The popularity of veganism: When you are what you don’t eat

There is a joke currently doing the rounds, which goes, ‘how do you know if someone is a vegan?. Answer - ‘they’ll tell you’.

The inference is that people who adopt a plant-based diet are only too happy to let others know it; that there’s a certain smugness and zealotry attached to shunning animal-derived products.

One thing’s for certain though, the food movement is enjoying exponential growth.

‘Veganuary’, the push to get people to eat only a vegan plant-based diet for the month of January has been a huge success this year, with record numbers signing up.

Once perceived as joyless and sanctimonious, veganism had shed its dour and anaemic look to be seen as a hyper ethical, healthy lifestyle.

Veganism claims it offers a complete solution. Not just to our personal health but also the elimination of needless cruelty in animal agriculture practices and a dramatic decrease in the damage we are inflicting on the environment.

Celebrities are already all over veganism.

The power couple that is Jay-Z and Beyoncé ushered in the New Year by reaffirming their Vegan vows and saying that it was matter of “global importance” that their fans become vegans.

Vegetarian politician Jeremy Corbyn avers that “some of my best friends are vegans”.

Vegan products used to be restricted to specialist health-food stores, now they are everywhere. Supermarket chains and fast food outlets now routinely offer a range of vegan alternatives. bakery chain Greggs now has a Vegan sausage roll option, there are ‘vurgers’ (vegan burgers), vegan cosmetic products, even vegan pet food.

Veganism demands the elimination of many important food groups from the diet. It is, by definition, a form of food restriction. Renowned chef Anthony Bourdain once referred to vegans as “the Hezbollah-like splinter faction of vegetarians”.

On a practical level, veganism can, food-wise, make day-to-day life seem like an obstacle course.

On a nutritional level you are running the severe risk of having a deficiency of the crucial vitamin B12 because there are no vegetable sources of this vitamin. This is not inconsiderable - one of the many effects of B12 deficiency is the possibility of permanent neurological damage.

And there are concerns that many of today’s new vegans are coming from the teenage/twentysomething demographic. Eating disorders are a problem for a younger generation living in a social media world. There are worries that veganism is the perfect hiding place for anorexics due to its emphasis on food restrictions.