Vegan Love

The Strongest Force in Our Movement

Why do I focus on such positive themes in my Substack, such as pride, joy, and love? The reason is simple: the evidence we have suggests that the number one issue holding us back as a movement is not recruitment—it’s retention. We don’t exactly have a problem with people going vegetarian and vegan—relatively large numbers of people do both. We have a problem with people staying vegetarian and vegan.

And yet, if we look at the data, it is overwhelmingly focused on convincing people to eat less meat, to go vegan, or vegetarian. There may be over a thousand studies on the topic. However, I can locate far less on helping people stay vegetarian and vegan—yet that question might be just as important; it might be more important. However, what limited data we do have suggest that the primary reason is feelings of being alone, hopeless, and judged by others. In other words, it is not related to the supposed deliciousness of meat or the inability to find or access delicious food; it is feeling alone and that what we do does not matter. They stop because being vegan feels isolated and not part of a community.

For example, a Faunalytics’ 2014 survey found that 84% of vegetarians and vegans eventually return to eating meat. Even if those numbers are even close to correct (I’ve included a lengthy a footnote both about why I think this number is probably a little high and why it is still the best data we have) those are incredible losses.¹ For every 100 people we convince to go vegetarian or vegan, we may be keeping as few as 16.

Among the most common social and emotional reasons people in the Faunalytics study cited for leaving were:

“I was not actively involved in a vegetarian/vegan group or organization (potluck, online community, etc.)”²

“I disliked that my vegetarian/vegan diet made me stick out from the crowd·”

“I did not see vegetarianism/veganism as part of my identity·”

“I had insufficient interaction with other vegetarians/vegans.”

Those were explicitly listed as contributing factors. In contrast, things like “I craved poultry, beef, pork, fish, or seafood” ranked lower than social and emotional ones.

The study authors summarized this pattern as evidence that social support and community integration are critical for retention. People rarely leave because they stop agreeing with the ethics of veganism; they leave because they feel alone, excluded, or attacked³.

A follow-up longitudinal 2022 study by Faunalytics found similar results. They found that the “ worst barriers to diet change were feeling unhealthy, not seeing veg*nism as part of one’s identity, and believing society perceives veg*nism negatively.” All such data merely echoes the large and growing body of research about vegan stigma, which I have discussed before, as one of the major barriers stopping people from going, or staying, vegan. Again, it is not a change in ethics; it is the feeling of being all alone.

That is why I focus so much on this problem. Because here is the important part: we can solve it ourselves. We do not need government funding, new technology, or permission from anyone. If we choose, today, we can make a movement that is kinder, more supportive, more loving, and, most importantly, more effective—a movement in which more people not only go vegan, but stay vegan.

Most animal rights organizations focus on getting more people to go vegan. Few think about helping those already vegan to stay vegan. It is as if we are bailing water from a leaking boat—cup by cup—without fixing the leak. The effort matters, but it would help more to stop the leak first. Remember, for every 100 we bring in the front door, 84 may be walking right back out the back. Not because they aren’t getting enough protein, but as they themselves tell us, over and over again, because they feel alone and not part of a community. If we recruited half as many, but twice as many stayed, there would be far more vegans.

When I first read the research on vegan retention, I joined the “ex-vegan” subreddit to see what people were saying. Ironically, doing so got me kicked out of several vegan groups on Reddit, since they block members of “both” sides. I had to explain that I was researching why people leave veganism before I could rejoin.

The pattern was immediate. It was also identical to the Faunalytics study and every other study on the effects of vegan stigma I have read. People left for two reasons: (a) health concerns, and, even more commonly, (b) hostility or judgment from other vegans. Sometimes the same person posted in both groups at once—uncertain about leaving—and the difference in responses was striking. The ex-vegan group was kind and supportive. The vegan group was not. I never once saw the vegan group win that conversation.

I get it. Oh, I get it. I remember the very first time I ever taught an animal class. When I first taught a course on animal liberation as a PhD student, I poured out all my anger and grief about what happens to animals. I let the students have it. It came from honesty and pain, but it was not pragmatic. No one—not a single student—went vegan. One student, who was vegetarian when she signed up for the course, actually stopped being vegetarian.

However, over time as I keep working on this course—I’ve now taught for more than 15 years—each year I teach the course I am kinder to the students than I was the time before. Overwhelmingly it is my kindness, gentleness, positivity, and support that helps the students go and stay vegan. Now the lowest percentage I ever have is 10%; 20% is not uncommon. I do not mean that we can never yell—I’ve yelled plenty—nor that it will never work. I still believe that yelling, pressure, fighting against corporations and companies is a far more effective strategy than being polite to them. But at the level of individual transformation, based on my own experience, gentleness, understanding, and love has worked far more often than the yelling.

What is true for teaching is even more true for how we treat each other. Many vegans believe that attacking another vegan will make them “do more”—be more pure, work harder, win for animals. But every bit of evidence, and my own experience, suggest the opposite. Instead of more, we get less. We get people who just…quit. We do not get stronger vegans—we just get more ex-vegans.

This does not mean we tolerate harmful behavior or bad strategy. We should critique and debate. I do a great deal of both, particularly about humane meat and lab-grown meat, or anything that is not vegan. But how we do so also matters. “Calling in” instead of “calling out” is not about tone—it is about effectiveness. What helps someone learn, change, and keep going?

But even more, I mean kindness and love and solidarity toward those we agree with. No one outside our movement will ever thank a vegan. Why would they? Most people mock, gaslight, or ignore us. Only another vegan truly understands what we endure. Only another vegan can remind us that we are not alone.

Here’s the thing: Loving one another costs almost nothing. It takes a fraction of the time that other forms of activism demand. Yet it may be the single most effective thing we can do to increase the number of people staying vegan. It trades off with…nothing. Even if we wanted to focus on recruitment, why would we possibly not give it a try?

But the reason to do it is not only because the data suggest it might be the single most effective action we can do to increase the number of vegetarians and vegans. It is because it is the right thing to do in and of itself.

On Reddit, even though this is not what I was there to study, I saw countless vegans share thoughts of suicide and self-harm. I’ve felt it. I’ve felt overwhelmed by what is happening to animals. And separate from active self-harm, I’ve known countless vegans who engaged in destructive behaviors—too much drinking, too much attempt to escape what they know is going on. We are the only ones who can help this group, and we should help them because we can. We alone know what they are going through; we can—more than anything else—simply let them know that they are not alone.

When I began studying how social movements win, I turned to other justice struggles. Over and over, I found one constant: solidarity. Movements that endure build emotional infrastructure. During the civil rights struggle in the U.S. South, activists did not stay calm under attack by accident; they trained for it. Their leaders spoke openly about love—they used that exact word —love—all the time—both before, during, and after their activism. This is not only sentimental. It is strategy. Emotional work—showing up for one another, building trust and resilience—is what sustains people through the struggle.

All we have is each other. We are a herd species, we are meant to be together, and each of you are part of my group, my school, my herd, fundamentally, my team. The greatest lie of slaughterhouse capitalism is not even that meat is necessary, but that we have to do everything alone. But we don’t. You and I are a team, together.

You are not alone. You are doing the most important work there is. I am so deeply and proudly grateful to each of you. Everything you feel, I feel, all the time. This weight is a shared weight. Caring for each other, appreciating each other, making the compassionate choice in how we treat each other, building each other up, having each other’s back without limit, doing the intentional emotional work that every single successful justice movement has done before us, that work that rightly shows the world—despite what this culture teaches us, our emotions are not weakness, they are our strength. Love is not weak; love is the language of strength. It is our love that makes us strong—vegan love, learning to love each other, that is how we win.

And, we are going to win.

1. I am not sure these numbers are wholly correct. For example, the same study significantly undercounts the number of current vegetarians and vegans, which in turn may mean that it overcounts the number of people who stop being vegetarian or vegan. For a detailed discussion of how HRC’s study structurally undercounts the number of current vegetarians and vegans, see here.

Likewise, this peer-reviewed study found a far lower rate of people leaving being vegetarian or vegan; however, it was also a far smaller sample size (under 300) and mainly polled readers of a Vegetarian Journal, which may have biased the results. See: Mangels, R., Messina, V., Messina, M., & Norris, J. (2010). Do vegetarians and vegans stay vegetarian and vegan? Results from the 2006–2009 Vegetarian Resource Group survey. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 110(9, Supplement), A111.

Finally, this article raises further methodological questions and suggests the number might be quite different in other countries (for example, in England). Overall, other research, including the long-term EPIC-Oxford study, suggests that retention rates could be significantly higher among those who identify veganism as an ethical commitment.

However, while the HRC figure is probably too high, it remains our best available estimate for the US—and even at half that rate, the numbers are stark.

2. Quotations have been marginally edited for readability; the full table appears as “Table 5. Key Difficulties with Vegetarian/Vegan Diets.”

3. Faunalytics does not identify social isolation as the most frequently cited primary reason for lapsing; however, it consistently finds that weaker social support, lack of community, and identity conflict strongly distinguish former from current vegetarians and vegans, suggesting that social dynamics play a significant role in retention. Additionally, these social and identity factors may appear both directly and indirectly—for example, social stigma may shape how respondents experience and report other reasons such as inconvenience, dissatisfaction with food, or even health concerns.