Why I Quit Being Vegan After 6+ Years | Ethical Veganism

I want to share my story on why I quit being a vegan after almost seven years. I quit due to a change in my ethical and moral beliefs, which I get into in the video. Most videos I come across of ex-vegans state it's due to health reasons, which wasn't the case for me. I was an ethical vegan from 2014-2020 and did it because I was passionate about the animals and against factory farming. I now believe there is more to the picture than pure black-and-white veganism.

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:55 Why I Went Vegan
7:41 Transitioning out of Veganism + Shifting Morals
12:56 Health Changes since Quitting Veganism
14:50 The Environment
17:45 What I Like About Veganism
19:02 Vegan Cult Tactics + Hardships of Leaving
20:02 Moral Imposition + Vegan Propaganda
21:56 Privileged Vegans
24:26 How I Feel Eating Meat
25:38 Concluding Thoughts / My Beliefs

[fictionalqueer]

I have been vegan for almost 6 years now. And I'm just gonna put it out there, I do not feel well. Granted this is because I probably don't eat a well-planned and nutritious vegan diet, and that is all due to my eating disorder. I still ethically think that eating animals and their byproducts is morally wrong, but I have started to realise that all the nutritional 'science' and facts I took as gospel are not so black and white. I think humans can thrive on many different diets. But the vegan diet takes care and planning to get all your nutrients and feel on top form, and 1) I have been unable to do that with an ED and 2) the planning and constant food preoccupation has really exercerbated my ED (which predates veganism). After almost a year of deliberation I have started to reintroduce animal products into my diet for the sake of my recovery. If I feel better physically I will probably stick with it, if not then who knows what the future holds, maybe I'll be able to return to ethical veganism when/if I'm recovered from my ED. It's been a hard decision and a tearful process so far. Wish me luck pls 🥺

[karenbressler]

When I became a vegan it stopped my diverticulitis flare ups meaning blood coming from my intestines. Then after 2 years I thought I was healed ate meat for a week and the flare ups returned. Went back to plant based..no more flare ups!

[tylergannon]

I tried going vegetarian for a while no where nearly as long as you were vegan but I had the same experience. Didn’t feel good, realized my reasons didn’t really make sense when it comes to animal suffering. My views weren’t consistent and I was doing it from a place of naive idealism that somehow suffering of any kind was unnecessary

[RJGMorris]

I think there is a big misunderstanding of what veganism is. It's is not a diet. It's is not, never let this enter your body or you are immoral.

The definition given by the vegan society is: "Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose"

It is not practical to let termites infest your house. It may not be possible to live 100% plant based because of your social economic status but as long as you are trying to reduce animals suffering as much as possible, under this definition you are still vegan.

[helenreynolds]

Claire, as a 50+ year old I have to say you present a well-constucted and balanced powerful analysis. You are an independent critical thinker and this will serve you well going forward. You will form your own community based on reason. Well done.

[lophtus_music]

I'm frankly a bit baffled. What was the shift in your moral argument? I'm sure i've probably just misunderstood what you've said but it came across as 'I was suppressing urges to eat animal products, and then caved in', which is difficult for me to empathise with, given that I don't have these cravings, and that this isn't a moral argument in any given sense. Cheers, and much love, Lophtus

[richardcardinale]

I've been vegans for 10 years and I was miserable, IBS, depression, anxiety etc. 2 years on the carnivore diet and all is healed and I lost 200 lbs.

[robsengahay]

I am an older -and late to the party - vegan though actually I tend to say I have a plant-based diet rather than the label vegan. It has only been a couple of years for me and as yet I haven’t had any cravings for animal products despite eating them for the first 59 years of my life. Maybe it will happen later, I will find out in time I guess. I hope I will resist those cravings as I am carrying a ton of guilt for prevaricating for so many years.

My primary thought on this content was that you referenced that vegans were ‘priviliged’ if they were able to source healthy vegan food without realising that if you are able to source non-factory farmed animals you definitely have to be priviliged as in the USA something like 99% of animals slaughtered for food are victims of the factory farming system.

Sourcing that 1% cannot be easy. I certainly wouldn’t know how to obtain it.

It follows then that 99% of meat eaters derive all of their animal products from factory farms and always will.

It does seem that you are really knowledgeable on all the anti-vegan talking points which is unsurprising as we do get to hear them a lot.

[Matfathew]

Interesting perspective and I agree with a lot of the issues found in veganism. I do think a lot of the issues you bring up though revolve around the cultural aspects of people who are vegan, rather than an issue with the cause itself. Veganism isn't about never killing any animals but preventing unnecessary suffering and ones diet is a great place to start with that. I disagree that any type of meat farming could be more sustainable in any way and with more research and integration veganism can be a more healthy and more accessible means for food consumption if we continue to head in the right direction. It's sad to hear vegans react so critically to others who make even minimal effort to reduce excess exploitation. Im on my second year of veganism and I think that these points need to be brought up and heard in a supportive manner if we want to continue to lead the way for more ethical ways of food consumption.

[lkvunlu]

The point about feeling how your body tells you what is good for your health is so true.
My father does underwater fishing. And the way he does it is far more ethical than buying fish in a supermarket. He has to dive 15 meters deep, hold his breath for over 2 minutes, has to learn so much about these species, their habitat. He teaches me a lot of it, and I actually learn from marine creatures, how to move underwater. When he catches a fish and we open it's belly, we can see a small crab or a small fish that the bigger fish has recently eaten. And when we finally eat the our big fish, does not feel like we make it disappear, it feels like it's part of me now. So we feel greatful, never do overhunting, never leave trash on a beach, support people who take care of local forests and so on.

[SpiritVector]

can you truly live ethically though? I mean, even if you quit eating meat to prevent killing animals you still have to quit buying electronics. I mean the way they treat those childern at the lithium mines? Jesus.

[Robbythegod]

Hi I'm Vegan. I find this video interesting, you speak about cravings for meat or eggs, interestingly I've never experienced this except perhaps in the first few weeks (less cravings and more habitual thinking). I'm still curious on how your moral position changed, there wasn't much moral philosophy here, could you expand on that?
Veganism isn't just never harming animals, it's about avoiding the suffering of any animal and making decisions based on this, yes sometimes that involves speciesism. I feed my cat some fish, but I wouldn't feed her pork. I have to weigh up the harm caused by one vs the other vs not feeding my cat meat. So it's just choosing to continually make moral choices to avoid harm to all animals, including humans.

[RaeLarz]

I've been vegetarian 4 years, vegan for 2. I felt great at the beginning, but I've recently been craving things like eggs and fish. I don't think I could stomach meat again, who knows, but I feel strongly about reintroducing some animal products back into my diet and see how I feel

[chelseamarie]

After 11 years being vegan the first thing I ate was a steak. It’s been two years since going back to animal products and it was the best thing I’ve ever done for my health. It’s scary how many issues I was living with and didn’t even realize something was wrong. I was a hardcore ethical vegan too! Always forcing myself to watch horrible videos of animal cruelty to remind myself why I was vegan, it turned me into an angry sad person and I just couldn’t live like that anymore. Veganism was slowly destroying my body and mind.

[gabriellefata]

Great video ! Keep em coming even tho some do not want to hear your story, many out there do ! It also really freaked me out how much my health improved almost instantly after 15 years of not eating meat..even though many of those years was pescatarian .... it still surprised me. The word is starting to come out and I hope people can learn to embrace regenerative farming, traditional foods, intentional eating etc

[teganwarrior]

Such a well put together video. Love how you approach it at every angle.

I went vegan 7 years ago and left it 2 months ago due to health and developed several autoimmune disease.

I was an activist for 3 years and really involved in the movement.

When the vegan community found out I got alot of sh*t, alot of she was never vegan, she never did it right etc..

[fynnkellmann]

to be honest you did not actually propose a counterargument. All you said was "i stopped thinking black or white".

[pseudonymousbeing]

Humane slaughter is an oxymoron. Those words contradict one another.

No human who doesn't want to die can be killed humanely. Same for all life desiring pain feeling creatures.

[neonk]

The only thing I’m against is large scale farming and fishing. Honestly anything done on such a huge scale is bound to become morally wrong, such as the clothing industry. Don’t have a problem with hunting, fishing for yourself or keeping some hens. But I’ve been vegan for 6 years and I like it. Maybe would adopt hens and eat eggs one day but I’m not sure if I’d like them now. I love when people have nuanced discussions it’s my favourite thing. 🥰

[fxkali]

Thank you for making a non health video because I’m healthy and vegan but feeling how you did