discussvegan.

Why does the word “vegan” put people off?

Short answer: Because an industry has spent years and serious money making it feel like a hostile tribe, and fighting in court to keep familiar words off plant foods.

Exhibit A
The war on a word
2017 An EU court rules plant foods may not be called “milk”, “butter” or “cheese”. Those words are reserved for animals.
2020 MEPs move to ban “veggie burger” and “sausage”. The burger survives by 48 votes; “steak” and “bacon” are banned on plant products.
2021 “Amendment 171” tries to ban “yoghurt-style”, the word “creamy”, even selling plant milk in a carton. A public outcry kills it.
Now France keeps re-issuing decrees to outlaw “steak” and “sausage” on plant-based food. The fight never stops.

Ask why an industry this big would spend this much fighting over what a carton of oat drink is allowed to be called.

Good Food Institute Europe; The Vegan Review

The objection

“I’m interested in eating less meat, but I’d never call myself vegan. The word’s just… off-putting.”

The answer

You’re not imagining it, and it was done on purpose.

Nobody is frightened of lentils. What puts people off is the word, and the word has been deliberately poisoned. The animal-farming industry treats plant-based eating as an existential threat, because it is one, and it fights back on two fronts. First, it works to make “vegan” feel like a tribe you have to join, preachy and extreme and humourless, so you reject the identity before you ever weigh the argument. Second, where it can, it reaches for the law.

Look at what they spend their lobbying on. In 2017 an EU court ruled plant foods can’t be called “milk”, “butter” or “cheese”. In 2021, “Amendment 171” tried to ban describing an oat drink as “creamy”, or even selling it in a carton. France keeps trying to make “sausage” and “steak” illegal on plant products. Ask yourself why a trillion-pound industry would fight this hard over a word on a label. The label is one of the last things standing between you and trying the alternative.

So don’t get stuck on the word. You never have to call yourself anything. Forget the club and the title. What’s left is one quiet question you answer three times a day with your fork: does this need to have suffered? Drop the label. Keep the question.

Sources

  1. Good Food Institute Europe, Clear labelling (plant-based labelling law tracker)
  2. The Vegan Review, EU rejects Amendment 171 ban on plant-based dairy labelling (2021)
  3. Court of Justice of the EU, Case C-422/16 (TofuTown), 2017, dairy terms reserved for animal products