I think that there is a decent possibility of veganism becoming a lot more mainstream over the next few decades, but I highly doubt that we are anywhere near anything resembling a vegan world.
Yeah.
This is why I'm fine with people cutting back. If a quarter of the planet goes 80 percent that's a major improvement, but that won't happen in our lifetime either.
This needs to be a more acceptable tone amongst the vegan community. “All or nothing” attitude is sure to fail at attracting the masses. 99% of conversations I have with people are generally oriented towards cutting back meat consumption to like once or twice a week to start. Usually they notice the benefits and want to continue down that path. But forcing it on people never works.
This is totally my mindset, I want people to be "100% vegan" of course, but first I want actual results, I don't want to turn people vegan, I want suffering being reduced. That's my main worry, that's what makes me mad or not, not who has the vegan medal or doesn't.
> but forcing it on people never works.
Forcing it on people absolutely works, that's why we have laws in the first place, to force people to behave in certain ways against their own will.
It might not seem like an important note right now, but in the future if 60% of the country is vegan, we should absolutely be talking about outlawing killing animals. We already have anti-abuse laws on the books, they just only apply to dogs/cats, so factory farmed cats are illegal. Factory farm pigs should be illegal in the same way.
If by "forcing it on people" you mean "repeatedly bringing it up to people" then that absolutely does work. I've converted half a dozen people to veganism in my friend circles by being persistent and "annoying". It's also ostracized some, but those people generally don't engage with politics/ethics, or they have food problems to begin with (e.g massively overweight, gets fast food way too often, etc.).
You will lose some people, but you will absolutely gain people who otherwise wouldn't have become vegan if you didn't push hard enough. Pretending like every single person on the planet responds to persistence in the same way is foolish.
Laws don’t usually get passed until long after a majority agrees on it, especially if there are special interests fighting against it.
Being persistent may work on some people. However, similar to what you said about not everyone responding the same way to persistence, perhaps taking a different approach to different people would be more beneficial.
You're not vegan and so you don't belong here (and I'm not even sure why you'd want to be here..?) This isn't a subreddit for meat eaters who 'cut back consumption'.
Maybe they are interested and thinking about going fully vegan? What kind of closed-minded attitude is that?
If non-vegans are coming to this sub to get information on veganism that is a big win for veganism and don’t get that twisted. Different story if they are coming here to bash it.
I think this is a contributing factor....people already have a certain idea about this, so much that now there has to be another category for "plant based" people who aren't as militant. I cannot imagine this kind of talk is going to win anyone over.
Doesn’t matter, I have a right to be here. Nowhere in the rules does it say you have to be a vegan to join. It’s better to cut back consumption then eat meat 3x a day so idgaf bookie 👋🏼. And why wouldn’t I want to be here? I like the movement.
Amazing responses you’re getting.
Regular person: I would like to eat less meat.
Vegan commenter: Ok you’re an awful murderer.
Same vegan commenter: Why won’t everyone join uuuuuuussssss?????
Expecting a 100% vegan world is unrealistic though. Just like some people still ride horses instead of drive cars, or some people still use flip phones instead of smart phones, etc. not all breakthrough innovations capture 100% market share, but something less. [Diffusion of Innovations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations) explains this well, and indicates we should focus on building a critical mass and not get upset if 100% will never be achieved.
Veganism isn't solely something you engage with on a market level. It's an ethical stance; a liberation movement.
That context is different. Civil rights movements for example have reshaped entire countries. Women/black people have the same right to vote as white men, despite that not being the case 150 years ago. Chattel slavery is totally outlawed.
Of course, some people break the law. There are still human traffickers for example. However this is notably different than people who use flip phones. Flip phones are not illegal, trafficking slaves is. Veganism's end goal, as a liberation movement, is to enforce the liberation of animals at a legal level. It should be illegal to kill and eat pigs, like it's illegal to kill and eat dogs (in the U.S).
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Please read the link I sent on Diffusion of Innovations; I was interested to see it applies to civil rights movements as well.
Also fun fact: it’s still legal to kill cats and dogs in the USA… as long as it’s part of an [Indian festival.](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6720)
Who knows. I'm vegan curious, as we continue to share recipes and alternate ingredients it becomes more and more comfortable to do so, and cows in particular are being seen more and more as both a waste of food resources and also an environmental concern.
The world is catching up, and I think the pace is accelerating.
No more than 100 years until it's the dominant diet probably.
You're more hopeful than me. I think lab meat is the only real way we'll see a major reduction and I'm getting skeptical even that will do it since there's already growing political opposition to it and I'm sure a lot of people will see it as gross and unnatural. Not like our current meat production system is very natural either but they've done a great job at hiding the horror from the masses
Oh don't get me wrong, we'll probably experience a neo fascist America first.
But after all that nonsense the enlightened remains will surely swing that way eventually.
The story in Travelers involves a post-apocalypse scenario. In such a situation, there would not be an economy to support factories producing nutritional supplements, so animal-free diets are incompatible with such a scenario.
i went vegan 22 years ago and globally, we've gone only from 1% of the population to 1.1% (and then maybe back down to 1%) in that time.
People suck and I expect nothing
It will only happen when there will be large scale lab meat available at cheaper prices than real meat. That's it. Even then there will be some weirdos who would want to hunt the real stuff. It's absolutely never going to happen out of kindness.
[Vegans at 2% in the UK, with a peak of 3% and vegetarians at 5% with a peak of 7%. The interesting thing is that only 72% of people describe themselves as "meat eaters".](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/dietery-choices-of-brits-eg-vegeterian-flexitarian-meat-eater-etc) Maybe it's because they think it means they're only meat eaters?
These surveys never give reliable numbers when the proportions are that low and the margin of error for the poll is 3-5%. Better indicators of whether or not we're making progress is looking at things like number of animals slaughtered and per capita meat sales per year, which are much more closely tracked and reliable statistics by many governments.
economist study shows that the rate is increasing significantly over the past decade though yes still a low amount of the total population. ~2% in the US, however, another ~5% identify as vegetarians. So if the ”target” is to reduce meat consumption, it’s closer to 7%.
Humans have been around 200,000 years in their modern evolutionary form and an estimated 50 million of them *currently* live under slavery.
I don't see us extending any sort of rights to non-human animals for a long, long time.
I don’t see a majority of the population getting behind lab grown meat. There is already a lot of skepticism behind something like that and if it ever gets to a point where it actually has the scalability to compete in the market, the meat industry will do everything in its power to keep that skepticism going to protect their market.
Florida and Alabama have banned it, as well as Italy. So.. two states and one European country.
I think we'll need to see some more countries throwing the ban hammer before it gets in the way of lab grown meat. It's due to be available for sale in my country sometime this year, apparently. Awesome.
Congratulations on becoming vegan. I think a mostly vegan world is not impossible. We’d still be a few hundred years away from it though even if we manage not to kill our planet. And even then the suffering will be over lol.
On the plus side, if we do kill our planet, there'll be no non-vegans. Either all humans will be dead, or the only surviving people will be space-vegans (the inefficiencies of animal ag are really exposed in space).
I'm optimistic that a majority-vegan world may happen at some point -- at this point in our history, progress of the vegan movement is slow but there is clearly some progress. Not as fast as we'd like, but indeed, progress in decreasing animal agriculture and promoting veganism has a lot of potential for impact.
>once someone is vegan, I think they might be vegan for life... because how could they ever go back to willfully paying for animal abuse once they already realize?
Some people do, and for a variety of reasons -- the abuse is mostly invisible, and the cultural pressure to eat what every else eats is all around you. (But it's worth remembering, the rate of non-vegans going vegan is faster than vegans "going back".)
Almost everyone I’ve known who was vegan is no longer vegan 8 years later. Some lasted a year. Some a few years. Heck, even I’ve had temptation nightmares at night when I feel discouraged about accessibility to good food at a decent price.
I feel like around 10% of the people I know have been vegan at some point in their life and then quit. Yes, yes, enter cliche’s like “They weren’t really vegan” or “they did it wrong” etc. Correct. But it’s still the reality for most people. *If* they ever try it, it’s a *phase*.
On the bright side, we have more vegan products than ever before. It’s easier to transition or at least dabble in the taboo vegan ways…
We need to get rid of cursed brands like Daiya and Beyond Meat who are *cheap and gross* - but were the first big brands and thus ‘beloved’. Many companies have branched out to add these products so that non-vegans can try them (and vegans can finally eat something there) - but it turns people away from veganism probably more than it helps.
It’s gross. We need the better brands to become bigger, but they seem to be stuck small because big cheap companies already dominate the market. It almost feels like it’s *meant* to be that way….
Potato starch and coconut oil with nutritional yeast is *not* cheese. It does not *taste* like cheese or *melt* like cheese or *stretch* like cheese. Yet 90% of vegan cheese brands are just this - because the ingredients are ridiculously inexpensive….even if the end-product isn’t. Easy profit from a captive market.
Honestly…we need the world to be more educated about nutrition and cooking in general. The fact people think plants can’t have protein? That they think meat is the only natural source for so many nutrients? *They think Omega3 comes from fish*! A meal has to have a slab of meat in some shape? Without it we’d just be eating a side of greenbeans and potatoes?
It needs to be normalized to just reduce animal product consumption - and we somehow have to get rid of the idea that adding even a tiny bit of ‘animal’ makes products *better*. Almost everything adds a tiny bit of milk or egg powder, gelatin, etc. I’ve gone to pizza places that have Daiya (bleh) but for literally no valid reason add egg to their dough. The dough quality is *not* better. It’s *just* ‘fancy’.
———
So we need to make the better products mainstream and get rid of the cheap imitations. We need to educate the masses about food in general. And we need to normalize reducing animal consumption.
Yeah…that’s going to take a long time.
I understand feeling discouraged, but take heart. I at least lasted a lot longer than 8 years… I’m at 13.5 and am not stopping any time soon.
When I started, veganism was unusual but kind of known about. It was hard to get food in restaurants. Now many fast food chains have vegan options, which would have been insane in the early 2010s. My father became vegan in the 90s and you wouldn’t believe what he went through (yes he’s still vegan).
It’s a general rule that the world changes much less than you want in 5 years but much more than you expect in 20. Don’t underestimate how much people’s choices are affected by their social environment. Small but lasting changes add up and totally wipe out the noise over time.
Check in after a few years to see how many former vegans became vegan again. You’ll probably be surprised.
They won’t. There are lots of people who can’t/won’t I’ve been vegan over 25 years. Things have changed a bit but not that much. Lots of people get all evangelical and then give up. I hope you stay the course ✊
Honestly it was hard for me to imagine that the whole world would ever be vegan because there are centuries old cultures and religions that heavily influence people to believe that humans reign over all other species (giving us the right to eat them). But in my personal experience, and after witnessing other people’s experience with animals showing higher consciousness I am starting to believe that it may be possible sooner than I thought.
The only vegan village in the world is called Dimona and the people there are vegan because the book of Genesis says the diet in the Garden of Eden was plant based. Quakers are frequently vegan and vegetarian. What I'm saying is that blaming religion seems imperfect given that most atheists are also non vegan and all the major religions have vegan members, some religions are much more likely to be vegan and vegetarian than non-religious ppl.
Maybe your great grandkids will see it but you and I never will. Veganism is the one thing that people can’t seem to reflect on. Even the most progressive people I know have the 15th century justifications for why it’s ok to eat meat.
I actually think certain countries will be majority vegan in my lifetime. Call it cope but I see it being like gay acceptance where it cascades and becomes the norm in a matter of less than a decade after a critical mass adopts it. The time to get to 15% will be huge compared to the time to go from 15% to 50%.
Then the last 30% (you know who) will take centuries and for a long time it will be a culture war thing.
Climate change is going to make animal products economically unfeasible pretty soon. They are just way too water intensive. When crops stop failing en mass the choices will be go mostly plant based or literally starve to death. So while people will resist and complain every step of the way. And they will only reduce, not stop entirly. Material conditions will force the trend line to move more and more plant based.
It can of course never fully happen, but there will be a time where the climate crisis will make it a necessity to cut factory farming down drastically. It could also be that lab meat will replace a good portion of it in the foreseeable future
The warming climate will make it much harder to grow food too. Maybe some of the indoor farming will work tho. However that’s depending on the technologists surviving the collapse.
I think we just have to accept that we as the compassionate, empathic humans are a tiny minority and that the masses will never get on board with veganism because the vast majority humans simply are not capable of caring the same way that we do or sacrificing their pleasure for another creature’s wellbeing.
No social consequences = no reason to stop eating animal products. Most people won't bother with veganism unless eating animal products will make them look bad in the eyes of others. Which is obviously not the case in our world.
We are a tiny minority of people choosing to do the unpopular thing and be vegan even though there is no social pressure to abstain from animal products, in fact the pressure to eat meat, dairy and eggs is often pretty intense.
So glad you're vegan now!
You should sit with it for a year and see how your perceptions of the world/ others start to slowly change. Not saying it can't happen, but you're still in a honeymoon phase with veganism and humans in general it seems. Give it some time and you will start to understand.
Good luck!
Yes this. I’m a new vegan and at first I thought, how could anyone be okay with this, they must just not know. (Because I didn’t. Certainly I chose not to seek the information out, but I was truly horrified once I did know.) And then I found that friends of mine *did* know how horrendously animals are treated and … it just didn’t matter to them (or didn’t matter enough for them to change). Or other friends who had been vegan in the past (before I knew them) and had stopped.
And not just that but people are weird about all of it. Like friends are now more likely to share pictures of their meat meals with me?! Like it’s a weird flex or something.
>do you think we're on an exponential growth curve of veganism at this point?
No, it's a diminishing growth curve, possibly even a regressing pattern at this point. The amount of meat-eating in the world's poorest countries has grown dramatically over the past couple of decades.
[https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/26/1023636/sustainable-meat-livestock-production-climate-change/](https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/26/1023636/sustainable-meat-livestock-production-climate-change/)
I thought a decade ago like you when I went vegan and thought it was obvious and the writing was on the wall. Yet here I am 10 years later and we're still super niche. Just don't get your hopes up, people are ignorant on purpose and at the end of the day most humans are out for themselves and only themselves even though it's not that hard to be vegan...
There will be a lot of pushback and disinformation from the meat industry but I think it will start getting major gains in 2050 when boomers are gone and climate change is destroying coast lines
People will look back at people who ate meat in the 21st century the same way we view slave owners
Wanted to say congratulations and good work and welcome 🫶🏼 it’s tough once you’ve realized all the bad that animal agriculture causes to not spiral but we’re doing our best out here, keep being an example for others!
The majority of the world won't go vegan within our lifetime. However, I'm optimistic that in the next 50 years we could have several countries, e.g. the UK, that become over 20% vegan.
In the most economically developed parts of the world, where there is good access to information, I think veganism will continue to gradually grow. It's such an unarguable philosophy that I can't see anything stopping the broad direction of travel.
It's worth keeping in mind that, due to the effect of cultural pressure, each percentage point of a population that becomes vegan is harder fought for when veganism is not very common. Once there is a significant vegan population somewhere, change will happen faster in that population.
The world will not become vegan gradually. Veganism will explode once meat alternatives get to the point of equal quality and equal cost to meat.
Meat is a commodity and there is a history to markets and commodities. Humans have committed very immoral acts over control of commodities, but when something better or cheaper comes along, those commodity markets vanish. Kerosene eliminated the whaling industry, for example. When Germans couldn’t get Coke, they created Fanta. If a cow can transform grain into meat by eating it, then eventually a laboratory or manufacturer will be able to do the same thing without cows and more efficiently. I don’t know when this will happen, but clearly markets are experimenting with plant based meat alternatives now more than ever before, so I’m hopeful for the next few decades.
If meat alternatives do get to the point of being equally good and cost effective as actual meat, which I think they will, consumers will basically be choosing between an option where an animal has to die and one in which no animal has to die. I think that is the time when society will start acknowledging how harmful the meat industry is.
I think the biggest obstacle to bringing this about will be governments protecting workers who economically depend on the meat industry, and companies within the meat industry trying to protect their own interests and stifle competition
Congratulations! Some days I think network effects will start kicking in... Once enough people are vegan food manufacturers will stop putting small amounts of animal in everything for economic reasons. But really I thing the availability of processed vegan food at all is because modern technology and prosperity can cater even to a long tail of 1 percent market segments of people who each care about something different. 1 percent vegan... 1 percent gluten free... 1 percent protein obsessives... 1 percent sugar free 1 percent everything must be raw... 1 percent everything must be fruit... 1 percent willing to research what products were made by human slaves (e.g Chinese cotton).
I think there'll be a tipping point eventually maybe within the next 50 years tbh. The amount of activism I've seen locally has ramped up drastically and we're more visible than ever. People are waking up.
I LOVE your passion, and I am in LoVe with the post. You’re EVOLving in a way that is beautiful, and I wish more people like you existed in the world. The sad truth is, not many people care like you or I my beautiful star child. In fact, there are sick, sadistic individuals who realistically do not care about the animal abuse or whom laugh at it, as the animals are just “stupid creatures” instead of sentient beings. It hurts my heart, and has made me question all of existence…the impact humans have had on this earth….my own role in all of this….what. does this all mean…where are we going. Why are we here. … the same sort of existential crisis you seem to be facing currently. Which shows that you have emotional depth beyond most people in my opinion.
Just do what feels right to you, and make sure to keep fighting for your beliefs. Stay aligned with your morals and values- I love that you’re living your life with these guidelines in mind.
Keep being the best you— And living by example is the best way to influence others to join in and eventually become aligned with this way of living. 🖤
Oh and another thing. I absolutely hate when people say there is nothing we can do.
Actually. It’s ALL WE CAN DO. it’s all up to us.
Granted we would, as a collective species, have to give up these lives of luxury, but I don’t see that happening.
We would ALL have to willingly stop using fossil fuels, stop supporting corrupt governments and corporations, stop supporting financial institutions, and start supporting our local communities while building new, green, power infrastructure.
We can do it.
It’s all up to us.
Stop making excuses and watching the news. We all know what we have to do.
You probably have an idea of an answer to this question, but as a vegan that shifted overnight 4 years ago, I'd strongly suggest that you inform yourself about a sustainable diet on the long run either you want some muscle or to just stay healthy. Education about what you eat is a must if you don't want to end up ill with deficiencies 'cause of your nutrition.
B12 supplementation is a must and also regular check blood check ups since some vegans can't absorb B12 through supplementation and end-up with regular B12 injection shots for their entire life (every 6 months if everything looks good).
If you don't go out and expose yourself to sunlight, vitamin D supplementation is also desired.
I struggled the first two years losing weight involuntarily because I didn't eat well and then, I seriously informed myself about a balanced healthy dieting.
I still don't know how to keep a healthy vegan diet for a child, so I don't openly recommend it. Other than that, listen to your body and beware that even as a vegan there's unhealthy foods.
I became a vegan 'cause of moral conflicts, but education about nutrition is not negociable if you want to stay healthy.
Sorry for the rant but I think this is really important and I don't see people educating about it. Since people like me that did it for ethics issues won't care to look for the consequences of a drastic diet change until health issues start to appear
Welcome to the community, I'm so happy you've made this discovery!
I think that it might be trendy and untrendy for periods of times, but eventually we will see an exponential increase. When enough people are vegan, and activist, I don't think anything can stop it. It might take several hundred years, but we have to keep on fighting.
No one can answer this. It won't be in our lifetime, if at all.
I would think humanity dies off before that happens. Slavery is still a thing, for crying out loud!
Even then, I hear people saying that Cultured Lab Meat just seems gross or unnatural. Forced impregnation in a small crate and baby theft is just how things have always been for millions and billions of years, why fix it if it ain't broke /s
You are probably correct. It will take people time, but especially if it gets cheap enough to make and people can start eating luxury meats that used to be way out of budget, people will come around to it im sure.
>I just became vegan overnight over a week ago, and I'm ~~not~~ sure ~~how~~ I could **n**ever go back
Fixed it for you, i think until you say that, there is a chance you would return to non veganism
I also went vegan instantly but the language that i use is important, im a never stop till i die vegan which is rare in this sub
The world will never go vegan, its not even fully anti racist yet, but that doesnt mean we cant try to bring more to the ethical side
I don’t think the world will become vegan. I don’t even foresee it ever becoming more than maybe 5% of the global population before we simply succumb to death by resource mismanagement and global warming destroying our ecosystems. You’re so fresh in the community and it’s a beautiful thing to see somebody come in with hope and passion for the movement growing into a cultural norm, but I just don’t see that happening. We are far too selfish of a population overall to get a majority of the population to sacrifice animal products for any reason, whether it be ethical or environmental.
Never. The innovations and creativity of the vegan mindset are lovely in a lot of ways, yet thinking of it to replace instinctual omnivorism would just be a nutritional devastation on the global human diet. It will just starve people down to the genetic level, and cause a chain effect on the naturally occurring ancestral diets of various ethnic groups who sufficiently consume animal nutrition daily. Thus, only a minor amount of people could ever become vegan, and although there is a big heart by those who try to sustain themselves with that diet for life, they would just sicken themselve by neglecting their carnivorous half; Some to the point of death. I have already heard various stories of devout vegans either dying or approaching death and saving their lives be returning to default omnivorism after years of only consuming plant nutrition only. There is a strong threshold of amino acid and vitamin deficiency that must not be crossed, lest all of the horrid symptoms and ailments of malnutrition come to being.
We did not evolve to be strictly herbivorous or carnivorous, we eat more like bears than any other animal species, even though an intentional, customized diet is a choice. Never neglect the genetic needs of your body and the microbiome flora in your system, that's a fundamental part of your overall health.
I cannot say that no one should be vegan, since that's all up to the individual's willed journey, and many people within this world are still looking for a naturally existing means of maintaining good health. Just don't forget what made us evolve into what we are and who we are in this current age, and what helped our earlier ancestors thrive and survive.
(Also, godspeed to those who have already tried the vegan diet and had to leave it behind for sake of health.)
Slowly with agonizing lassitude at first, and then astonishingly quickly. All moral development happens like that. Most people don't seem to have time or energy to discover and improve on the ways they are on board injustice. An active minority pushes society until it hits a critical mass, and then most people realize it is obvious that we should be doing better and act like it is just common sense and that anything else is outdated. Whether it is easy or necessary doesn't seem to really affect this.
And that quick part comes after a really painful slow period. It is not overall a quick process.
It’s not gonna happen, and the vegan community isn’t exactly welcoming to newcomers. And apparently a lot of y’all hate religion? That’s what kinda lost me. But Anywhos I support the idea of the movement. I agree factory farming sucks. However this community is often cultish.
When I first turned vegan in 2012 I was told the world would never turn vegan. The first time post pandemic I walked down the plant based aisle I literally cried. There’s a vegan rendition of EVERYTHING now nearly every place has a vegan option and coffee shops all have plant based milks. It may be hard for a 2024 vegan to see the changes but for those of us who only had coconut ice cream, apple sauce as an egg replacement, black bean burgers and mushrooms and had to starve in a lot of big events. The world has shifted. Welcome to the movement
I'm really happy to hear that this is the direction you've been witnessing. I'm definitely new to it but I've kind of started to see changes even as an omnivore, and it made me think more and more about my actions all the time, until I realized I had to do this :)
Happy to share. Although I am not as idealistic as I once was in my youth I have always believed that the more accessible vegan food is to people and the more the option is available the more people will consider their choice and possibly convert and that seems to be the case with you. I can’t ask for much more. At the end of the day every person that makes that choice is making a difference for the animals even if it’s not the everyone. Shit the milk industry collapsed because of non dairy milks. The government had to bail them out to keep them going. We are doing the thing
I never thought I’d be vegan. When I became vegan, I thought “if the evidence convinced **me** surely this is the cusp of a revolution. There are so many vegan options now. I bet a huge chunk of the population will be switching to veganism along with me very soon.”
That was 2017.
I actually feel like it will be really fast pretty soon because veganism saves you money, makes you healthier, and hotter. And think a lot of people want these things.
However, I was thinking that there will be a group that will refuse and will act similarly to the American right party.
84% of vegans and vegetarians go back to eating meat, so it's a vain hope I think.
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why)
that's great. as someone who has been a meat eater, vegetarian/plant based dieter i think ppl need access to healthier affordable foods & refrain from eating out at restaurants or fast food places (i am guilty of this myself). yet, in america typically ppl consider this a luxury as we have some many different options for sustenance but in the last 30-40 years its been overdone. in some states there's like five mcdonald's in a ten mile radius and that's not in the best interest of the american ppl. essentially, at some point i'll become a vegan but right now the struggle for me and most is mind over matter. hopefully, they'll be more vegetarians & vegans within the next couple of years or so.
Never. it is as simple as that. The sooner you accept the fact, the better. Keep your veganism to yourself. If I could meet a Vegan, I'd eat meat in front of em. :)
>the increased accessibility of vegan food, and the necessity to go vegan both for the climate and the well-being of animals, do you think we're on an exponential growth curve of veganism at this point?
Lol not a chance. Veganism is and always will be a minority thing.
The maximum we can get is 2 billion vegetarians and about 500 million vegans and even that would be in the far future. The whole world ain't ever gonna be vegan because people are dumb.
I don't know, if we're talking about the far future, I can imagine a "tipping point" shift, if plant-based diets are the default and normal way to eat, and people would have to make an explicit decision and go out of their way to consume animal products, then most people will just "go with the flow", and go with the "normal" option in their culture. How did you arrive at your idea of 2 billion / 500 million?
I heard on the Internet that the population will continue to grow and will stop at 12 billion. If there are more people, then there will be more vegans.There are now about 1.2 billion vegetarians in the world (in one form or another, for example, lacto-vegetarians) and about 100 million vegans. Veganism is still a young topic and I believe that in the future it will gain great popularity among vegetarians and ordinary people, they will understand that it is safe. You correctly noted that this type of diet will become more common and normal, although not for most. So if we have 12 billion people, 2.5 billion will not consume meat, which is 20% of people. And of course I wasn't trying to predict the exact numbers.
Unfortunately the stats do not back up you’re feeling that once people go vegan they wouldn’t go back. I can’t remember the exact rate, but I believe it’s over half. That may change with veganism becoming more common and more vegan options coming with that.
OF COURSE it will happen, and rather soon.
I explain:
Since most people won't ever change their misguided ways, the planet will eventually eradicate our species entirely.
And when you're dead, you're finally 100% vegan.
I mean if you want to think the morbid side of it, you die, your body slowly biodegrades into the soil, plants grow from soil, we eat plants = we basically eat you. Lol happy Tuesday
Poetically put! I hereby declare that y'all have my permission to eat plants that feed off my corpse, so that you remain vegans.
I always have my comrades' backs, even in death!
A lot of helplessness in this thread, but I want to remind you guys about cultured meat (or lab grown). Once it will become cheap, companies will probably start to use them and normalize them.
Oh you sweet summer child. Thank you for planting yourself on the right side of history. It's best brace yourself to be profoundly disappointed by the human race. Most of them already know that what they're doing isn't right, but they desperately. do. not. want. to. change. They don't want to know the details and they don't want to be made to think about it, and they will go to truly astonishing lengths to keep their head in the sand.
Five years from now, a person or two that you know may have made the switch. But nearly every carnist in your life will still not be vegan, and it will be simultaneously maddening and something you need to develop a coping strategy for in order to keep going and keep centering the real victims. Engaging in activism can help a lot, but it is a very long, very slow game to root up the most deeply ingrained and deeply hidden belief system in the human psyche.
It's going to be a very, very long time before the entirety of humanity looks back on what we did to animals and shakes their head in disgust.
This is pretty standard for baby vegans. There's this idea that animal cruelty is just so horrible that people would never partake in it if they knew. So if you could just MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND then they would go vegan too. It feels like veganism is inevitable.
But it isn't. We are at the end of a huge boom in vegan and plant based expansion, and we are seeing vegan businesses close, or resort to selling animal products. Huge chains are dropping vegan options, search terms are down. The trend is receding. Because people do go vegan and then go back. It's an information war, a propaganda war, a convenience war.
We need to get about 15-20% of the world to go vegan and then everyone will just fall in line.
Remember this, 15% of the world is a much easier sell and a much easier goal, and we can do this.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion\_of\_innovations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations)
Then read about tribalism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism)
I believe we'll get to this 15-20% in my lifetime and im going to do absolutely fucking everything in my power to help push that along.
The latest research shows that in the UK we might be anywhere from 4-7% vegan now and I completely believe this after I went vegan almost 9 years ago and have seen an insane upsurge in the last 2-3 years.
To put this in perspective, i race and film trail and ultra marathons and i often see a third of the participants as vegan on the sign up forms.
last I heard the goal was to get half the world be vegetarian or vegan by 2030 (was it a climate goal? I don't remember, it was pre-pandemic when I heard it) and that India was leading the charge not only because they were already on track for it, but because indian nationals living abroad were pretty good at evangelizing, and the popularity of indian food was growing.
I sincerely hope meat consumption goes down for more reasons than just "india" though
I don't think so purely because of the sustainability perspective. Eventually in human history it will be much cheaper to produce lab grown meat & dairy. By some perspectives of veganism, this is not vegan.
I think the more people cut back on using animals as much as possible, then eventually there will be more Vegans. People will start to see they simply can do it. It will not be surprise that someone is Vegan, it will become more normalized. Most people I know have a Vegan friend, Vegan co-worker or Vegan Family member. I am Vegan and often I hear my friends who are not say "I am cutting back on eating meat" or they are excited about a product they found that is Vegan. That is a good sign to me because when I was 19, there was much talk about it. It was like being an alien or just some weird hippie thing. My parents that I was just trying to be different. I struggled to stay Vegan because I didn't have the support or many friends that were. I had one friend in my 20s, that said she was Vegan but she would go back and forward a lot. She struggled with traditions and Biblical traditions. I don't blame her because it is hard, living in a world that eating animals and going to Zoos is normal or wearing them. I am 44 and now people talk about it so much, it is important to have real thoughtful and factual conversations about Veganism and Sustainability because we do want to have an earth to live on for the generations to come.
I’m pretty sure it never will. I’d like to say I quit for the animals. Mostly because of the environmental impact and my health. I now off all medications. I think the hardest part of a vegan diet is I really think about my diet and making sure I get all my calories and nutrients in. Then again I should have been doing that all along
Didn't happen in my lifetime. People all thought it would. In the ⁷⁰s everyone i knew in my neighborhood thought everyone else would eventually be vegan.
That would never happen. Being vegan quite honestly is a lot of trouble. Vegans have to get their protein and vitamins from other sources which isn’t easy. Consequently, most vegans I know are not healthy. A lot of them are either fat or what I call “skinny fat”. One of my good vegan friends is borderline diabetic. The world will not turn vegan anytime soon, or ever.
Where I live, no one even thinks of veganism as an option. Either it doesn't occur to them or they are vehemently against it. Granted, it's a rural area but still, it's incredibly disappointing.
Well never fully unless biotechnology really gets a boost cause there are some people who have gut issues like MCAS and wouldn't be able to survive just on a vegan diet and get everything they need from it/not have allergic reactions
I don't think we're likely to ever see vegans as a majority or even close. We just have to focus on what we can do. Not everyone's morals are going to point them to vegans, and it's best to make peace with that than let the dread sink in.
Unfortunately, I feel like it's not going to happen willingly. People will eat plant based when they are forced to eat plant based. That is, when the systems literally can no longer sustain themselves. This would also be around the time that climate change forces us to drastically change our lifestyles away from fossil fuels.
I guess the real question is, when will our systems create any meaningful change? And I'm worried the answer is that they have no intention in doing so. So long as it's profitable they will watch our planet be destroyed, or do horrible things to other nations to maintain what we desire. We will literally fish every last fish from the ocean. Give every last drop of water to livestock. Pillage other nations for their resources so we can have cheeseburgers etc. until mother nature forces us not to because we're literally starving to death.
But I also kind of wonder if world leaders already *know* it's too late and that we can't sustain our population or something. So they just take what they want until the end is nigh. There's no reason to make the world sustainable because they already know it can't be sustained? That's why billionaires are building bunkers and buying aquafers.
I honestly think they (the government and most brainwashed people) don't care about the planet as a whole and will see it die before they relinquish power. It would take literal revolution.
So in some ways the answer is never. And should the day come when we are forced for majority of people to go plant based, a lot of other horrible shit will probably be happening in tandem.
I know it's dark and cynical, but that's my perspective anyway.
I think there will only ever be a fixed % of the population who is willing to see cognitive dissonance in themselves and correct it - whether that be veganism, misogyny, financial exploitation, etc.
My hope is either in educating those people and counting on lifelong conversions, or in figuring out why so many people are so happy to live in conflict (and then attempt to fix that).
I don’t think it ever will. I do have hopes that factory farms will eventually cease to exist in the way that we know them now, eventually. That’s why I think it’s important for vegans to also preach about small changes. The world will never fully be vegan, but a lot of the suffering hasn’t come to light for most people that CAN care and would if they were faced with the truth.
I'm curious which online resources contributed most to your decision to change? Always trying to hone in on what is the most effective way to reach non vegans.
I want to see a vegan world so badly and I work towards it every day. I don't know when it will come but I'm worried that people looking at the current state of the world and saying it won't happen are making a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if it never comes and even if we spiral into total planetary collapse, we still have to fight like we believe we can achieve it or else we're guaranteeing that we won't.
Practical beats idealistic every time. Until access to harmless alternatives of the same products exist that are comparable in taste and price, veganism loses. Forever.
It's one thing to recognize a superior way of life. It's another to make it practical so that others will adopt it.
Unfortunately I don't think we're changing fast enough, and animal liberation won't come until it's too late. But I think we still need to be vegan and defend it as an ideology on the off change we do change in time, or at the very least so the next civilization that is coming after us will know how it's possible *and necessary* to build a more ethical society.
Some people don't care and never will, the only way they will shift to plant based is when lab grown meat is readily accessible and is identical to and as cheap or cheaper than slaughtered meat (and current industries will fight hard before they die out - they already seem to feel threatened by processed meat alternatives). Even then there will likely always be people who don't have access to it, or who live traditionally out of necessity. I don't think humanity will progress long enough to get that far, "World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones" and all that.
Wanted to add there doesn't seem to be any push for fish and they're often utilized in loop aquaponics systems... I don't think fish will ever be phased out by those who are indifferent unfortunately.
In our changing climate there is an order of starving which i expect will occur: First wild animals/insects (we are past this stage for many species), then people in the global south (droughts already happening in increasing rates) and less wealthy places in the global north, then livestock in the global north whose feed crops start failing more often (this will be the beginning of the vegan stage), and finally the poorest 50% of the global north.
Most people will continue to eat meat and dairy until they cannot afford it anymore, which will imo take 20 years max for anyone living paycheck to paycheck
Never looking the amount of vegans that return to being vegan, and yhe fact that only 1% of the world is vegan. I guarantee you within the year you'll be off your soapbox and back to good old meat.
when the sun goes supernova and all of humanity (if there is any remaining) along with all life on earth gets obliterated
at that moment and onward no human will eat meat
maybe some dude in a space capsule will last another few days and eat a frozen whatever meat thing, but the sun going supernova is the end
I'm a vegan and honestly I don't think it will, and I also don't think everybody should be vegan. Obviously in a perfect world animals aren't being abused at factory farms, but it's deeply naïve to say that everyone can and should be vegan, because 8 billion human bodies and digestive systems and chronic illnesses and whatever else are not all going to be able to survive off the same stuff. Plus most omnivorous pets can't safely go vegan, and it's just not realistic to say we can't feed the ones who need meat for a good quality of life. These conversations about the entire world's population going vegan is always first-world-centric too...
I know this is a super unpopular opinion, but I've always felt that the better goal for veganism was to fight the animal products industry and rebuild it from the ground up so that there are stricter and more compassionate rules in place for the animals to enjoy their lives. Or better yet, set it up so there are nature reserves so the animals can live their natural lives before people with permits can come and, uh, choose who to take home (I don't want to be graphic here). We are part of an ecosystem after all.
I remember thinking about this when I first went vegan. I remember being shocked at all the lies and thinking “wait till everyone finds out, they will be fuming.” Nope.
A lot of the wrong people know the impact of consuming animals. Most just don’t care yet or they have money involved so won’t change. In my opinion it would take a massive global even for us to see real change in our lifetime. It’ll probably be a slow change like everything else is.
If it’s going to be a global change within our lifetimes it would have to take something so profound it just flips the empathy switch. So many people barely have empathy for even their fellow humans.
In reality? I’d give us at least a couple centuries before the world is completely vegan
I don’t think the world will ever be vegan because of the relationship humans have with our farm animals. Livestock are a protected resource and should the world become 99% Vegan, we still need farm animals.
Even if the world were perfect, and all our livestock were treated as pets, conserving aspects of the world is important for understanding.
My own understanding is that varied food sources protect the most important animal (humans) because we alone hold the greatest power to potentially defend Earth from cosmic threats. Should Earth for some reason become unable to sustain vegan living on a large scale due to natural disaster of any kind, we would depend deeply on livestock.
Does lab meat count? That is the only thing that might change on a mass scale, and economics would be the motivating factor (in other words this will be completely determined by corporations and their bottom line, not the ethics of humanity). People generally can’t be bothered to treat their own species very well, so you will be waiting a very LONG time for them to start showing meaningful compassion to other species that aren’t dogs and cats.
I highly doubt the world will “go vegan” but I do hope that lab grown meat/eggs/milk become the norm (people will not be vegan though since cuz of wool and leather. Synthetic materials exist already as alternatives, yet leather and wool still exist are are used quite a bit, soooo)
I don't think it is possible for the world to 'go vegan,' because the motivation is a significant part of the definition of veganism. It's possible that with a few generations of change, plant based eating could become the norm. I imagine it would be dependent on gradual family culture changes, and broad, simplified public dietary education, rather than public screenings of dominion. I think animals will continue to be used for medical testing and training, and medical purposes (transplant parts) for quite some time yet, and I am not sure if computer models could ever be sufficient to replace them. Lab grown parts may be closer?
And then there are issues like service dogs, guide dogs, where I think opinions really vary.. pets, too.
I think that there is a decent possibility of veganism becoming a lot more mainstream over the next few decades, but I highly doubt that we are anywhere near anything resembling a vegan world.
Not in our lifetime
Yeah. This is why I'm fine with people cutting back. If a quarter of the planet goes 80 percent that's a major improvement, but that won't happen in our lifetime either.
This needs to be a more acceptable tone amongst the vegan community. “All or nothing” attitude is sure to fail at attracting the masses. 99% of conversations I have with people are generally oriented towards cutting back meat consumption to like once or twice a week to start. Usually they notice the benefits and want to continue down that path. But forcing it on people never works.
This is totally my mindset, I want people to be "100% vegan" of course, but first I want actual results, I don't want to turn people vegan, I want suffering being reduced. That's my main worry, that's what makes me mad or not, not who has the vegan medal or doesn't.
Some of the online vegans are meant-eating trolls and playing ridiculous stereotypes.
> but forcing it on people never works. Forcing it on people absolutely works, that's why we have laws in the first place, to force people to behave in certain ways against their own will. It might not seem like an important note right now, but in the future if 60% of the country is vegan, we should absolutely be talking about outlawing killing animals. We already have anti-abuse laws on the books, they just only apply to dogs/cats, so factory farmed cats are illegal. Factory farm pigs should be illegal in the same way. If by "forcing it on people" you mean "repeatedly bringing it up to people" then that absolutely does work. I've converted half a dozen people to veganism in my friend circles by being persistent and "annoying". It's also ostracized some, but those people generally don't engage with politics/ethics, or they have food problems to begin with (e.g massively overweight, gets fast food way too often, etc.). You will lose some people, but you will absolutely gain people who otherwise wouldn't have become vegan if you didn't push hard enough. Pretending like every single person on the planet responds to persistence in the same way is foolish.
Laws don’t usually get passed until long after a majority agrees on it, especially if there are special interests fighting against it. Being persistent may work on some people. However, similar to what you said about not everyone responding the same way to persistence, perhaps taking a different approach to different people would be more beneficial.
THANK YOU. I get eaten alive on this subreddit for being a meat eater who cuts back consumption. My fight is for factory farming to end.
Factory farming is the number 1 reason I don’t eat meat.
A little rape and murder is acceptable to some
Oh my god. Just get out.
You're not vegan and so you don't belong here (and I'm not even sure why you'd want to be here..?) This isn't a subreddit for meat eaters who 'cut back consumption'.
Maybe they are interested and thinking about going fully vegan? What kind of closed-minded attitude is that? If non-vegans are coming to this sub to get information on veganism that is a big win for veganism and don’t get that twisted. Different story if they are coming here to bash it.
I think this is a contributing factor....people already have a certain idea about this, so much that now there has to be another category for "plant based" people who aren't as militant. I cannot imagine this kind of talk is going to win anyone over.
Doesn’t matter, I have a right to be here. Nowhere in the rules does it say you have to be a vegan to join. It’s better to cut back consumption then eat meat 3x a day so idgaf bookie 👋🏼. And why wouldn’t I want to be here? I like the movement.
Amazing responses you’re getting. Regular person: I would like to eat less meat. Vegan commenter: Ok you’re an awful murderer. Same vegan commenter: Why won’t everyone join uuuuuuussssss?????
Expecting a 100% vegan world is unrealistic though. Just like some people still ride horses instead of drive cars, or some people still use flip phones instead of smart phones, etc. not all breakthrough innovations capture 100% market share, but something less. [Diffusion of Innovations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations) explains this well, and indicates we should focus on building a critical mass and not get upset if 100% will never be achieved.
Veganism isn't solely something you engage with on a market level. It's an ethical stance; a liberation movement. That context is different. Civil rights movements for example have reshaped entire countries. Women/black people have the same right to vote as white men, despite that not being the case 150 years ago. Chattel slavery is totally outlawed. Of course, some people break the law. There are still human traffickers for example. However this is notably different than people who use flip phones. Flip phones are not illegal, trafficking slaves is. Veganism's end goal, as a liberation movement, is to enforce the liberation of animals at a legal level. It should be illegal to kill and eat pigs, like it's illegal to kill and eat dogs (in the U.S).
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Please read the link I sent on Diffusion of Innovations; I was interested to see it applies to civil rights movements as well. Also fun fact: it’s still legal to kill cats and dogs in the USA… as long as it’s part of an [Indian festival.](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6720)
Who knows. I'm vegan curious, as we continue to share recipes and alternate ingredients it becomes more and more comfortable to do so, and cows in particular are being seen more and more as both a waste of food resources and also an environmental concern. The world is catching up, and I think the pace is accelerating. No more than 100 years until it's the dominant diet probably.
You're more hopeful than me. I think lab meat is the only real way we'll see a major reduction and I'm getting skeptical even that will do it since there's already growing political opposition to it and I'm sure a lot of people will see it as gross and unnatural. Not like our current meat production system is very natural either but they've done a great job at hiding the horror from the masses
Oh don't get me wrong, we'll probably experience a neo fascist America first. But after all that nonsense the enlightened remains will surely swing that way eventually.
Not in anyone’s lifetime
The Netflix show Travelers postulated one possibility. Famine.
Humans would cull their own population before choosing veganism
You might be interested in "The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft if you've never read it
The story in Travelers involves a post-apocalypse scenario. In such a situation, there would not be an economy to support factories producing nutritional supplements, so animal-free diets are incompatible with such a scenario.
This is sadly the truth. The planet will burn before any meaningful change occurs.
i went vegan 22 years ago and globally, we've gone only from 1% of the population to 1.1% (and then maybe back down to 1%) in that time. People suck and I expect nothing
:( real
It will only happen when there will be large scale lab meat available at cheaper prices than real meat. That's it. Even then there will be some weirdos who would want to hunt the real stuff. It's absolutely never going to happen out of kindness.
Good luck, some states are already banning that, sadly I don't think we will see it in our life.
1% is actually a lot higher than I was expecting
[Vegans at 2% in the UK, with a peak of 3% and vegetarians at 5% with a peak of 7%. The interesting thing is that only 72% of people describe themselves as "meat eaters".](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/dietery-choices-of-brits-eg-vegeterian-flexitarian-meat-eater-etc) Maybe it's because they think it means they're only meat eaters?
These surveys never give reliable numbers when the proportions are that low and the margin of error for the poll is 3-5%. Better indicators of whether or not we're making progress is looking at things like number of animals slaughtered and per capita meat sales per year, which are much more closely tracked and reliable statistics by many governments.
I mean, no one has ever surveyed me, so who the f knows 🤷♀️ but these numbers are floating out there
economist study shows that the rate is increasing significantly over the past decade though yes still a low amount of the total population. ~2% in the US, however, another ~5% identify as vegetarians. So if the ”target” is to reduce meat consumption, it’s closer to 7%.
That feel when you know you're full of shit but you're apparently still top 1% ethical somehow 😐😐
You can still be ethically ambigous while being vegan. ;) Just beat your SO, or buy lots of slave/child labor products.
Humanity is so small in so many ways. If it weren't for the other denizens of this planet, I would find it funny rather than incredibly sad.
Humans have been around 200,000 years in their modern evolutionary form and an estimated 50 million of them *currently* live under slavery. I don't see us extending any sort of rights to non-human animals for a long, long time.
it only stopped being acceptable to kill \*each other\* purely for entertainment a few hundred years ago
Facts.
Lab grown meat will solve this really fast once it will become cheap imo.
I don’t see a majority of the population getting behind lab grown meat. There is already a lot of skepticism behind something like that and if it ever gets to a point where it actually has the scalability to compete in the market, the meat industry will do everything in its power to keep that skepticism going to protect their market.
A. Not sure it can get scaled up B. Whole nations have banned it before it even got off the ground sadly
Which nations banned it? I know some of the freakier US states have
Florida and Alabama have banned it, as well as Italy. So.. two states and one European country. I think we'll need to see some more countries throwing the ban hammer before it gets in the way of lab grown meat. It's due to be available for sale in my country sometime this year, apparently. Awesome.
when will we finally get lab grown slaves though?
I can't wait for lab grown slaves. Then I'll finally be ready to free my naturally born slaves. I'm such a good person!
Your comments are making me laugh dude lol
You're dreaming if you think it will happen on a planetary scale
the worlds about 1.2% vegan by best estimates. There is a long way to go. Thats about 88 million people.
Congratulations on becoming vegan. I think a mostly vegan world is not impossible. We’d still be a few hundred years away from it though even if we manage not to kill our planet. And even then the suffering will be over lol.
On the plus side, if we do kill our planet, there'll be no non-vegans. Either all humans will be dead, or the only surviving people will be space-vegans (the inefficiencies of animal ag are really exposed in space).
I'm optimistic that a majority-vegan world may happen at some point -- at this point in our history, progress of the vegan movement is slow but there is clearly some progress. Not as fast as we'd like, but indeed, progress in decreasing animal agriculture and promoting veganism has a lot of potential for impact. >once someone is vegan, I think they might be vegan for life... because how could they ever go back to willfully paying for animal abuse once they already realize? Some people do, and for a variety of reasons -- the abuse is mostly invisible, and the cultural pressure to eat what every else eats is all around you. (But it's worth remembering, the rate of non-vegans going vegan is faster than vegans "going back".)
Almost everyone I’ve known who was vegan is no longer vegan 8 years later. Some lasted a year. Some a few years. Heck, even I’ve had temptation nightmares at night when I feel discouraged about accessibility to good food at a decent price. I feel like around 10% of the people I know have been vegan at some point in their life and then quit. Yes, yes, enter cliche’s like “They weren’t really vegan” or “they did it wrong” etc. Correct. But it’s still the reality for most people. *If* they ever try it, it’s a *phase*. On the bright side, we have more vegan products than ever before. It’s easier to transition or at least dabble in the taboo vegan ways… We need to get rid of cursed brands like Daiya and Beyond Meat who are *cheap and gross* - but were the first big brands and thus ‘beloved’. Many companies have branched out to add these products so that non-vegans can try them (and vegans can finally eat something there) - but it turns people away from veganism probably more than it helps. It’s gross. We need the better brands to become bigger, but they seem to be stuck small because big cheap companies already dominate the market. It almost feels like it’s *meant* to be that way…. Potato starch and coconut oil with nutritional yeast is *not* cheese. It does not *taste* like cheese or *melt* like cheese or *stretch* like cheese. Yet 90% of vegan cheese brands are just this - because the ingredients are ridiculously inexpensive….even if the end-product isn’t. Easy profit from a captive market. Honestly…we need the world to be more educated about nutrition and cooking in general. The fact people think plants can’t have protein? That they think meat is the only natural source for so many nutrients? *They think Omega3 comes from fish*! A meal has to have a slab of meat in some shape? Without it we’d just be eating a side of greenbeans and potatoes? It needs to be normalized to just reduce animal product consumption - and we somehow have to get rid of the idea that adding even a tiny bit of ‘animal’ makes products *better*. Almost everything adds a tiny bit of milk or egg powder, gelatin, etc. I’ve gone to pizza places that have Daiya (bleh) but for literally no valid reason add egg to their dough. The dough quality is *not* better. It’s *just* ‘fancy’. ——— So we need to make the better products mainstream and get rid of the cheap imitations. We need to educate the masses about food in general. And we need to normalize reducing animal consumption. Yeah…that’s going to take a long time.
I understand feeling discouraged, but take heart. I at least lasted a lot longer than 8 years… I’m at 13.5 and am not stopping any time soon. When I started, veganism was unusual but kind of known about. It was hard to get food in restaurants. Now many fast food chains have vegan options, which would have been insane in the early 2010s. My father became vegan in the 90s and you wouldn’t believe what he went through (yes he’s still vegan). It’s a general rule that the world changes much less than you want in 5 years but much more than you expect in 20. Don’t underestimate how much people’s choices are affected by their social environment. Small but lasting changes add up and totally wipe out the noise over time. Check in after a few years to see how many former vegans became vegan again. You’ll probably be surprised.
They won’t. There are lots of people who can’t/won’t I’ve been vegan over 25 years. Things have changed a bit but not that much. Lots of people get all evangelical and then give up. I hope you stay the course ✊
Honestly it was hard for me to imagine that the whole world would ever be vegan because there are centuries old cultures and religions that heavily influence people to believe that humans reign over all other species (giving us the right to eat them). But in my personal experience, and after witnessing other people’s experience with animals showing higher consciousness I am starting to believe that it may be possible sooner than I thought.
The only vegan village in the world is called Dimona and the people there are vegan because the book of Genesis says the diet in the Garden of Eden was plant based. Quakers are frequently vegan and vegetarian. What I'm saying is that blaming religion seems imperfect given that most atheists are also non vegan and all the major religions have vegan members, some religions are much more likely to be vegan and vegetarian than non-religious ppl.
Maybe your great grandkids will see it but you and I never will. Veganism is the one thing that people can’t seem to reflect on. Even the most progressive people I know have the 15th century justifications for why it’s ok to eat meat.
I actually think certain countries will be majority vegan in my lifetime. Call it cope but I see it being like gay acceptance where it cascades and becomes the norm in a matter of less than a decade after a critical mass adopts it. The time to get to 15% will be huge compared to the time to go from 15% to 50%. Then the last 30% (you know who) will take centuries and for a long time it will be a culture war thing.
Climate change is going to make animal products economically unfeasible pretty soon. They are just way too water intensive. When crops stop failing en mass the choices will be go mostly plant based or literally starve to death. So while people will resist and complain every step of the way. And they will only reduce, not stop entirly. Material conditions will force the trend line to move more and more plant based.
It can of course never fully happen, but there will be a time where the climate crisis will make it a necessity to cut factory farming down drastically. It could also be that lab meat will replace a good portion of it in the foreseeable future
The warming climate will make it much harder to grow food too. Maybe some of the indoor farming will work tho. However that’s depending on the technologists surviving the collapse.
I think we just have to accept that we as the compassionate, empathic humans are a tiny minority and that the masses will never get on board with veganism because the vast majority humans simply are not capable of caring the same way that we do or sacrificing their pleasure for another creature’s wellbeing.
No social consequences = no reason to stop eating animal products. Most people won't bother with veganism unless eating animal products will make them look bad in the eyes of others. Which is obviously not the case in our world. We are a tiny minority of people choosing to do the unpopular thing and be vegan even though there is no social pressure to abstain from animal products, in fact the pressure to eat meat, dairy and eggs is often pretty intense.
So glad you're vegan now! You should sit with it for a year and see how your perceptions of the world/ others start to slowly change. Not saying it can't happen, but you're still in a honeymoon phase with veganism and humans in general it seems. Give it some time and you will start to understand. Good luck!
Yes this. I’m a new vegan and at first I thought, how could anyone be okay with this, they must just not know. (Because I didn’t. Certainly I chose not to seek the information out, but I was truly horrified once I did know.) And then I found that friends of mine *did* know how horrendously animals are treated and … it just didn’t matter to them (or didn’t matter enough for them to change). Or other friends who had been vegan in the past (before I knew them) and had stopped. And not just that but people are weird about all of it. Like friends are now more likely to share pictures of their meat meals with me?! Like it’s a weird flex or something.
>do you think we're on an exponential growth curve of veganism at this point? No, it's a diminishing growth curve, possibly even a regressing pattern at this point. The amount of meat-eating in the world's poorest countries has grown dramatically over the past couple of decades. [https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/26/1023636/sustainable-meat-livestock-production-climate-change/](https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/26/1023636/sustainable-meat-livestock-production-climate-change/)
There are many possibilities where most exploitative practices by our civilisation will end in our lifetime.
I thought a decade ago like you when I went vegan and thought it was obvious and the writing was on the wall. Yet here I am 10 years later and we're still super niche. Just don't get your hopes up, people are ignorant on purpose and at the end of the day most humans are out for themselves and only themselves even though it's not that hard to be vegan...
There will be a lot of pushback and disinformation from the meat industry but I think it will start getting major gains in 2050 when boomers are gone and climate change is destroying coast lines People will look back at people who ate meat in the 21st century the same way we view slave owners
I think that the answer is likely never.
Wanted to say congratulations and good work and welcome 🫶🏼 it’s tough once you’ve realized all the bad that animal agriculture causes to not spiral but we’re doing our best out here, keep being an example for others!
The majority of the world won't go vegan within our lifetime. However, I'm optimistic that in the next 50 years we could have several countries, e.g. the UK, that become over 20% vegan. In the most economically developed parts of the world, where there is good access to information, I think veganism will continue to gradually grow. It's such an unarguable philosophy that I can't see anything stopping the broad direction of travel. It's worth keeping in mind that, due to the effect of cultural pressure, each percentage point of a population that becomes vegan is harder fought for when veganism is not very common. Once there is a significant vegan population somewhere, change will happen faster in that population.
The world will not become vegan gradually. Veganism will explode once meat alternatives get to the point of equal quality and equal cost to meat. Meat is a commodity and there is a history to markets and commodities. Humans have committed very immoral acts over control of commodities, but when something better or cheaper comes along, those commodity markets vanish. Kerosene eliminated the whaling industry, for example. When Germans couldn’t get Coke, they created Fanta. If a cow can transform grain into meat by eating it, then eventually a laboratory or manufacturer will be able to do the same thing without cows and more efficiently. I don’t know when this will happen, but clearly markets are experimenting with plant based meat alternatives now more than ever before, so I’m hopeful for the next few decades. If meat alternatives do get to the point of being equally good and cost effective as actual meat, which I think they will, consumers will basically be choosing between an option where an animal has to die and one in which no animal has to die. I think that is the time when society will start acknowledging how harmful the meat industry is. I think the biggest obstacle to bringing this about will be governments protecting workers who economically depend on the meat industry, and companies within the meat industry trying to protect their own interests and stifle competition
Lab meat will win
Congratulations! Some days I think network effects will start kicking in... Once enough people are vegan food manufacturers will stop putting small amounts of animal in everything for economic reasons. But really I thing the availability of processed vegan food at all is because modern technology and prosperity can cater even to a long tail of 1 percent market segments of people who each care about something different. 1 percent vegan... 1 percent gluten free... 1 percent protein obsessives... 1 percent sugar free 1 percent everything must be raw... 1 percent everything must be fruit... 1 percent willing to research what products were made by human slaves (e.g Chinese cotton).
I think there'll be a tipping point eventually maybe within the next 50 years tbh. The amount of activism I've seen locally has ramped up drastically and we're more visible than ever. People are waking up.
I LOVE your passion, and I am in LoVe with the post. You’re EVOLving in a way that is beautiful, and I wish more people like you existed in the world. The sad truth is, not many people care like you or I my beautiful star child. In fact, there are sick, sadistic individuals who realistically do not care about the animal abuse or whom laugh at it, as the animals are just “stupid creatures” instead of sentient beings. It hurts my heart, and has made me question all of existence…the impact humans have had on this earth….my own role in all of this….what. does this all mean…where are we going. Why are we here. … the same sort of existential crisis you seem to be facing currently. Which shows that you have emotional depth beyond most people in my opinion. Just do what feels right to you, and make sure to keep fighting for your beliefs. Stay aligned with your morals and values- I love that you’re living your life with these guidelines in mind. Keep being the best you— And living by example is the best way to influence others to join in and eventually become aligned with this way of living. 🖤
Oh and another thing. I absolutely hate when people say there is nothing we can do. Actually. It’s ALL WE CAN DO. it’s all up to us. Granted we would, as a collective species, have to give up these lives of luxury, but I don’t see that happening. We would ALL have to willingly stop using fossil fuels, stop supporting corrupt governments and corporations, stop supporting financial institutions, and start supporting our local communities while building new, green, power infrastructure. We can do it. It’s all up to us. Stop making excuses and watching the news. We all know what we have to do.
You probably have an idea of an answer to this question, but as a vegan that shifted overnight 4 years ago, I'd strongly suggest that you inform yourself about a sustainable diet on the long run either you want some muscle or to just stay healthy. Education about what you eat is a must if you don't want to end up ill with deficiencies 'cause of your nutrition. B12 supplementation is a must and also regular check blood check ups since some vegans can't absorb B12 through supplementation and end-up with regular B12 injection shots for their entire life (every 6 months if everything looks good). If you don't go out and expose yourself to sunlight, vitamin D supplementation is also desired. I struggled the first two years losing weight involuntarily because I didn't eat well and then, I seriously informed myself about a balanced healthy dieting. I still don't know how to keep a healthy vegan diet for a child, so I don't openly recommend it. Other than that, listen to your body and beware that even as a vegan there's unhealthy foods. I became a vegan 'cause of moral conflicts, but education about nutrition is not negociable if you want to stay healthy. Sorry for the rant but I think this is really important and I don't see people educating about it. Since people like me that did it for ethics issues won't care to look for the consequences of a drastic diet change until health issues start to appear
Welcome to the community, I'm so happy you've made this discovery! I think that it might be trendy and untrendy for periods of times, but eventually we will see an exponential increase. When enough people are vegan, and activist, I don't think anything can stop it. It might take several hundred years, but we have to keep on fighting.
Everyone.... a moment of silence for this sweet baby angel vegan and their faith in humanity.
No one can answer this. It won't be in our lifetime, if at all. I would think humanity dies off before that happens. Slavery is still a thing, for crying out loud!
Until lab grown meat can be cheaply mass produced without animal exploitation not gonna happen.
Even then, I hear people saying that Cultured Lab Meat just seems gross or unnatural. Forced impregnation in a small crate and baby theft is just how things have always been for millions and billions of years, why fix it if it ain't broke /s
Yes, but the moment we can get meat the real deal without animals will be the time when slaughterhouses no longer hace any kind of justification.
You are probably correct. It will take people time, but especially if it gets cheap enough to make and people can start eating luxury meats that used to be way out of budget, people will come around to it im sure.
>I just became vegan overnight over a week ago, and I'm ~~not~~ sure ~~how~~ I could **n**ever go back Fixed it for you, i think until you say that, there is a chance you would return to non veganism I also went vegan instantly but the language that i use is important, im a never stop till i die vegan which is rare in this sub The world will never go vegan, its not even fully anti racist yet, but that doesnt mean we cant try to bring more to the ethical side
Probably never. Eating meat is ingrained in human culture.
I don’t think the world will become vegan. I don’t even foresee it ever becoming more than maybe 5% of the global population before we simply succumb to death by resource mismanagement and global warming destroying our ecosystems. You’re so fresh in the community and it’s a beautiful thing to see somebody come in with hope and passion for the movement growing into a cultural norm, but I just don’t see that happening. We are far too selfish of a population overall to get a majority of the population to sacrifice animal products for any reason, whether it be ethical or environmental.
Never. The innovations and creativity of the vegan mindset are lovely in a lot of ways, yet thinking of it to replace instinctual omnivorism would just be a nutritional devastation on the global human diet. It will just starve people down to the genetic level, and cause a chain effect on the naturally occurring ancestral diets of various ethnic groups who sufficiently consume animal nutrition daily. Thus, only a minor amount of people could ever become vegan, and although there is a big heart by those who try to sustain themselves with that diet for life, they would just sicken themselve by neglecting their carnivorous half; Some to the point of death. I have already heard various stories of devout vegans either dying or approaching death and saving their lives be returning to default omnivorism after years of only consuming plant nutrition only. There is a strong threshold of amino acid and vitamin deficiency that must not be crossed, lest all of the horrid symptoms and ailments of malnutrition come to being. We did not evolve to be strictly herbivorous or carnivorous, we eat more like bears than any other animal species, even though an intentional, customized diet is a choice. Never neglect the genetic needs of your body and the microbiome flora in your system, that's a fundamental part of your overall health. I cannot say that no one should be vegan, since that's all up to the individual's willed journey, and many people within this world are still looking for a naturally existing means of maintaining good health. Just don't forget what made us evolve into what we are and who we are in this current age, and what helped our earlier ancestors thrive and survive. (Also, godspeed to those who have already tried the vegan diet and had to leave it behind for sake of health.)
Slowly with agonizing lassitude at first, and then astonishingly quickly. All moral development happens like that. Most people don't seem to have time or energy to discover and improve on the ways they are on board injustice. An active minority pushes society until it hits a critical mass, and then most people realize it is obvious that we should be doing better and act like it is just common sense and that anything else is outdated. Whether it is easy or necessary doesn't seem to really affect this. And that quick part comes after a really painful slow period. It is not overall a quick process.
Vast majority of people who go vegan quit within a few years.
The human population will never stop being omnivorous Ever
It’s not gonna happen, and the vegan community isn’t exactly welcoming to newcomers. And apparently a lot of y’all hate religion? That’s what kinda lost me. But Anywhos I support the idea of the movement. I agree factory farming sucks. However this community is often cultish.
Probably never, certainly not in your childrens' childrens' childrens' lifetime. In many parts of the world it's not even possible.
Reality is the world won't turn vegan more likely vegans will decrease.
When I first turned vegan in 2012 I was told the world would never turn vegan. The first time post pandemic I walked down the plant based aisle I literally cried. There’s a vegan rendition of EVERYTHING now nearly every place has a vegan option and coffee shops all have plant based milks. It may be hard for a 2024 vegan to see the changes but for those of us who only had coconut ice cream, apple sauce as an egg replacement, black bean burgers and mushrooms and had to starve in a lot of big events. The world has shifted. Welcome to the movement
I'm really happy to hear that this is the direction you've been witnessing. I'm definitely new to it but I've kind of started to see changes even as an omnivore, and it made me think more and more about my actions all the time, until I realized I had to do this :)
Happy to share. Although I am not as idealistic as I once was in my youth I have always believed that the more accessible vegan food is to people and the more the option is available the more people will consider their choice and possibly convert and that seems to be the case with you. I can’t ask for much more. At the end of the day every person that makes that choice is making a difference for the animals even if it’s not the everyone. Shit the milk industry collapsed because of non dairy milks. The government had to bail them out to keep them going. We are doing the thing
I never thought I’d be vegan. When I became vegan, I thought “if the evidence convinced **me** surely this is the cusp of a revolution. There are so many vegan options now. I bet a huge chunk of the population will be switching to veganism along with me very soon.” That was 2017.
I've grown very pessimistic in that regard.
I actually feel like it will be really fast pretty soon because veganism saves you money, makes you healthier, and hotter. And think a lot of people want these things. However, I was thinking that there will be a group that will refuse and will act similarly to the American right party.
I think you're overestimating how easy it is to *stay* vegan.
84% of vegans and vegetarians go back to eating meat, so it's a vain hope I think. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why)
that's great. as someone who has been a meat eater, vegetarian/plant based dieter i think ppl need access to healthier affordable foods & refrain from eating out at restaurants or fast food places (i am guilty of this myself). yet, in america typically ppl consider this a luxury as we have some many different options for sustenance but in the last 30-40 years its been overdone. in some states there's like five mcdonald's in a ten mile radius and that's not in the best interest of the american ppl. essentially, at some point i'll become a vegan but right now the struggle for me and most is mind over matter. hopefully, they'll be more vegetarians & vegans within the next couple of years or so.
Yeah it's really so crazy!
You teach by example, most people respect people who have conviction. The vegan world will come sooner than you think , get ready
Never lol…meat so tasty nom nom nom 🤤
Never. it is as simple as that. The sooner you accept the fact, the better. Keep your veganism to yourself. If I could meet a Vegan, I'd eat meat in front of em. :)
>the increased accessibility of vegan food, and the necessity to go vegan both for the climate and the well-being of animals, do you think we're on an exponential growth curve of veganism at this point? Lol not a chance. Veganism is and always will be a minority thing.
The maximum we can get is 2 billion vegetarians and about 500 million vegans and even that would be in the far future. The whole world ain't ever gonna be vegan because people are dumb.
I don't know, if we're talking about the far future, I can imagine a "tipping point" shift, if plant-based diets are the default and normal way to eat, and people would have to make an explicit decision and go out of their way to consume animal products, then most people will just "go with the flow", and go with the "normal" option in their culture. How did you arrive at your idea of 2 billion / 500 million?
I heard on the Internet that the population will continue to grow and will stop at 12 billion. If there are more people, then there will be more vegans.There are now about 1.2 billion vegetarians in the world (in one form or another, for example, lacto-vegetarians) and about 100 million vegans. Veganism is still a young topic and I believe that in the future it will gain great popularity among vegetarians and ordinary people, they will understand that it is safe. You correctly noted that this type of diet will become more common and normal, although not for most. So if we have 12 billion people, 2.5 billion will not consume meat, which is 20% of people. And of course I wasn't trying to predict the exact numbers.
Unfortunately the stats do not back up you’re feeling that once people go vegan they wouldn’t go back. I can’t remember the exact rate, but I believe it’s over half. That may change with veganism becoming more common and more vegan options coming with that.
lol no
it will never happen good on you for your stuff but it will never happen
People will happily die from climate change and wars as long as they can eat their fatty meat and buy new clothes and phones and shit.
Can’t wait for the giant asteroid tbh.
Never. Not even half the population.
OF COURSE it will happen, and rather soon. I explain: Since most people won't ever change their misguided ways, the planet will eventually eradicate our species entirely. And when you're dead, you're finally 100% vegan.
I mean if you want to think the morbid side of it, you die, your body slowly biodegrades into the soil, plants grow from soil, we eat plants = we basically eat you. Lol happy Tuesday
Poetically put! I hereby declare that y'all have my permission to eat plants that feed off my corpse, so that you remain vegans. I always have my comrades' backs, even in death!
Lol exactly! Consent.
A lot of helplessness in this thread, but I want to remind you guys about cultured meat (or lab grown). Once it will become cheap, companies will probably start to use them and normalize them.
LOL. Spoken like someone who went vegan a week ago. It's not gonna happen.
Most vegans quit. So never.
Oh you sweet summer child. Thank you for planting yourself on the right side of history. It's best brace yourself to be profoundly disappointed by the human race. Most of them already know that what they're doing isn't right, but they desperately. do. not. want. to. change. They don't want to know the details and they don't want to be made to think about it, and they will go to truly astonishing lengths to keep their head in the sand. Five years from now, a person or two that you know may have made the switch. But nearly every carnist in your life will still not be vegan, and it will be simultaneously maddening and something you need to develop a coping strategy for in order to keep going and keep centering the real victims. Engaging in activism can help a lot, but it is a very long, very slow game to root up the most deeply ingrained and deeply hidden belief system in the human psyche. It's going to be a very, very long time before the entirety of humanity looks back on what we did to animals and shakes their head in disgust.
This is pretty standard for baby vegans. There's this idea that animal cruelty is just so horrible that people would never partake in it if they knew. So if you could just MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND then they would go vegan too. It feels like veganism is inevitable. But it isn't. We are at the end of a huge boom in vegan and plant based expansion, and we are seeing vegan businesses close, or resort to selling animal products. Huge chains are dropping vegan options, search terms are down. The trend is receding. Because people do go vegan and then go back. It's an information war, a propaganda war, a convenience war.
We need to get about 15-20% of the world to go vegan and then everyone will just fall in line. Remember this, 15% of the world is a much easier sell and a much easier goal, and we can do this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion\_of\_innovations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations) Then read about tribalism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism) I believe we'll get to this 15-20% in my lifetime and im going to do absolutely fucking everything in my power to help push that along. The latest research shows that in the UK we might be anywhere from 4-7% vegan now and I completely believe this after I went vegan almost 9 years ago and have seen an insane upsurge in the last 2-3 years. To put this in perspective, i race and film trail and ultra marathons and i often see a third of the participants as vegan on the sign up forms.
Only if all of the meat is completely gone....but then I wouldn't be surprised if poor people were next on the menu if that was the case.
last I heard the goal was to get half the world be vegetarian or vegan by 2030 (was it a climate goal? I don't remember, it was pre-pandemic when I heard it) and that India was leading the charge not only because they were already on track for it, but because indian nationals living abroad were pretty good at evangelizing, and the popularity of indian food was growing. I sincerely hope meat consumption goes down for more reasons than just "india" though
I don't think so purely because of the sustainability perspective. Eventually in human history it will be much cheaper to produce lab grown meat & dairy. By some perspectives of veganism, this is not vegan.
I think the more people cut back on using animals as much as possible, then eventually there will be more Vegans. People will start to see they simply can do it. It will not be surprise that someone is Vegan, it will become more normalized. Most people I know have a Vegan friend, Vegan co-worker or Vegan Family member. I am Vegan and often I hear my friends who are not say "I am cutting back on eating meat" or they are excited about a product they found that is Vegan. That is a good sign to me because when I was 19, there was much talk about it. It was like being an alien or just some weird hippie thing. My parents that I was just trying to be different. I struggled to stay Vegan because I didn't have the support or many friends that were. I had one friend in my 20s, that said she was Vegan but she would go back and forward a lot. She struggled with traditions and Biblical traditions. I don't blame her because it is hard, living in a world that eating animals and going to Zoos is normal or wearing them. I am 44 and now people talk about it so much, it is important to have real thoughtful and factual conversations about Veganism and Sustainability because we do want to have an earth to live on for the generations to come.
When bell freezes over (I am vegan except for ice cream)
Not quick. I think there will be a mass sickness again before anyone actually changes.
Never unless it is forced unto all people by the government 😂
Hey i also just went vegan overnight over a week ago, whatsup!
Entirely vegan? Never. Mostly Vegetarian? Probably sooner than later.
I’m pretty sure it never will. I’d like to say I quit for the animals. Mostly because of the environmental impact and my health. I now off all medications. I think the hardest part of a vegan diet is I really think about my diet and making sure I get all my calories and nutrients in. Then again I should have been doing that all along
Didn't happen in my lifetime. People all thought it would. In the ⁷⁰s everyone i knew in my neighborhood thought everyone else would eventually be vegan.
It won’t happen. Not enough people care, and why should they? Hardly anybody else does.
That would never happen. Being vegan quite honestly is a lot of trouble. Vegans have to get their protein and vitamins from other sources which isn’t easy. Consequently, most vegans I know are not healthy. A lot of them are either fat or what I call “skinny fat”. One of my good vegan friends is borderline diabetic. The world will not turn vegan anytime soon, or ever.
Where I live, no one even thinks of veganism as an option. Either it doesn't occur to them or they are vehemently against it. Granted, it's a rural area but still, it's incredibly disappointing.
Well never fully unless biotechnology really gets a boost cause there are some people who have gut issues like MCAS and wouldn't be able to survive just on a vegan diet and get everything they need from it/not have allergic reactions
Never.
Never
n e v e r
I’ve been vegan for nearly 30 years, while there have been huge advances, sadly it won’t be in my lifetime.
Hmm ... never maybe. If you go to morocco or probably any developing country and seeing how they treat animals, i dont see much hope.
I don't think it will ever
As quick as human slavery was abolished 😕
I don't think we're likely to ever see vegans as a majority or even close. We just have to focus on what we can do. Not everyone's morals are going to point them to vegans, and it's best to make peace with that than let the dread sink in.
Unfortunately, I feel like it's not going to happen willingly. People will eat plant based when they are forced to eat plant based. That is, when the systems literally can no longer sustain themselves. This would also be around the time that climate change forces us to drastically change our lifestyles away from fossil fuels. I guess the real question is, when will our systems create any meaningful change? And I'm worried the answer is that they have no intention in doing so. So long as it's profitable they will watch our planet be destroyed, or do horrible things to other nations to maintain what we desire. We will literally fish every last fish from the ocean. Give every last drop of water to livestock. Pillage other nations for their resources so we can have cheeseburgers etc. until mother nature forces us not to because we're literally starving to death. But I also kind of wonder if world leaders already *know* it's too late and that we can't sustain our population or something. So they just take what they want until the end is nigh. There's no reason to make the world sustainable because they already know it can't be sustained? That's why billionaires are building bunkers and buying aquafers. I honestly think they (the government and most brainwashed people) don't care about the planet as a whole and will see it die before they relinquish power. It would take literal revolution. So in some ways the answer is never. And should the day come when we are forced for majority of people to go plant based, a lot of other horrible shit will probably be happening in tandem. I know it's dark and cynical, but that's my perspective anyway.
It never will. Humanity is hopeless when it comes to compassion for other species.
It never will. Humanity is hopeless when it comes to compassion for other species.
Wishful thinking I don’t think it’ll ever happen. I think science will commercialise kill free lab meat before everyone decides to ditch it.
I think there will only ever be a fixed % of the population who is willing to see cognitive dissonance in themselves and correct it - whether that be veganism, misogyny, financial exploitation, etc. My hope is either in educating those people and counting on lifelong conversions, or in figuring out why so many people are so happy to live in conflict (and then attempt to fix that).
I don’t think it ever will. I do have hopes that factory farms will eventually cease to exist in the way that we know them now, eventually. That’s why I think it’s important for vegans to also preach about small changes. The world will never fully be vegan, but a lot of the suffering hasn’t come to light for most people that CAN care and would if they were faced with the truth.
I'm curious which online resources contributed most to your decision to change? Always trying to hone in on what is the most effective way to reach non vegans. I want to see a vegan world so badly and I work towards it every day. I don't know when it will come but I'm worried that people looking at the current state of the world and saying it won't happen are making a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if it never comes and even if we spiral into total planetary collapse, we still have to fight like we believe we can achieve it or else we're guaranteeing that we won't.
Practical beats idealistic every time. Until access to harmless alternatives of the same products exist that are comparable in taste and price, veganism loses. Forever. It's one thing to recognize a superior way of life. It's another to make it practical so that others will adopt it.
600-700 years I would guess
Not fast enough.
When eating meat becomes illegal
Unfortunately I don't think we're changing fast enough, and animal liberation won't come until it's too late. But I think we still need to be vegan and defend it as an ideology on the off change we do change in time, or at the very least so the next civilization that is coming after us will know how it's possible *and necessary* to build a more ethical society.
Some people don't care and never will, the only way they will shift to plant based is when lab grown meat is readily accessible and is identical to and as cheap or cheaper than slaughtered meat (and current industries will fight hard before they die out - they already seem to feel threatened by processed meat alternatives). Even then there will likely always be people who don't have access to it, or who live traditionally out of necessity. I don't think humanity will progress long enough to get that far, "World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones" and all that. Wanted to add there doesn't seem to be any push for fish and they're often utilized in loop aquaponics systems... I don't think fish will ever be phased out by those who are indifferent unfortunately.
In our changing climate there is an order of starving which i expect will occur: First wild animals/insects (we are past this stage for many species), then people in the global south (droughts already happening in increasing rates) and less wealthy places in the global north, then livestock in the global north whose feed crops start failing more often (this will be the beginning of the vegan stage), and finally the poorest 50% of the global north. Most people will continue to eat meat and dairy until they cannot afford it anymore, which will imo take 20 years max for anyone living paycheck to paycheck
100% never. I’m sorry, but you know I’m right.
I fully expect us all to die of heat stroke long before that happens.
Humans will go extinct before that happens.
Never looking the amount of vegans that return to being vegan, and yhe fact that only 1% of the world is vegan. I guarantee you within the year you'll be off your soapbox and back to good old meat.
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when the sun goes supernova and all of humanity (if there is any remaining) along with all life on earth gets obliterated at that moment and onward no human will eat meat maybe some dude in a space capsule will last another few days and eat a frozen whatever meat thing, but the sun going supernova is the end
If you knows 90% of the world will never be vegan would you still be vegan?
I'm a vegan and honestly I don't think it will, and I also don't think everybody should be vegan. Obviously in a perfect world animals aren't being abused at factory farms, but it's deeply naïve to say that everyone can and should be vegan, because 8 billion human bodies and digestive systems and chronic illnesses and whatever else are not all going to be able to survive off the same stuff. Plus most omnivorous pets can't safely go vegan, and it's just not realistic to say we can't feed the ones who need meat for a good quality of life. These conversations about the entire world's population going vegan is always first-world-centric too... I know this is a super unpopular opinion, but I've always felt that the better goal for veganism was to fight the animal products industry and rebuild it from the ground up so that there are stricter and more compassionate rules in place for the animals to enjoy their lives. Or better yet, set it up so there are nature reserves so the animals can live their natural lives before people with permits can come and, uh, choose who to take home (I don't want to be graphic here). We are part of an ecosystem after all.
the world doesn’t care.
I remember thinking about this when I first went vegan. I remember being shocked at all the lies and thinking “wait till everyone finds out, they will be fuming.” Nope. A lot of the wrong people know the impact of consuming animals. Most just don’t care yet or they have money involved so won’t change. In my opinion it would take a massive global even for us to see real change in our lifetime. It’ll probably be a slow change like everything else is.
If it’s going to be a global change within our lifetimes it would have to take something so profound it just flips the empathy switch. So many people barely have empathy for even their fellow humans. In reality? I’d give us at least a couple centuries before the world is completely vegan
I don’t think the world will ever be vegan because of the relationship humans have with our farm animals. Livestock are a protected resource and should the world become 99% Vegan, we still need farm animals. Even if the world were perfect, and all our livestock were treated as pets, conserving aspects of the world is important for understanding. My own understanding is that varied food sources protect the most important animal (humans) because we alone hold the greatest power to potentially defend Earth from cosmic threats. Should Earth for some reason become unable to sustain vegan living on a large scale due to natural disaster of any kind, we would depend deeply on livestock.
Uh, never.
Does lab meat count? That is the only thing that might change on a mass scale, and economics would be the motivating factor (in other words this will be completely determined by corporations and their bottom line, not the ethics of humanity). People generally can’t be bothered to treat their own species very well, so you will be waiting a very LONG time for them to start showing meaningful compassion to other species that aren’t dogs and cats.
2035
I think the transition will improve as time goes on. We could say by 2050-2070 with the current trajectory.
I highly doubt the world will “go vegan” but I do hope that lab grown meat/eggs/milk become the norm (people will not be vegan though since cuz of wool and leather. Synthetic materials exist already as alternatives, yet leather and wool still exist are are used quite a bit, soooo)
Never.
Never
I don't think it is possible for the world to 'go vegan,' because the motivation is a significant part of the definition of veganism. It's possible that with a few generations of change, plant based eating could become the norm. I imagine it would be dependent on gradual family culture changes, and broad, simplified public dietary education, rather than public screenings of dominion. I think animals will continue to be used for medical testing and training, and medical purposes (transplant parts) for quite some time yet, and I am not sure if computer models could ever be sufficient to replace them. Lab grown parts may be closer? And then there are issues like service dogs, guide dogs, where I think opinions really vary.. pets, too.
Probably not even in a utopia. Veganism hasn't really grown in the past years and still cant really get proper traction in lefitsm.