How to convince the steak-lover in your life to go vegan

Your university-aged cousin or niece may be addicted to falafel sandwiches. But your meat-loving uncle and aunt are still a long way from giving up steak for shiitake, or replacing the chicken in their vindaloo with bean curd. Indeed, evidence suggests that the growth rates for vegan eating habits have slowed recently, and that enthusiasm for plant-based diets may be waning after it peaked several years ago.

That is bad news for the planet, which is already unable to bear the meat-eating habits of billions of people. To become more popular, veganism may have to rebrand itself.

Despite the increasing mainstream embrace of plant-based eating, the stereotype of the shrill vegan screaming “meat is murder” persists. Advocates must never be pushy or judgmental. Demonising meat eaters will only alienate omnivores – like myself – who are curious and open to veganism but still love omelettes, yoghurt and the occasional chicken vindaloo. Maybe we should stop calling it “vegan” and just call it good food. Indeed, the best way to promote plant-based eating is to make sure the meals are absolutely delicious.

“Become a really good cook and serve them some yummy food,” says Lesley Moffat, of the organisation Eyes on Animals. She’s been gently prodding relatives and friends to go vegan for years, but always by using positive reinforcement. “If people see that you’re happy and in good shape, that’s a good example for others. Food is kind of a medicine and if you eat well, you’ll stay healthy.”

Shifting to plant-based diets is good public policy. It is one major way to reduce climate change while promoting public health and animal welfare. Livestock accounts for nearly 15 per cent of global greenhouse emissions. Some 40 per cent of the world’s farmlands are used to grow food just to feed the animals we eat, or use for milk and eggs. According to scientists, the eight billion people residing on the planet could sustainably eat a small amount of meat as part of their diets – perhaps several meals a week – but nowhere near what we now consume.

However, while the young and health-conscious are still frequenting vegan restaurants in cities like Portland, Oregon or Bristol, Google searches suggest that people are slower at adopting vegan shopping practices at the supermarket or cooking plant-based recipes at home. Only about one per cent of the world’s population identifies as vegan, according to the World Animal Foundation.

Policymakers and elected officials could make a difference. Governments worldwide subsidise the agribusinesses that produce meat and dairy products to the tune of $200 billion a year. They can and should level the playing field between plant and animal-based diets by cutting off the giveaways. But they likely will not. The meat and dairy industries are too powerful and entrenched. That leaves civil society and advocates to do what elected officials will not.

Veganism is often wrongly regarded as an upper-middle-class trend – something that emerged from the narcissistic California lifestyle that also gave the world Goop, skateboard culture and reality TV shows about bored housewives. In fact, some of the world’s poorest people consume some of the world’s most tasty plant-based diets.

The peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa have rich and complex diets that rely on vegetables, grains and spices for taste rather than oil and fat. The meals of sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent are mostly plant-based, or can be. Even the West has beloved vegan classics such as ratatouille, minestrone soup, or gazpacho.

With rising food prices and inflation a global concern, the relatively low cost of cooking vegan can also be emphasised. Meat substitutes like Beyond Meat are tasty but expensive. However, combinations of grains and beans are among the least costly and most nutritious meals in the human diet.

“To be honest the cheapest meal is red lentils and rice and it’s what the poorest people eat,” says Moffat. “Most diets in Africa are plant-based. As soon as you bring meat into the equation, it becomes more expensive.”

Despite the apparent plateauing of plant-based eating habits, several success stories in recent years show that when people learn about the health and environmental advantages of vegan or vegetarian diets, they are more prone to try it. One initiative in Uganda that began as a project to distribute vegetable seeds to women and educate locals about welfare claims to have convinced 92,000 people to try plant-based diets.

In the United States, some Black activists are promoting veganism as a political statement against the corporate interests that oppress minorities by promoting unhealthy fast and processed foods that contribute to high obesity and heart disease rates. In fact, statistics show that eight per cent of Black Americans identify as vegan compared to three per cent of Americans overall.

“When you say ‘vegan,’ a lot of people tend to only think of Peta, which doesn’t reflect the massive landscape of vegan activism,” vegan advocate Aph Ko told The New York Times. “The Black vegan movement is one of the most diverse, decolonial, complex and creative movements.”

Different people go vegan for different reasons. Moffat’s mom stopped eating meat when she saw pictures of abused livestock being transported. Her dad switched to a vegan diet when he began running into health troubles. Moffat described the owner of a slaughterhouse in Turkey who went vegan, despite his business interests, after his daughter adopted a plant-based diet.

Moffat suggests that vendors and restaurateurs stop advertising products as vegan and just see what happens. She described a vegan kebab truck that sometimes parks near a sports complex near her home in Amsterdam. Hungry jocks come out to eat after practice, munching enthusiastically on their sandwiches while possibly clueless to the fact that they are plant-based.

“It’s delicious and smells good,” she says. “Just start cooking such delicious foods [and] people don’t realise it’s missing meat. We don’t need to advertise as being vegan. Maybe meat and dairy meals should have labels with animal logos instead of plant-based meals having little green vegan logos. Make vegan the norm and everything else clearly labelled.”

A vegan acquaintance once told me they refused to eat at any restaurant or shop at any market that was not exclusively vegan. I think that is the wrong attitude. We should in fact encourage eateries, markets and, yes – our own stubborn relatives – to put plant-based meals on our menus.