because they're not in a war. If you're reading this and feeling exhausted by diet discourse, here's your permission slip to opt out.

Eat what makes sense for your life, your values, and your body. Let the influencers fight it out. The rest of us have groceries to buy.

https://vegoutmag.com/lifestyle/s-st-why-the-vegan-vs-carnivore-debate-online-has-almost-nothing-to-do-with-how-real-people-actually-eat/

What Really Happens When You Go Plant-Based

From plantbasednews.org

Science suggests the benefits of a plant-based diet don’t take months to appear, they can begin within hours of the very first meal 

Most people assume dietary change takes months or even years to make a difference. But research suggests the body can respond far sooner than that. Scientists now show that many of the benefits of a plant-based diet can begin within hours of the very first meal, affecting inflammation, blood sugar control, and circulation almost immediately.

Plant Based Science London, known for its YouTube channel, recently explored this timeline in a video that breaks down what happens to the body after one hour, one day, one week, and beyond. The channel focuses on compressing complex nutrition research into accessible, evidence-based videos, often highlighting findings from peer-reviewed studies and leading plant-based physicians.

Drawing from medical literature and real-world research, the video outlines how a whole-food, plant-based diet can impact inflammation, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease, and even sexual function. Here is what the science shows.

Within one to two hours

            Fibre-rich fruits and veggies can help lower cholesterol and stabilize blood sugar within weeks - Media Credit: Adobe Stock

One of the fastest changes occurs at the level of inflammation. The video highlights a pro-inflammatory signalling molecule called interleukin-18, or IL-18, which plays a role in destabilizing atherosclerotic plaques and is a strong predictor of cardiovascular death.

“In this study, interleukin-18 levels of inflammation in the body changed after a single meal,” the narrator says. “Participants who ate the plant-based meal had around a 20% drop in IL-18 levels within hours.”

Fibre-rich plant foods also help stabilize blood sugar. By slowing glucose absorption, they reduce insulin spikes and help the body release insulin more effectively after meals.

Dr. Hana Kahleova of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine explains just how quickly this can matter for people with diabetes. “Within a few days of starting a whole-food, plant-based diet, you may be able to significantly reduce your insulin dose or medication,” she says.

Studies comparing plant-based meals with meat-based meals in people with type 2 diabetes show greater insulin secretion, higher levels of GLP-1, and improved beta-cell function after the vegan meal.

Within one to two weeks

Cholesterol levels can shift rapidly when animal products are removed. In The Game Changers documentary, firefighters who ate only plant foods for one week saw clear reductions in cholesterol.

Cardiologist Dr. Joel Kahn explains why this happens so quickly. “A total immersion into a whole-food plant diet can result in a rapid drop in your total cholesterol as much as 100 mg/dl,” he says.

Because these changes can be dramatic, experts recommend making dietary changes under medical supervision, especially for those taking cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Blood pressure often improves within days. Dr. Kahn notes, “A single week of eating a totally plant diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes can often reduce blood pressure by 10 mmHg or more and allow medications to be reduced.”

In one study highlighted in the video, participants saw average blood pressure drops of 19 points after just 14 days.

Weight loss often follows. PCRM research shows average weight loss of about one pound per week on a whole-food, plant-based diet. Dr. Kahleova adds, “That means that after one year, you could be some 52 pounds lighter, with only one change.”

Within two to eight weeks

Media Credit: Adobe StockPrepping a whole-food, plant-based meal can trigger rapid health benefits, including a significant reduction in inflammation within just hours

Heart disease-related chest pain, known as angina, is often linked to restricted blood flow. According to the video, symptoms can begin easing within weeks of switching diets.

Dr. Kahn says patients have reversed heart disease symptoms in as little as three weeks. “You can experience rapid, profound changes, including angina symptoms dropping by as much as 90 percent,” he says.

These improvements reflect better endothelial function and increased blood flow as artery-clogging foods are removed.

Red meat and egg yolks increase production of TMAO, a gut-derived compound linked to cardiovascular disease. Dr. Kahn explains, “TMAO promotes clogged arteries, organ scarring, and blood clotting and predicts a worrisome outcome in many disease states.”

Research shows that switching to a whole-food, plant-based diet can normalize elevated TMAO levels in as little as four weeks.

Within six weeks

Sexual dysfunction is often an early sign of vascular disease. As circulation improves, sexual function can improve as well.

The video references the well-known experiments from The Game Changers, where participants experienced improved erections after plant-based meals. Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn says improvement can occur “anywhere from one to six weeks.”

The same circulatory benefits may apply to women, as atherosclerosis also restricts blood flow to pelvic arteries.

Within one year

Over time, a whole-food, plant-based diet may stop the progression of atherosclerosis. The research cited shows that artery hardening can be halted, and in many cases partially reversed, as blood vessels regain flexibility and narrowing begins to open.

Taken together, these findings help explain the long-term benefits of a plant-based diet, from metabolic health to cardiovascular function. According to Plant Based Science London, the body does not wait months to respond. For many people, meaningful changes begin far sooner than expected.

For more plant-based health and nutrition content, visit Plant Based Science London’s YouTube channel.

https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/what-happens-when-you-go-plant-based/