What do you say to someone who tells you: “I hate vegan food” ? It sounds like a very simple statement to make but leads to many levels of questions. Vegan food is not just one type of food. It encompasses a whole myriad of cuisines and styles. I mean, it’s almost an endless variety of dishes so to say that you hate vegan food is a somewhat sweeping statement!
I Hate Vegan Food
( don’t even like the colour green! )
If you hate vegan food then maybe it’s because you haven’t been exposed to many of the amazing tasty vegan dishes which are out there. There are over 1000 different vegetable species [1] all with their own unique flavours. In contrast, meat eaters focus on only 5 or 6 types of animal flesh which only taste good because they are highly seasoned (with vegetables) anyway.
Watch: Destinee and (chef) Jeff realise vegan food ain’t all bad!
( a light hearted 12 minutes from 2 self-styled “veggie haters” )
You may also like: “Why Veganism Is Bad For Animals”
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I used to frequently get into heated exchanges with a work colleague who would always bring up my veganism in front of the whole room. It seemed like a personal mission for him!
You could often hear the desperate sighs of some people, fed up with having to hear the disrespectful nonsense burblings of this person yet again.
He used to often say he “hates vegan food” and I would ask him why. One of his responses was that the texture of vegetables made him gag 🙂
I always thought this was a pretty lame excuse and usually I’d just leave it there but when I continued with the questioning one day and started raising the issues of animal welfare it was head in the sand time for him.
He simply did not want to know.
He came with all the usual meatie arguments … “animals were put on this earth for us to eat” or “animals don’t have feelings”. Y’know the ones. We’ve all heard them time and time again.
He even started down the ‘crop deaths’ road and it was clear he was just regurgitating the nonsense he’d read on Quora or The Daily Fail or wherever.
Do You Hate The Food Or The Vegan?
As mentioned above, there are over 1000 different vegetable species and even more sub variations of many species. The combinations of veggies and flavours available to the plant-based chef are almost limitless.
Then there’s all the delicious herbs and spices to enhance those flavours. It’s really very easy to make tasty vegan food even with basic culinary skills.
So to claim you hate vegan food is a little puzzling to me. Do you hate all vegetables, like my anti-vegan work colleague said he did? I find that very hard to believe.
Let’s flip it over …
Do you ever eat unseasoned chicken, for example? I think you’ll find that’s pretty bland. Funnily enough it’s the flavours of the vegetables in the seasoning which create the taste you love in that bucket of KFC.
You can easily replace the chicken with a plant-based substitute like VFC has very successfully done and guess what? That vegan version tastes just as good as the bucket of cruelty you say you enjoy.
In the article, “How many chickens does KFC kill a year?” we look closer at that cruelty.
If you’re honest with yourself, maybe it’s just the vegan element you hate … and why might that be? Because vegans challenge your safe world view that humans were meant to eat meat, or whatever today’s argument happens to be.
Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook
It’s no secret we’ve lost our culinary skills in this hectic, modern world we find ourselves enduring. Convenience is where it’s at these days.
If we can’t throw some dishevelled looking slop in the microwave for a couple of minutes or have some poor sod on a scooter deliver a bag of dead animal then we don’t want to know.
We’re so detached from our food and it’s provenance that we now think it’s normal to survive on ready meals or takeaways. It’s laughable that some consider humans to be the apex predator – behold the wild human in his natural supermarket habitat, skillfully hunting his plastic wrapped, decomposing cow thigh curry.
Yeah … next argument please.
Maybe this is partly why some people claim they hate vegan food. Because whenever they’ve tried to cook anything from scratch it turns out a bit tasteless.
They have never been taught the basics of cooking fresh food and preparing delicious, nutritious meals for themselves and their family.
It’s actually a real shame because one can derive a lot of satisfaction from the simple act of cooking a meal for others … and it’s really not that difficult when you have some basic ingredients to hand.
So before you write off vegan food as something you hate the taste of, why not try something like a plant based meal kit box which comes with all the varied herbs and spices you need to prepare a super tasty meal with ease.
If you’re in the UK then check out our Grubby vegan meal kits reviews page for a fantastic introduction (if a little pricey) to the world of plant based cooking. I defy you not to find these recipes delicious.
Wrapping It Up
Maybe some people genuinely do hate vegetables. I find it an impossible space to inhabit but there you go … we’re all different.
But contrary to popular belief, veganism isn’t even about the food we eat. Our dietary choices are a byproduct of the ethical code we subscribe to.
Thankfully, plant based cuisine is really tasty in my opinion so it’s a win-win.
We get to eat a wonderful variety of foods with almost endless flavour combos and we avoid driving the demand which sees 80 billion land animals slaughtered every year for food.
80 BILLION! … and that doesn’t even include the (over a trillion) fish. Not to mention the bycatch. I could go on, and often do … but that’s because I care.
If you’ve been sitting on the fence about plant based or even considering going vegan, now is the time. It’s never been easier and I urge you to take that step. Just try it.
I hope this article has helped shed some light on the issue for you today and if you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear them. Please post your thoughts below and we always appreciate a share on the socials below. Spread the love!
Last but not least, may we suggest you join us to be alerted of new vegan posts here on the blog.
Thanks for reading and have a peaceful day.
Rohan.
Microwave image: Trausti Evans, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
[1] – The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. More than a thousand vegetables, many of them forgotten. Sept 19th 2018. Retrieved 26th June 2023.