Ex-Vegans ????

I try very hard to let others be. I often do not agree with tactics or posts, and mostly I keep my mouth shut. I am only compelled to speak when I feel a serious disservice is being done to veganism (and thereby, damaging to those who I work to help every day).

I think most vegans agree - it isn’t about us. I will also say it is always important to try and hear the words being said rather than allow our ego to respond first. To achieve understanding. Even in veganism I sometimes observe such defensiveness to learning it is disappointing.

I am quite used to the willful ignorance of carnists, who often get upset, defensive, angry, and/or uncomfortable in the face of new information and simply refuse to think rationally. Admittedly I understand it less from vegans - who I generally presume had an open enough mind at least at some time to *hear* rational thinking instead of just defensively spitting back blather and utterly irrational explanations.

A recent exchange bothered me a little bit, and I wanted to write a little more about it. It wasn't just the comment (that I am about to mention), it was several vegans who were of the same mentality that is well-summed up in the following quote:

Someone used the line, "He became a nutritionist to help people go vegan."

Over the years, I have seen conclusive evidence that at least some of the people who call themselves “ex-vegans” were created by *vegans* who *sold* veganism under false pretenses.

I find that ethically reprehensible. I work in the medical field. I DO NOT talk to patients about "going vegan." I talk to them about plant-based eating as an evidence-based way to relieve medical issues.

People frequently do not stick to *diets* so of course they are “ex-vegan” when they quit their *diet* (or whatever false river these *vegans* are trying to *sell* people up).

They have no idea how much damage they are doing to such a simple ideal of nondiscrimination and nonviolence.

This is not difficult…would anyone advocate for rapists to rape less? Molesters to molest less? Why not? Because if we recognize they hold sentience and moral value then we feel it is a moral imperative to stop it immediately, correct?

That is veganism. IT’S SIMPLE. It is just rational thinking. If one is willing to skew that perspective then I implore them to do more thinking, because their behavior is not suggesting this very basic moral understanding. I have said THOUSANDS of times – what people then do with this character-defining information is ON THEM, but for a *vegan* to compromise *veganism* in any way is simply unconvincing and unlikely to leave a clear and long-lasting impression.

Additionally, if one does not even support their own supposed moral beliefs they continue to suffer from unrecognized cognitive dissonance and is worth some introspection, at the very least.

“Ex-vegan” – like tomorrow I’d suddenly be agreeable to child molestation or the raping of humans…smh…NEVER.

In the light of the true beliefs of veganism there is no such thing as an “ex-vegan,” only someone who may have called themselves vegan under a cloudy misunderstanding of veganism.

We avoid avoidable suffering, slavery, exploitation, oppression, and violence. How anyone could disagree with that in any way, shape, or form is astonishing.

I am vegan for LIFE – why? Because I am VEGAN, duh.☺