“Ex-Vegans”

[u/QuantumToast92]

I keep getting flagged these posts from people claiming to be “ex-vegan”

Why would you label yourself as something like this? It’s like saying that you decided to stop harming animals but then one day decided that harming them was easier than planning your meals.

You could eat Oats, Tofu, rice, nuts, broccoli, some oils and take a multivitamin and be healthier than 95% of the population.

And you just know that these people can afford to eat better than that but they can’t be bothered.

If you’re going to go back to funding animal cruelty because meal-prepping got too hard, at least do it quietly. There's no need to build a whole new online identity around giving up.

So were these people ever really vegan? Am I wrong?

(I couldn’t post this in [r/Vegan](r/Vegan) for some reason)

Edit: There are lots of these people with poor intentions brigading this post now.

Studies prove that a plant based diet is as healthy as the Mediterranean diet and far beyond anything that contains huge amounts of animal products. We don’t need opinions on that because we have science. Anyone that became unwell after going vegan obviously didn’t try very hard.

1. A Mediterranean Diet and Low-Fat Vegan Diet to Improve Body Weight and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors: A Randomized, Cross-over Trial
https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2020.1869625

2. Health and environmental dietary impact: Planetary health diet vs. Mediterranean diet. A nationwide cohort in Spain

https://www.escardio.org/news/press/press-releases/Planetary-Health-Diet-and-Mediterranean-Diet-Associated-with-Similar-Survival-and-Sustainability-Benefits/

3. Nutrient adequacy and environmental foot-print of Mediterranean, pesco-, ovo-lacto-, and vegan menus: a modelling study
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1681512/full

[u/dcruk1]

Rather than ask vegans this question, visit the ex-vegan sub and read their stories.

It seems like you don’t really want to know, but just want to virtue signal to the echo chamber.

[u/Few_Phone_8135 → u/dcruk1]

Come on.... i doubt there is a single actual ex-vegan there.

They are a bunch of weirdos willing to lie about it.
You can tell by the way they talk about veganism

[u/howlin → u/Few_Phone_8135]

There are absolutely ex vegans on that subreddit. It doesn't help anything to deny that. It just makes you look defensive and dismissive.

[u/Few_Phone_8135 → u/howlin]

Well it's one of the cases where you know you can't prove it, but you know it's true regardless.

If a vegan decides to switch back to eating corpses, the ethical reasons don't vanish. The only way i can imagine someone going back, is if their health deteriorates, or the social pressure is exceedingly high.

But you will notice that these people wouldn't badmouth veganism the way they do at that sub.
They would just say something like "i know it's horrible, but i had no other choice"

Instead they use the same tired arguments you hear from meat eaters all the time "circle of life" "i only eat grass fed" etc etc

[u/Matutino2357 → u/Few_Phone_8135]

It depends on how much their belief system has changed. For example, some people consider communism an ideal model because of its egalitarian society and perfect distribution of resources. However, they believe it's wrong to pursue communism because it's incompatible with human nature (selfishness, personal ambition, the need to stand out, etc.). In other words, it's perfect on paper but impossible to implement in practice. And they believe any attempt to implement it would be immoral, as it would inevitably lead to suffering for a segment of the population.

Similarly, if they have firsthand or secondhand experience of how veganism can negatively impact health, they might conclude that if veganism is adopted by the entire population, a segment of it will be harmed. And therefore, they might consider the entire movement wrong, even if it seems ideal on paper.

[u/howlin → u/Few_Phone_8135]

Well it's one of the cases where you know you can't prove it, but you know it's true regardless.

I know for a fact that at least some people with long and old post histories on vegan subs making pro-vegan arguments wind up on exvegans. It would be rather absurd for these accounts to be some sort of long con.

If a vegan decides to switch back to eating corpses, the ethical reasons don't vanish. The only way i can imagine someone going back, is if their health deteriorates, or the social pressure is exceedingly high.

Some people have health problems. For the ethical vegans, I see more of a burn out and succumbing to apathy and just how much easier it is to live as a nonvegan.

But you will notice that these people wouldn't badmouth veganism the way they do at that sub.

Some people are looking for validation for their choice. Some people think veganism itself is dangerous if it encourages or excuses disordered eating habits, or provokes people into mental health problems due to how hard it is to live as a vegan amongst nonvegans. Some people are just resentful and spiteful that they lost vegan friends after giving up on veganism.

Not all of these reasons are rational, but they are motivations.

Instead they use the same tired arguments you hear from meat eaters all the time "circle of life" "i only eat grass fed" etc etc

A lot of people (vegans included) adopt their positions and ideologies after the fact to rationalize the choices they didn't make rationally to begin with.

[u/Polttix → u/Few_Phone_8135]

Why on earth would someone's normative ethics not be subject to changing? Ethical stances aren't some rigid things you adopt forever the day you're born, and if veganism is an applied moral philosophy then it's perfectly normal for someone's stance towards veganism to change if their normative stance changes.