Vegan comebacks vs cliche arguments

Vegans and vegetarians hear the same old criticism of their diet and lifestyle time and time again.

We’ve become quite apt at answering the points thrown at us, but here are a few of the answers I give when hearing the “usual arguments”.

“Stop forcing your views down my throat”

Stop forcing yours down the throat of the animal you’re eating, or the cow forced to give you milk for your cheese. It also has to be said that meat-eaters are very quick to tell vegetarians and vegans why they eat meat and why they should too. Quite often they come out with many of the “arguments on this list.

“We are built to eat meat – look at our teeth.”

Why are you a dentist? Most mammals have canine teeth and many herbivores have big canine teeth – look at a hippo’s gnashers – they’re huge – HUGE I tell you!

And look at Chinese water deer – these cute animals look like vampires – but I assure you, they won’t be drinking your blood – unless you’re a leaf!

“But bacon.”

But tofu. But avocados. But veggie burgers… Bacon stinks and it’s bad for you.

“What about your protein?”

You mean that stuff I get from spinach, buckwheat, hummus, kale, peas and lentils?

Protein, like calcium and every vitamin on the nutritional balance sheet has never been a problem for vegans.

Isn’t it funny how people suddenly become concerned about your nutritional intake when you become vegan? Do you usually go around asking people if they get enough protein?

“Being vegan isn’t natural”

Neither is stealing milk from the baby cows it’s developed to nurture. Factory farming isn’t all that natural either I’m afraid.

“But we’re top of the food chain.”

No, we are not. Apex predators are top of the food chain I’m afraid – animals like tigers and Polar bears that have no natural predators. And what is the “food chain” anyway? It’s a man-made idea that gives no scientific reason for eating those animals below us in the chain.

“But it’s nature”

Taking the milk of another species isn’t nature. Factory farming isn’t nature and slaughterhouse aren’t nature. When we talk about “getting back to nature” we don’t generally talk about popping out for a burger, we talk about doing the gardening, going down the allotment or going on a wildlife walk – all very vegan activities.

“We’d be overrun with cows if we didn’t eat them”.

Absolute nonsense. We breed animals to eat, we breed animals to produce eggs and we breed animals to produce milk. If everybody went vegan then we wouldn’t breed these animals – it’s not rocket science. Much as we’d love everybody to go vegan, it isn’t going to happen overnight, so, gradually, as more and more people give up meat, less and less animals will be bred.

“Plants have feelings too.”

I’m afraid I’ve yet to meet a plant with a central nervous system. I’ve yet to see a plant bleed. I’ve never seen a plant cry out for her baby plants. This argument really is scraping the barrel.

Besides, we could all turn fruitarian and be perfectly healthy – but tofu…