Can you be a true vegan for health reasons without being a PETA freak?

Question

I know a vegan diet is healthy, but can you be a vegan without all the save the animals/PETA agenda? I think you can.

Answer 1

No. You can have a vegan diet, sure, but being a "true vegan" is a lifestyle devoid of animal products- food and everything else. I mean, I guess you don't HAVE to be all about animal rights, but I doubt if you're eating vegan for health reasons, you'll be giving up silk, wool, and products with honey.

Answer 2

yes of course.

Answer 3

yes.  I think it can be more about health than saving the animals

Answer 4

Someone who adheres to the vegan diet without following the rest of the lifestyle is called a strict vegetarian.  

Most people who follow the vegan lifestyle, myself included, do so for ethical reasons, and health may be only part of the reasons.  I fully recognize that the vast majority of animals exploited and killed in the U.S. end up on someone's dinner plate, so, yeah, there's a little "save the animals" (or, rather, don't overbreed them) in my belief system.

You should know there are plenty of ethical vegans who don't like PETA.  While I won't deny that they've gotten results, their tactics often give them and other animal rights activists a bad name.  There are many other groups out there who promote an animal rights agenda without asking women to strip or using shock tactics.  If the only thing keeping you from activism is the PETA taint, go find one of the better groups instead.

Answer 5

You can follow a vegan diet and be very healthy that's for sure.

You can stick to your diet without having to be active about it.

Now, Veganism is an ethical stance (not merely a dietary choice, or consumption habit), that's why for most of us is an imperative to make something to change other animals' fates, and work towards the abolition of their exploitation.

But to do that you don't need to be a freak, you don't need to be screaming at people that they are "murderers" or that we must "save the animals", and you certainly don't need (and please never do) to act or make the things that PeTA does.

There's a big difference between being a "PeTA freak" and a Vegan animal rights activist.

If you are willing to change your diet exclusively for health reasons, I see nothing wrong with it.

Now, if you have also ethical reasons but have issues with activism, I can tell you that to me, education is the best and most efficient way of changing things, and talking to your friends and family is a great way to do activism.

Being an activist doesn't mean that you "need" to go to protests, throw red paint at people, or get naked.

And to respond to "Some_Guy", we draw the line in not causing unnecessary harm - to avoid harming someone as long as you can do it.

Eating honey certainly is NOT necessary, it involves treating bees as nothing but means to human ends, stealing what they produce for themselves, and killing many of them.

I don't think it really is that "freaky", eh?

Answer 6

Yes, you can be vegan for health reasons alone. There's no rule that says you have to support the animal rights cause in order to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet.

There is a difference between having a vegan diet and a vegan lifestyle (wearing animal-friendly fabrics, using non-animal tested products, etc.) A person who eats a vegan diet for health reasons probably would not have a vegan lifestyle.

Answer 7

You might get varying opinions on whether or not a vegan diet is truly healthy... it depends on several factors including overall personal health, existing health conditions that can be aggrivated by a vegan diet, and what supplements a person is taking to make up for the nutrients a vegan diet lacks (proteins, calciums, and certain vitamins being the big ones).

But no, you don't have to be a "PETA freak".

Answer 8

Absolutely!  There are a lot of reasons people are vegetarian/vegan!

Answer 9

Yep, but it's hard because once you tell someone you're vegan they will most likely assume you're a tree hugger, animal rights activist, hippie freak. So it's best to not mention it to others unless if necessary.

Answer 10

Most definitely!

In fact, I recommend it. PETA is a horrid organization. (And sadly most of their members don't even know the organization's agenda: extinction of domestic animals.)

.

Answer 11

Of course.  

And in response to a previous answer claiming veganism is unnatural- eating food that grows from the ground and falls from the trees and is plucked off of bushes is the DEFINITION of "natural."  Want to learn about "unnatural?"  Educate yourself about battery cages, gestation crates, and the hormones, antibiotics and pesticides which are given to livestock.  There is nothing natural about it.

Answer 12

man im a vegetarian and animal activist and enviornmentalist and so against peta because they are extermist and hypocrits because apparently you can beat people up for wearing for but you cant hurt animals how one sided is that i mean isnt hitting people as bad as abusing animals? there terrible in my book and i would never support them because they make a mockery out of serious causes

Answer 13

Of course you can.  There's no reason you can't.

Answer 14

I'm going to have to say no, because a vegan diet is NOT necessarily very healthy. It's difficult to get all of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients you need when you shun all animal products. Vegetarians can get by with vitamin supplements and a soy/egg/dairy diet, but vegans.... that's just unnatural. So if you want to be vegan for "health" reasons or to be part of a fad, it probably won't last... and it probably won't be healthy.

Hope you hate food!

Answer 15

Of course you can. And you can believe in ethical treatment of animals without insulting or offending people.

I personally think PETA harms vegetarians and vegans more than it does anything else. They think animals should be treated ethically (true) but they don't have a problem with treating humans badly if it means they can make some kind of statement.

Answer 16

If you say that you are vegan, it implies that you care about animals and you are disgusted by the way animals are raised these days.

Veganism is a philosophy or lifestyle, not a diet. If you are doing it for health reasons, you would be a strict vegetarian, not vegan.

Being vegan also involves other things that you buy such as clothing, shoes, cosmetics, pets(vegan people only adopt or rescue) and the list goes on.

Being vegan is not any healthier than eating a diet where animal products are used reasonably or sparingly. Just because someone is against animal cruelty, it doesn't mean that they like PeTA. PeTA is just one organization that makes their message as loud as possible but doesn't care how it is received.

Answer 17

Yes, you can be vegan or vegetarian without being an activist. My grandmother-in-law is vegetarian for health reasons and I have a friend who is vegan for her own reasons. My vegan friend does not impose her belief on anyone. She will tell you why she is vegan if you ask and she won't glare at you if you eat meat in front of her. In fact she'll tell you not to adjust what you are eating just for her.

Answer 18

There were vegans long before PETA; there are vegans who have never heard of PETA; there are people like me who have been vegan for years who know very little about PETA and have never seen a PETA video or intentionally seen any other PETA propoganda.

I'm vegan because I want to minimise my personal contribution to animal suffering; I am not an animal rights activist, I reserve my activism for human rights.

Whatever your reasons for going vegan, you can have any opinion or no opinion of PETA, and can be as involved or otherwise in activism as you choose

Answer 19

it depends on your definition of vegan.  There are some people who follow a vegan diet but do not embrace the animal rights aspects of it.  So some people would call these people vegan but most would not.  I think there should be a term to describe both so that you know the difference.  Where one means that the person follows the vegan diet but does not embrace the animal rights issues but the others do..

Answer 20

yup.

you can even live the vegan lifestyle and hate PETA. <- me.

Answer 21

Well, yeah.  But, generally speaking, vegans who are vegans "for health reasons" tend not to stick to veganism.

Personally, I'm vegan for ethical reasons, but I'm not a hardcore activist and I don't align myself with PETA.