The Ultimate Guide To Vegan!
Chapter 9. Watch Out For The Vegan Police!
They say “there is no such thing as a stupid question”, but we’ll have to disagree.
Be a vegan for long enough – and you’ll become a walking encyclopedia of human stupidity.
You will be very likely to hear every single silly unreasonable question/comment/quip about the vegan lifestyle.
You will soon learn to come up with your own retort to every single one!
If you’re only just building your response collection, however, you may benefit from a little bit of help.
This is exactly why we’re here today!
Get ready, vegan police, we’ve got your stupid enquiries covered.
Important Note
Sometimes people really do ask genuine, polite questions, although these lovely individuals are very easy to recognize.
If their intentions are good, try not to be even remotely rude and sarcastic and answer their questions with patience and in detail – even if you’ve answered this one thousand times before!
Maybe – just maybe – after getting some food for thought, the person will at the very least consume less meat, or even consider going vegan. Don’t lose an easy opportunity to make the world better!
In saying that, here’s our list of some horrible questions and well-weighted answers to them. Enjoy and use this list to your advantage!
Stupid ***ing Questions!
Aren’t the plants in pain, too?
No. They aren’t. They don’t have a nervous system, which is mandatory to feel pain.
Of course, plants do respond to external stimuli (e.g. they will grow towards the light, or vines will “climb” the surfaces), but they are still wired very differently to us, and underlying mechanisms of such reactions is entirely different, too.
You must be so weak; you’re hardly getting any protein.
You’re wrong, mister (or missus – whatever). Have you ever seen an elephant, a bull or a horse? They are all pretty strong to say the least, and guess what – they’re getting all their protein from plants. And so do we.
You’re breaking the circle of life! Lions need to eat meat, and so do humans.
Will you ever stop comparing yourself to obligate carnivores, buddy? While it is very true that lions require meat for survival, we are built very differently.
From our teeth to our digestive system, our body is built in a very clever way – that is, we are kind of the best of both worlds, and we can get all the required nutrients from both meat and plants.
But if we have a choice (and also a very sophisticated brain to think about ethical implications of our choices), why wouldn’t we make a cruelty free one?
You’re not all that environmentally friendly – you eat soy, and soy farming is bad for rainforests.
Nice excuse to talk about farming, actually! Did you know that the majority of crops you’re talking about are grown for livestock consumption, not for humans?
Also, not all vegans eat soy to start with – it tastes funny to some people. Given the infinite alternatives available, soy is not a vegan staple – we can take it or leave it.
I only buy sustainable, organic meat – quit your silly veganism and start doing so too.
See, my friend, no matter if a cow had enough room to graze and run around – if it was slaughtered for meat, it was still killed prematurely, arguably with no great reason behind it.
There is no humane way to kill – this is just absurd.
Also, to raise those “happy” free range animals, much more land is needed – and we already have a massive problem here. Is there a point in continuing?
The Bible says animals are here for human use.
The Bible says many things (such as encouraging to exterminate gay people). It’s also highly likely to not be interpreted properly or even perverted with a specific agenda.
Lastly, who told you I care about the Bible to start with?
You’re likely anaemic, we need meat to get enough iron.
Mmm…nope. It is true that getting enough iron requires some extra planning for vegans as plant-based sources contain less absorbable forms compared to meat, but it’s not difficult at all.
You can learn what you need to do in under 2 minutes. Also, fortified foods and supplements are a thing these days!
Hitler was a vegetarian.
And Saddam Hussein was a meat eater – was it supposed to make him a great buddy to hang out with? Hitler’s vegetarianism is also likely a myth, by the way.
How can you care about animals more than you care about humans?
Where did you get this from? Caring about animals and about humans are not mutually exclusive – in fact, those go hand in hand.
Some animals are meant to be food, they are different from pets, such is life.
You definitely haven’t Googled “Yulin dog festival China” – and we actually don’t recommend it (spoiler alert, it’s about eating dogs boiled alive, not admiring them).
There is no creature more significant than the other – at least us vegans think so.
But the animals wouldn’t even be here without us!
Or maybe, they would actually be much better off running around and enjoying the aforementioned circle of life without the industrial evolution, pollution, global warming and other perks of sharing the planet with humans. It’s really hard to tell what would it be like – why don’t we focus on present instead?
My religion obliges me to eat animals.
Spoiler alert: Other people grew up eating meat, too, but they still made up their minds. You can still keep the culture and go vegan – no culture actually pushes you to eat meat, ok?
We’ll revisit this subject again with more fun responses!
Hope you enjoyed our comprehensive vegan FAQ, and have some great fun using it!
Go back to Chapter 8 Go to Chapter 10
