Why you should be vegan as of today
What side of history will you stand on?
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“Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.”
Theodor Adorno
For the first 30 years of my life, I never gave animals—or the exploitation behind the products I consumed—any real thought.
I was disconnected from it, so it never crossed my mind in any serious way.
The information was there—books, documentaries, even conversations that could have opened my eyes—but I didn’t look.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to see.
When I finally started to, I did so from a selfish, human-centred perspective. I was focused on how a plant-based diet could benefit me—my body, my longevity, my well-being.
I was looking at it from the position of the oppressor, rather than considering the lives of the victims who suffered for me—for my food, my clothes, my cosmetics.
And that’s not so unusual; many people start there.
Looking back, I wish I had approached it from the victims’ perspective first. I can now see how firmly my blinkers were on and how much they shaped the way I saw the world.
My hope is to help you lift yours and see the reality that’s been hiding in plain sight.
Questioning the Status Quo
The world we live in is designed to keep us blind.
Society, industries, families, traditions—they all make it easy to stay comfortable, unquestioning, and unaware. Animals have become invisible; too often, we don’t even recognise them as victims in the first place.
From childhood, we’re taught to categorise animals: some are deserving of our sympathy, while others—like cows, pigs, chickens, and fish—are not.
This distinction trains us to accept the use of some animals for human purposes as normal, natural, and necessary. We grow up with cheerful cartoons of happy cows in green fields, and milk ads telling us we “need” dairy for strong bones.
It’s all part of the same comforting story, carefully constructed to keep us from questioning what’s really happening.
I remember first learning about injustice in history lessons as a teenager—sexism, racism, slavery. I understood instantly that these things were wrong.
In fact, I couldn’t wrap my head around how people at the time didn’t see it. I was certain I would’ve been one of those radicals, standing up and fighting for change.
Of course, it’s easy to see injustice once it’s universally recognised—when we have the safe vantage point of looking back from a world where laws and society have already changed.
“Truth must pass through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
The real question isn’t whether we can spot injustice from the third stage of truth—that’s the easy part.
The true test is whether we recognised it at the start—when society ridiculed it, and speaking out made you feel crazy or alone.
For the first thirty years of my life, I exploited animals because I never stopped to question the morality of the society I grew up in. I considered myself fiercely anti-oppression in human matters, and yet I failed to see my role in a system built on human supremacy.
Speciesism is the idea that one species—ours—is inherently more important or valuable than others, and that this belief justifies exploiting, harming, or killing non-human animals.
When I think about it now, it isn’t surprising it took me a while to figure this out.
After all, it’s only within the past century that we’ve begun to make real progress in social justice for our own species, so it’s no wonder animal rights lag even further behind.
Animals cannot speak for themselves, and their perceived otherness makes it all too easy to overlook their suffering.
Every period in history has its blind spots, and breaking free from the “norm”—from what everyone else is doing and calling acceptable—is never easy.
This is why awareness—and the willingness to admit when we’re wrong—is so crucial.
In the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch ran a famous experiment on conformity. Participants were asked to match the length of a line to one of three options.
When they did the task alone, almost everyone got it right. But when placed in a group where everyone else deliberately gave the wrong answer, many participants went along with the group.
The experiment shows just how powerful the need to belong can be. The desire to fit in, avoid standing out, or follow what others are doing can override our own judgement.
I want to start by saying: I know how this feels.
And I don’t necessarily blame you, because society conditions us to be wilfully blind and complicit. I’m deliberately spending time on this because it’s crucial to acknowledge how the structures we grow up in shape our perception of the world.
But we have to be open to the idea that some of the things society accepts—just as we’ve seen throughout history—are morally indefensible.
I also want to preface this by saying: you may feel defensive as you read this, because it feels like your whole identity is being challenged. We naturally resist anything that questions who we think we are.
I felt the same way when I first learned about veganism.
You might even be feeling annoyed at me for writing this, because you didn’t ask to hear it, and it may feel like I’m trying to force my views on you.
I hear that a lot—that I should respect people’s “personal choice not to be vegan.”
For the vast majority of decisions in life, I would agree: it’s important to respect someone’s personal choices. Whether it’s religion, lifestyle, or countless other areas, I wouldn’t presume to tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do.
But here’s the difference: exploiting animals isn’t a harmless personal preference—it directly harms another being.
If one human treated another the same way, we wouldn’t shrug it off as a matter of personal choice. In situations like that, the rights of the victim clearly outweigh the desire of the aggressor.
In any situation of injustice, it is always right to speak up on behalf of the victim.
And it’s especially important in cases where they have no voice to speak up for themselves.
What Is Veganism, Really?
Even the word vegan used to be enough to put me off. It felt extreme, cultish even.
That’s no accident.
The word has been demonised so people don’t have to actually engage with the issue at hand. It’s easier to ridicule a label than to confront uncomfortable truths we’d rather not look at too closely.
This actually brings us back to the very definition of veganism itself.
There’s a lot of misinformation right now about what veganism actually is. And honestly, there’s probably even some confusion among vegans themselves.
In the past, I’ve written long articles about the health benefits or environmental impacts of veganism, rattling off endless statistics and studies—but none of that is actually necessary.
As Leslie Cross defined it in 1951, in the early days of the Vegan Society:
Veganism is the ethical principle of rejecting the exploitation of animals by humans.
Veganism isn’t just a dietary trend, a personal identity, or a lifestyle choice—it’s an ethical stance.
Yes, it involves food, but it reaches far beyond what’s on your plate.
Veganism is about rejecting animal exploitation wherever it occurs, as far as is possible and practicable. That means considering the materials we wear, entertainment that keeps animals captive like zoos or aquariums, cosmetics and household products tested on animals, and more.
If you want to educate yourself, watch the documentary films Earthlings or Dominion. They expose the realities of industries built on animal exploitation.
And remember, if it’s not good enough for your eyes, why should it be good enough for your stomach?
A Deeper Mindset Shift
Most of us say we respect animals, but our actions suggest otherwise. Even if we’re not always 100% conscious of it, we still take part in systems that exploit them.
And just to be clear, by “exploitation,” I mean using someone else purely for your own purposes.
The question is, can we truly claim to respect animals while exploiting them for their flesh, eggs, milk, or skin?
Standard industry practices in meat, dairy, and eggs are inherently cruel. There’s no shortage of documentaries, books, or investigative reports exposing this.
The thing is, the vast majority of people already agree that factory farming is abhorrent. Yet most will continue to buy animal products from supermarkets, fast-food chains, and other sources where these practices dominate. It accounts for a huge percentage of food production in every country.
But even products marketed as “free-range,” or “organic” are still part of an industrial system of exploitation: male chicks are killed at birth in the egg industry, calves are taken from their mothers for dairy, and pigs are put into CO2 gas chambers.
These labels are designed to comfort the consumer, not the animal.
In fact, I hear people argue for “better welfare” all the time—that the solution is not veganism, but to support so-called “ethical” farms.
It’s an understandable instinct: if factory farming is cruel, could the answer be to raise animals in better conditions, with more space, more comfort, more dignity?
Ironically, people said much the same about slavery.
For centuries, many reformers called not for abolition, but more humane treatment, shorter working hours, or improved living conditons. These proposals sounded compassionate, but they kept the core injustice intact: human beings remained property. However comfortable a slave’s quarters might have been, the very fact of enslavement could never be made ethical.
The same logic applies to our treatment of animals.
However spacious the barn, however green the pasture, their lives are still treated as resources for us to exploit. “Humane farming” doesn’t challenge the fundamental wrong any more than “humane slavery” did.
We often get hung up on the suffering and cruelty—and of course, it’s understandable that we do. But it’s important to remember that they’re not the root cause.
They’re simply the inevitable consequence of a collective mindset that accepts the exploitation of animals.
The deeper issue is shifting that mindset: moving from the belief that animals exist for us to use as we please, to recognising that we share this planet and co-exist alongside them.
Just as no human would want to be reduced to an object or a unit of commerce—we all recognise our inherent worth and freedom to live our own lives—so too does every animal deserve recognition of its own intrinsic worth and the freedom to live.
Put Yourself in the Victim’s Shoes
Imagine being born into a world where your entire fate was sealed before you even open your eyes, just because of your species.
Where the date of your execution was already decided—regardless of what kind of life you lived.
The very phrase “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron. How can murder ever be kind, compassionate, or benevolent?
That we even use this language shows how little worth we place on animals’ lives.
What’s really happening is that we are searching for ways to justify the unjustifiable.
It’s a form of psychological shielding.
If you’re ever unsure how to respond to injustice, place yourself in the victim’s position and ask: How would it feel if the tables were turned?
It’s easy to say, “Exploiting animals is okay,” when you’re on the dominant side. That perspective exists to justify harm and blind us to suffering.
But imagine being the one whose freedom and bodily autonomy are taken away, whose life is reduced to a resource for someone else’s wants. Would that ever feel acceptable?
The point is simple: there is no humane or ethical way to exploit someone else—to see them as yours to use for your own purposes.
And in a society where such exploitation isn’t even necessary, where we have countless alternatives, the moral responsibility to refuse it becomes impossible to ignore.
For me, when I put myself in the victim’s shoes and made that connection, the contradiction between my words and my actions was undeniable.
If I truly believed that exploiting animals was wrong, veganism was the only logical choice.
Isn’t It Enough to Be Vegetarian?
Vegetarianism is often framed as if it’s aligned with veganism. And for a long time, I assumed vegetarians were on the same side as me.
But the more I observed, the more I realised it often gives people a false sense of moral entitlement—allowing them to feel like animal defenders while still participating in systems of exploitation. For instance, many vegetarians I know will trot out the excuse that they “just love cheese too much.”
Dairy is arguably one of the most disturbing industries of all.
We’ve been led to believe that cow’s milk is meant for us, but no other mammal on earth drinks the breast milk of their mother after infancy, let alone that of another species.
In fact, I used to think cows “just made milk,” never realising that, like any other mammal, females must first become pregnant and give birth in order to produce milk for their young. A cow’s pregnancy lasts about nine months, just like a human’s. Yet, after all that, their babies are taken from them so that we can consume the milk instead.
When did we become so arrogant and entitled as to believe that a cow’s milk exists for fully grown human adults, rather than for her own calf?
There is no taste pleasure on earth that could ever justify stealing a baby from their mother.
Many male calves are slaughtered for veal or killed within days or weeks of birth, while their mothers are forced through cycle after cycle of pregnancy and loss. When they can no longer produce enough milk to be profitable, dairy cows themselves are slaughtered at just a fraction of their natural lifespan.
Anyone who knows me would tell you I’m the last person they’d ever have expected to go vegan—because I was so obsessed with cheese.
But once I understood the reality, I gave it up gladly, and I’ve never looked back since.
This kind of reasoning—choosing personal pleasure over the rights of another being—is exactly why vegetarianism falls short ethically. Just as no one would say, “I’m against most forms of racism, but some is fine,” or “I’ll oppose slavery a little bit,” we cannot pick and choose which forms of exploitation we condemn and which we participate in.
I appreciate that justice movements often start with small steps, and perhaps vegetarianism made sense historically as an initial step.
But I do not understand vegetarianism in the 21st century as an ‘ethical’ stance.
Stopping at meat alone ignores the full scope of animal exploitation that’s embedded into the very fabric of our society.
Overcoming Objections
There are typically a few main excuses people use to keep justifying exploiting animals, which I’ll touch on briefly:
1. Health
There is a lot of misinformation and fear-mongering out there, but all the leading health organisations agree: a well-planned vegan diet is suitable for every stage of life. There are plenty of vegan athletes and bodybuilders proving it’s more than adequate. You should make sure to eat B12-fortified foods, or take a supplement to be on the safe side. It really comes down to education. I’ve mentioned this before, but How Not to Die is a fantastic introduction to healthy plant-based eating.
2. Habit
Eating animals is something many of us have done since childhood. It’s a programmed habit, and breaking it can feel difficult. But if you’re reading this blog, you already know that change is possible. Living intentionally means making choices that align with your values, even when they go against old habits. It can feel harder as we get older, because we become more set in our ways, more attached to our identity and who we think we are. But neuroplasticity proves we are capable of change when we’re presented with new information.
3. Tradition
Just because something has been done for centuries doesn’t make it moral. History is full of practices once considered normal that we now recognise as deeply unjust: slavery, sexism, racial segregation. At the time, most people accepted these systems as “the way things are,” yet we now see the clear moral failings. The same applies to animals—we have been exploiting them since the dawn of time. But ethics often require questioning what society has long told us is acceptable—and having the courage to act differently, even when it feels uncomfortable or goes against the norm.
4. Convenience
Animal products are everywhere—it’s often the easiest option, and seeking out alternatives can feel inconvenient. But always put yourself in the victim’s position and ask: would you want someone to be overly concerned about convenience if your life were at stake? Who is it really harder for: you, making a different choice at the supermarket? Or the animal, being exploited to death for your convenience?
5. Taste
As I mentioned earlier, do you think I stopped eating animal products because I didn’t enjoy them? Not at all. I loved meat and cheese—especially cheese, probably more than most people. But I went vegan without hesitation once I understood why it mattered. When I realised there was no nutritional necessity, that a vegan diet could fully support my health, it became clear there was no justification for prioritising my taste pleasure—for a 15-minute meal I’d forget in a week—over an animal’s entire life.
Why > How
“He who has a why can bear any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
You’ll notice I’m spending a lot of time on the why.
That’s because the why is what drives the how. You don’t need superhuman willpower when you understand your why. I explore this more in this post here.
All the information is already out there—you have access to the internet at your fingertips, you can substitute ingredients, veganise meals you already enjoy, and eventually, you can even take it further, experimenting with plant-based meals using ingredients you may not have tried before.
The key is to see it as an opportunity to live in alignment rather than a restriction.
Focusing too heavily on the how is actually an insult to the victims. It implies that the minor inconveniences we experience from our privileged human position matter more than their suffering.
I’m not trying to dismiss the practicalities of going vegan, but the truth is, once your why is clear, it’s amazing how you’ll find solutions.
When I knew why veganism mattered, the how simply had to be worked out.
I had been pescatarian for a year, but I went vegan literally overnight after watching the documentary film Earthlings.
At first, I spent a lot of time reading labels at the supermarket and lived off falafel wraps because I didn’t know much about vegan nutrition or cooking—but gradually, I became more adventurous and confident in the kitchen.
I don’t say ‘I literally went vegan overnight’ to brag—I’m trying to make the point that I am nothing special.
I simply made a decision, and the reason for it was so clear that everything else fell into place.
Ultimately, it all comes down to perspective. Some people will say it’s hard, because they are entirely focused on themselves and the inconvenience to their life. Others will say it’s easy, because they see it from the victim’s point of view and the choice is black and white.
I used to advocate for a “gradual transition” to veganism—meatless Mondays, swapping cow’s milk for oat milk, one small change at a time. And while I still believe in the power of small steps and incremental choices when it comes to living more intentionally, this is one area I now see as a clear-cut decision.
Because if you were in the victim’s position, how quickly would you want your oppressor to stop exploiting you?
I can’t answer for you, but I know my personal answer would be—immediately.
We cannot always see the victims, and that’s partly why it’s so easy to stay disconnected. Animal agriculture is deliberately hidden from view. This distance makes it far easier to continue participating without thinking.
But for the animals being exploited and killed because of you, this is an emergency.
Once you understand that this is a justice issue, there’s no room for delay—you should be vegan as of right now.
What Difference Can One Person Make?
It’s tempting to despair and think, “What difference can I make? Animals will continue to die anyway; my actions won’t change anything.”
But that perspective misses something fundamental: your choices do matter.
Supply and demand responds to your actions. Every meal, every product you refuse to buy, contributes to shifting what is produced and normalised. Individual action compounds into collective change.
If everyone believed otherwise, nothing would ever have changed in history. As anthropologist Margaret Mead reminds us:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
It is easy to despair about all the atrocities going on in the world that we have no control over—but here, right in front of us, we have an opportunity to act.
Every day, several times a day, your choices either perpetuate exploitation or reject it.
Think about the people you admire—those with integrity and principles. Would they decide to do nothing, simply because change feels slow? Or would they step up and act with courage anyway?
Would we teach our children that it’s okay to stay silent when everyone around them is doing something wrong?
Of course not.
Real change starts with individuals. You must lead by example. You can’t wait for industries, laws, or society to suddenly become ethical—those systems only change when enough people take a stand.
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
One thing that brings me a huge amount of peace is that no injustice can last forever when truth is on its side. It never has.
So even if your choices seem insignificant today, you are contributing to a movement that will eventually become self-evident. One day, we will look back from a world where veganism is the norm.
You actually get to decide which side of history you will stand on—and that is powerful.
Which side will you stand on?
So, Vegan Now?
At the start of this post, I mentioned that I wished I had seen all of this earlier. But what matters more than anything is that once I was presented with the information to make an informed decision, I changed.
It doesn’t matter how old you are, or how long you’ve been doing things a certain way—you can change too.
The good news is that being vegan doesn’t actually change anything about who you are—because you already believe that animals deserve respect.
No one is asking you to change your religion, your beliefs, or your identity. The only thing that has to change is your actions.
As Paul Bashir puts it, the number one benefit of being vegan is that, for the animals, you will no longer be the reason they are exploited to death. And for you, you will no longer have to be a hypocrite, because your actions will finally align with the morals you already claim to hold.
It’s about living on purpose, rather than drifting along with what society tells you to do or without stopping to think for yourself.
Remember, veganism is the moral baseline. It is the simple, uncompromising recognition that exploiting sentient beings for pleasure or convenience is wrong—and that doing the right thing is non-negotiable.
But if you truly grasp the urgency of what’s happening, the next step is to speak up on behalf of the victims and help accelerate change.
Put yourself in their position. How would you want someone to speak up for you if your life were up for debate? That same principle applies here. Speak in the same way you would hope others would speak up for you.
It is all the more urgent when it comes to animal liberation, because animals have no voice to advocate for themselves—they rely entirely on us to speak on their behalf.
History shows us the danger of inaction. Bad things happen when good people do nothing.
And yet, as vegans, we are often made to feel ashamed for using our voices—as if we should stay quiet and let people get on with it.
That pressure is deliberate, because there is power in our voices calling for change. No activist in history ever listened to those urging silence—and nor should they.
Change only happens when people speak up, take action, and push against the status quo.
You need to become active too. Speak out wherever you can and get involved in activism.
Animal exploitation is largest and longest-standing injustice on Earth—and you have the power to help end it.
Resources
The Best Speech You’ll Ever Hear by Gary Yourofsky: the life-changing speech on animal rights and veganism delivered at Georgia Tech in 2010.
Norm: A short film where two roommates argue about the morality of rape, in a society that treats it as legal and socially acceptable.
Vegan Documentaries: I’ve put together a list of vegan documentaries that I found especially powerful and eye-opening.
Vegan Books: Some of my favourite books on veganism and animal ethics that challenged the way I think and gave me new tools for understanding why this movement matters so deeply.
Anonymous for the Voiceless: Get involved with animal rights activism in your nearest city. AV provides opportunities to speak up for animals and take action in an impactful way.