How do I talk to friends and family about veganism?

The objection

“I agree with all of this, but how do I bring it up without turning into the stereotype everyone rolls their eyes at?”

The answer

The instinct to avoid being “that vegan” is sound, since meat eaters who expect vegetarians to feel morally superior think less of them, as Julia Minson and Benoît Monin found in 2012, and a lecture plays straight into the preachy label [1].

Do facts and arguments change people’s minds?

On their own they move people only a little, and in one large canvassing experiment they didn’t move them at all. In a 2025 meta-analysis of trials aimed at cutting meat and animal products, persuasive messages had a small average effect on what people ate, with appeals to health scoring an effect size of 0.08, the environment 0.09 and animal welfare 0.03, though none of the three was clearly above zero on its own and the authors didn’t test whether they differ [4]. In the canvassing experiment, run by Joshua Kalla and David Broockman in 2018, staff and volunteers from partner organisations knocked on voters’ doors in the US to talk about unauthorised immigration, and conversations built on arguments alone had no measurable effect on prejudice or on views of immigration policy [2]. Otherwise identical conversations that added a non-judgemental exchange of personal stories raised support for pro-immigrant policies slightly, by an effect size of 0.08 three to six months later, and reduced prejudice for at least a month (2020) [2]. Comparing the two kinds of conversation directly, the authors found that adding the stories significantly increased the effect, and two more experiments, on transgender rights, found the story-swapping effect again [2].

What should I say instead?

Ask questions, and when you’re asked, tell your own story. That is roughly what the canvassers did: they asked each voter for their view, listened without judging, swapped stories about immigrants they knew and about a time someone had shown them compassion when they needed it, and made their arguments too [2]. Over dinner it might be “What made you want to cut down?” or “Have you ever looked into how it’s farmed?”, and if they ask why you changed, you can talk about what you saw and how it changed you, leaving their plate out of it. Then cook something good and share it, and at home one meal that branches at the table saves cooking twice.

How much should I ask someone to change?

One small, specific step is a reasonable start, though the trials cited here don’t test how big an ask works best. In a 2020 UK study, students who ate at least three portions of red or processed meat a week were set a goal of no more than two a week for a fortnight and sent twice-daily messages on how eating less helps health, the environment or both, and by the end of the fortnight they reported eating significantly less, while a control group sent only food-diary reminders showed no change [3]. A month later every group, the controls included, reported eating less than at the start, for reasons the authors could only guess at (the food diaries, perhaps, or students on the same course telling each other what the study was about), and only those sent both kinds of message were still eating significantly less than the controls [3]. The 2025 meta-analysis found bigger effects in 17 trials that, like this one, targeted only red and processed meat (an effect size of 0.25) than in the 41 aimed at all meat and animal products (0.07), but those trials didn’t measure whether people ate more chicken or fish instead, which the authors think likely [4]. That’s one reason to suggest something like plant-based dinners on weekdays, which leaves no room to swap beef for chicken at those meals, though none of these trials tested an ask like that. Whether cutting down is enough can wait for another day.

What if they don’t change?

Expect that for a while, because even interventions tested in randomised trials barely move what people eat. The authors of that 2025 meta-analysis, which pooled 112 interventions tested on about 87,000 people, call the overall effect quite small and meaningfully cutting meat and animal products an unsolved problem [4], and the story-swapping conversations about immigration moved views only slightly too [2].