The Growth of Veganism?

Reader Question: With more and more people being born vegan, do you believe we will see the numbers we saw when veganism was at its height? I can’t understand why the vegan / vegetarian numbers haven’t increased. —Stephanie L.

Thank you for your question, Stephanie, and a happy World Vegan Month to you and all VegCurious? Ask a Vegan! readers. Congratulations as well as for submitting the first reader question to be answered in this new column!

First, a correction. I have never seen any evidence or study that shows the total number of vegans to be decreasing. Still, if your perception is that “the numbers we saw when veganism was at its height” are lower, then this is an issue vegans must deal with, as we can all agree that the numbers need to be increasing, in both reality as well as belief.

I have seen data that shows that the percentage of veg*ns (vegans and vegetarians) is relatively stagnant. In addition, a paper recently published by Faunalytics, “Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Making And Keeping Veg*ns,” stated “for every one person surveyed who was still veg*n, five had tried the diet but reverted to their previous eating habits.” I must note, though, that the survey was conducted in 2014, meaning this is neither a new phenomenon nor can we say for sure if this trend has continued over the past decade.

This data, however, should not be taken as a “failure” of the vegan movement or its ideals. Quite the opposite. It means we are consistently reaching new people who are willing to give a plant-based diet a test drive. The “problem,” if there is one, lies in any particular survey’s loose definition of “vegan” as (only) a diet and not a lifestyle commitment. Still, the evidence shows that people who “go vegan” for a period of time and fall off the bandwagon continue to eat more plant-based meals after their experiment than they did before. And this is good. I see it as a starting point.

This last point illustrates a couple of things, which some vegans may feel uncomfortable with and which is one of the problems vegans need to address. I’ll illustrate with an example. Let’s assume you, Stephanie, are not (yet) vegan though you are “VegCurious.” You experiment with plant-based foods, have a few veg cookbooks, and nowadays roughly half of your meals are vegan. Congratulations!

Now let’s also assume you are partnered up and your significant other eats the same way you do. So you are both “half-vegan.” Even math-challenged people know that two halves equal a whole. 🙂

Which is better for the animals and the planet: If everyone — today — cut their animal product consumption in half? Or if a relatively small percentage of people self-identify as committed, consistent vegans?

You and your S.O. might never show up in a survey of vegans even though, in reality — and certainly from the animals point of view — together you equal one vegan. Which leads to a question that might be the key to your query: Why the retention problem for converts? Unfortunately, there’s no one answer.

For now, though, a few takeaways are worth mentioning. Today, eating vegan is easy, as plant-based options abound and are usually clearly labeled, unlike decades ago when early vegans, including myself, had to purchase powdered soy milk from the bulk bin at a musty “health food” store that smelled of patchouli. Staying dietarily vegan, though, appears to be somewhat of a challenge and needs to be seriously studied. Some of the common reasons given are often linked to social factors: family, work, peer pressure, convenience, the desire to “fit in,” etc. I’ll deep dive into these, and offer solutions, in future columns.

In my Born Vegans column, which you reference, I noted that the retention rate for those who begin life meat-free is quite high, which is good news. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be true with those raised on the SAD (Standard America Diet) who later become vegan, as we have just seen. This is an area the vegan movement needs to take seriously…and one of the reasons I’ve created this column.

I do not believe a statistical blip or two signifies the death of veganism. There’s no denying that the word “vegan” is commonplace today where it wasn’t that long ago when people had a hard time pronouncing it and many didn’t have a clue what it meant. These days, everyone knows at least one vegan, which certainly wasn’t true 20 years ago. Most restaurants, especially fine dining establishments, will have a vegan option or two, and maybe even a vegan menu, and there are now a few fully vegan dining halls on college campuses in the US. All of these trends are positive and irrespective of whether or not the number of “100% vegans” is on the uptick. Would I like to see everyone become vegan yesterday? Of course. But I also realize that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. 🌱