Vegetarians who say this shit say they enjoy getting encouragement from vegans, but they actually just want a pat on the back and brownie points from susceptible vegans, not actual encouragement.
This is the greatest encouragement I can give them, but because it's in an "aggressive" tone, they love to say "You're the reason why people shy away from going vegan!"
Sorry to tell ya, but if some harsh words promoting the very ideological foundation of veganism are enough to discourage you, then you clearly don't have a plan to "transition" to veganism to begin with.
Imagine telling someone "You really need to stop being fucking racist." and then they say "Ugh! I'm working on it! You being so pushy makes me want to be more racist actually!"
The cheese rots into their brains apparently.
Question for all the vegans in here (and you are all vegan, right? It's in the comm rules): How long did it take for you to transition to veganism?
I had a long period of cognitive dissonance where I ate meat while being convinced it was wrong and against my leftist principles, and then went vegan overnight once I fully internalized this and decided to take action. No vegetarian phase, no "let's try cutting out one thing at a time". One day I was a carnist, and then a sad carnist, and then a vegan.
From carnist to plant-based diet? It was instant.
From plant-based diet to wholehearted ethical vegan? It took some months worth of examination into various films, videos, books, resources, and interactions.
I started eating a plant-based diet for health reasons. However, I knew ethical veganism was an important movement when I first started abstaining from animal products, but I didn't start to truly get how vital it is until a few months into it.
Once I realized how crucial animal liberation is, I realized there was no real reason for me to put "my health" at the forefront of why I abstain from animal products. I believe that tons of carnists reject the premise of ethical veganism because they find it too inconvenient, not necessarily that they believe it to be wrong. It's just that many won't admit that because it would make them self-admitted hypocrites.
Having awareness of this, I said, "I'm already not eating animal products, so it's not like I have to worry about that 'convenience' excuse that carnists use to embrace ethical veganism," so I went ahead and embraced ethical veganism, especially once the adequate knowledge was there, and that's what baby steppers don't have: adequate knowledge. If they did, they'd just go vegan. Signaling that urgency to them isn't an evil, degrading move. It's an effort to bring them to awareness.
Simply put, I never had a "I know I should go vegan, but I'm just gonna continue gradually lessening animal products out of my life to slowly transition" moment in the sense that typical baby steppers have.
Sometimes I'll have very silly thoughts where I'm like "Animal liberation? No no no, I'm not an extremist, I just think we should stop eating them, or farming them, or killing them for their body parts, or exploiting them for labor, and hey so I feel really weird about zoos, and..."
I think my experience can be distilled down to essentially this, though my integration of the knowledge was rather unnecessarily prolonged because I was lying to myself in order to avoid feeling emotions.
Once I had enough information and importantly couldn't lie to myself to ignore it anymore, being vegan became such an easy and freeing thing to do. In the face of the emotional turmoil I was experiencing working through understanding the immorality of my interactions with the animal torture industries, it was an incredible relief to know I was finally doing the right thing.
I was vegetarian for 2 years before becoming a vegan. It was always about the ethics from the very beginning with the health aspect just being a nice coincidental bonus.
For me at the time (1998-2000) and virtually for everyone around me, vegetarian was the extreme position already. Dairy was hardly recognized as being an issue even by people receptive and somewhat concerned about animal cruelty and the meat industry. I think a majority of people at least where I was, didn't know what veganism even meant and when explained, were likely to give the response "oh, you mean the McDougall diet?" if anything. That said, it was still 100% an excuse for me not to go "all the way" since I knew what veganism was and how inseparable dairy etc was from the same industry I was trying not to participate in via vegetarianism.
I was increasingly aware that every single argument I would use with family and friends to explain why we should all stop eating meat applied in exactly the same way to why I shouldn't keep eating dairy or accepting other kinds of animal products. There was for sure some cognitive dissonance there (and by that I mean actual discomfort from knowing I was being hypocritical) just like there was back when I still ate meat as a self-professed "animal lover." As a vegetarian, I told myself "I'll go vegan some day, but for now I just have to get used to being a vegetarian. I mean hey, I'm already doing way more than almost everyone else around here."
What did the trick was learning more about and getting more involved in animal rights activism which of course included seeing what truly happened on factory farms regardless of whether the animals in question ended up specifically as meat or not. 'Dominion' obviously wasn't around at that time but 'Meet Your Meat' was. My girlfriend at the time, who I actually met on a vegetarian/vegan IRC channel, and I decided to both go vegan as a new years resolution a few months in advance. So at least in my case, it did help to plan ahead and commit to doing what I knew was the right thing, but at a set point in the near future. It also helped that it was a joint effort with a partner.
In retrospect though, it all would have been so much better, more honest, and really even much easier if I had just gone vegan to begin with and not done all that pointless, ultimately unnecessary hemming and hawing. The "hurdle" was so much smaller than I had made it out to be in my head, which I should have known since I had already given up meat. But because it was a process for me, I am generally forgiving and patient with vegetarians and others who "plan on" or are "trying to" become vegan, so long as it is genuine and that it really is their goal. I'll still tell them they need to recognize that they're just making excuses for themselves though.
I was pescatarian from buying my own food till like 25. Then I was reading about fish and was like "I'm fucking stupid" and changed overnight. Is that a long transition or overnight? who knows.
Before I became a vegan, but after I stopped eating meat to quell my conscience's incessant diatribing on climate change, I was a cheesebreather for about 2 years, during which I had an inkling that veganism was the right thing to do, but I was still eating and buying cheese and ice cream because I am a lazy piece of shit sometimes (I'm working on it). I am tremendously grateful for a dear friend who taught me about what really goes on in the dairy industry and was willing to bully me into accepting the discomfort that came with critically examining the hypocrisy of my practice
I had two cognitive-dissonance-riddled and frankly shameful emotionally fraught shopping trips because I knew buying cheese was wrong but was struggling to overcome casomorphin cravings and pressure from my family. The intensity of the cognitive dissonance had been ramping up for weeks by the second of these. Something from that vegan friend's words on animal liberation mechanically clicked into place in my mind. It was a physically electrifying epiphany before I very suddenly became dizzy and a bit nauseous that I was even considering buying cheese. I realized that my conviction that people have a right to (among other things) food, clean water, and the full product of their labor is in actuality a consequence of a budding belief in the correctness of a much more general form of that principal that applies to any aware being.
Suddenly, it became relatively easy to resist social pressures to consume animal products or use animal slavery except where absolutely unavoidable (the family car probably has tires that aren't vegan and idk where I could get eggless flu/covid/other vaccines). Suddenly, I could simply let go of treats I used to enjoy because now any thoughts about those treats are accompanied by a burning resentment for the animal torture and exploitation industries, those that profit from them, and our meat-brained sociopathic society that cheers them on and deludes so many into disconnecting from their own scruples. For a few weeks I still got casomorphin cravings, but they were paired with such a distinct sense of anger and disgust that resisting was a cinch.
I can't believe I feel compelled to be so explicit here, but when I travel, I do a shitload of bean-based meal prep so I can quickly make my choice of sandwiches with veggies + bean protein (lentil loaf, pea-fortified hummus, or just spiced garbanzos) out of the cooler while carnist relatives make blood and flesh sandwiches. I bring enough nut bars and nut butters that even if I find myself famished and too tired to cook or prep a sandwich in a small town with no vegan options and no real grocery stores, I can get a quick 600+ calories and feel extremely full with minimal effort.
Depending on the length of the trip and my expectations for groceries and restaurants in the destination, and also as a backup in case I run out, or we have a cooler failure, or some other extenuating circumstance occurs, I also pack a good number of dehydrated vegan meals that can be rehydrated with hot water. These aren't hard to prep at home but they require a food dehydrator. I don't know if there's a way to buy packaged dehydrated meals in the style of mountain house without supporting PBC.
0 seconds. There was no transition period. I realized that it was unacceptable to exploit animals and I put that understanding into practice in my life. It's literally that simple.
2 months. we refused to throw out non-vegan items in the fridge. it was like a switch slowly flipped and we (partner and I) realized we needed to stop immediately.