Vegan - Fad or Lifetime Commitment?

Poll from The VegFest Express Online Magazine Poll 

With Veganuary now over the question will be how many participants will remain vegan and how many will return to their old way of living?  We know from previous Veganuary’s and also a recent poll by The VegFest Express Online Magazine, that quite a few people do continue as vegans and of those that don’t many end up at least making changes to their old way of eating and living.  The latter is the case with a colleague.  

He was an unlikely candidate for Veganuary so I was pleasantly surprised when he told me he was trying it.  I was delighted too with the way he threw himself into it and we’ve had many good conversations over the past month.  He made me a vegan cake as a thank you for my help and support and I shared the fact that I was proud of him for trying it.

Here’s the thing though.  It kills me that he’s not a ‘remainer’.  I’m not going to give him a hard time about it as I truly believe everyone has to find their own path.  I am pleased he at least tried it and will be a ‘reducer’.  I don’t get it though.  I really don’t get it.  Once you have successfully tried and survived on a plant based diet; once you have opened your eyes to the environmental advantages and once you have discovered the horrors of the animal industry, how can you go backwards?  That is the biggest kicker for me; how can you unlearn those things?

I have long term friends who were staunch vegans but are no longer.  I have a mental block in understanding, comprehending and analysing how they could have been so heavily absorbed in the reasons for being vegan but then have so easily ‘unlearnt’ that or ignored it years later.  I am by no means having a ‘pop’ at my colleague, my friends or any ‘non-remainer’ who took part in Veganuary.  After all any attempts to look into and try a vegan diet should be applauded.  I am merely expressing and trying to come to terms with something that for me seems to belong to another planet. 

I love Phil deeply for many reasons but one of them is that I know he totally gets what I mean and we discuss this frequently.  There is no way on this earth, or any other for that matter, that us two long term vegans would be anything but vegan.  For both of us we knew that the moment we went vegan.  The harsh realities that set us on that vegan path, which back 30 years ago were more centred on the sheer cruelty involved, couldn’t ever be forgotten or unlearnt.  All the other positive reasons to follow a plant based diet, including health, environmental and humanitarian, were wonderful bonuses discovered along that early journey.  Films such as Cowspiracy and What the Health have certainly highlighted the environmental and health reasons in the modern vegan world.  Many people have connected with this and become vegan as a result but are these then the vegans that stray from the path?  After all even the healthiest health freak indulges in that naughty cake every now and then, and the staunchest of environmentalists may buy a 5p plastic bag on the occasional unexpected shopping trip when the bags for life were forgotten.

What of the vegan that has truly, deeply, desperately and heartbreakingly connected with the mind of the animal in its final moments of its short life before it becomes another part of a packaged part of flesh?  Possibly that deeply embedded and shared pain is what sorts out the temporary vegan from the life vegan?  Surely once you’ve opened your heart to that and had it broken you would never be anything but vegan?  

Veganuary is an amazing gateway.  The sheer increase in the amount of interest in Veganuary the media has shown this year has certainly propelled veganism into the mainstream and the consciousness of many more people.  That is the important part as that leads to exploration and education into plant based living with people then connecting with it on various levels; and one level leads to others.  Which level however may possibly be the deciding factor as to whether they remain vegan in the long term or not.  It is the difference between a fad and a deep and compassionate understanding of the true impact that a plant based diet can have on your own life as well as many many other sentient beings.  Either way, I will continue to encourage and support anyone that shows an interest in a plant based diet, be delighted by anyone that remains a life vegan and no doubt continue to be perplexed by those that don't.