#exvegans

[Image: Two screenshots of the Hall Monitor Spongebob Episode.

Top image is of the brown and greenish fish cops with smug grins labeled “actual vegans”. One is holding up a piece of paper that says “Omega 3 in walnuts, soybeans, edamame, kidney beans, flax, hemp, and chia seeds”.

The bottom image is of a terrified Patrick with an ice cream cone on his head cowering from the paper. He’s labeled “Miley Cyrus”].

[Image: A tweet from mai only wants the loaves:

“no one:

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG1I-dDopo4)

Look at these good looking vegans! Matt Ruscigno & Sayward Rebhal.

Last week I posted about an open discussion that Matt Ruscigno and Sayward Rebhal were leading at the Animal Advocacy Museum on Saturday, January 11th. Here's my recap! (And here's the full video of the talk.) 

You guys, I must admit that I was pretty nervous about how this might go. (Angry vegans scare me, and we're on the same team!) I was SO pleasantly surprised by how it all went down. 

We don't know the exact number of vegans there are in the US, but it's between 1-3%. We do know (according to research that Matt quoted) that 75% of vegetarians go back to eating meat (and are vegetarian for an average of 5 years). HOLY VEGAN MOLE, THAT'S A LOT! 

Matt & Sayward were interested in exploring this topic because they feel it's important to the vegan community to know why people stop being vegan. "Those people" (insert "anti-dentite" reference here) try being vegan, then go out into the world and talk about their experience, and why they aren't anymore (jerks! j/k). Not the best PR for our community.

There was so much said, I hope I don't leave anything out! 

Sayward explained how she almost became an ex-vegan due to serious health issues, including lack of protein (*gasp* vegan faux pas!), and low cholesterol. She was really sick for several years, yet persevered and didn't take the easy way out by eating the eggs in her backyard (from the rescued hens she had). This process might have deterred less passionate (or as she described herself, "stubborn") vegans. She finally found a naturopath and got better. 

Matt posed the question,"Do you know how bad cars are for the environment? Knowing that information, why did you drive here today?" He had actually ridden his bike to Pasadena from LA (show off), so it really put things in perspective. Sometimes when people have all the information about being vegan, they still make choices in opposition to it because it's easier! And sometimes we forget that the changes we had to make at first, and all the things we think are second nature today, were challenging. I was vegetarian for 16 years before I could give up "my beloved cheese" (GRODYTOWN). Now that seems like such a corny excuse when I hear people say it (hello, I'm a hypocrite!).

Matt's a registered dietician (yay science!) and pointed out that many of the facts he sees/hears vegans use in favor of veganism are not in context, which might not be helping the larger cause. Also, what works for you, might not work for other people. We should step outside of our experience and see where other people are coming from. 

Here are some points & questions that came up: 

The vegan community seems to focus on "turning" people vegan, but not as much on how to successfully stay vegan for the long-term

When we give people unrealistic expectations, they're going to fail

Do vegans need training in activism? 

Going against the norms of what most people do is hard

A lot of people don't think about food (WTF, I so don't get this!) 

How do we promote veganism that gives reasonable expectations? 

How do we keep people engaged? 

Community is important, but perhaps too much community might be overkill (Are you sick of me, yet? Can we hang out all the time in our vegan t-shirts and talk about vegan stuff!?)

Activists can get burnt out

It's important to take yourself seriously, but not too seriously

Strong animal advocacy will guide people through challenges

Vegan-policing within the community (UM, is annoying- IMHO) isn't beneficial. Matt's response to people that start nitpicking him about things is, "Do you think this helps animals, overall?"

Maybe veganism attracts extreme personality types

Maybe extremism isn't conducive to activism

No one is perfect (my personal favorite)

Instead of looking down on vegetarians, we could educate them and be inclusive

Can everybody be a healthy vegan? We don't know the answer to that question, but most people probably can. 

Sayward's closing remark was that the vegan message needs to be a tapestry containing many things, looking at the bigger picture (aka the awesomest picture EVER). 

Matt left us with two adjectives to consider that personally resonate with me when I talk to people about veganism, "Can you be tactful and reasonable?" (ARE FACEBOOK ARGUMENTS TACTFUL AND REASONABLE?!?! Whoops, sorry about that capslock.) 

This was an explorative discussion, so no conclusions were drawn. Let's hear your comments below (be sure to police the shit out of each other and start a good ole fashioned comments war! Sike!).

You can read Sayward's recap and also, check out Matt on Rich Roll's podcast that came out this week! 

Now that Ginnifer Goodwin has announced on the Jimmy Kimmel show that she is no longer "vegan," it's time to bust out the scare quotes when referring to her previous supposed veganism, which can't have been real because no true vegan ever quits.  Goodwin herself implied as much in an earlier appearance on the same show, in which she said that once you watch and read all the vegan propaganda, "you can't go back." Apparently you can go back, unless some vegans are right and Goodwin never truly left her carnist leanings behind, even while she avoided all animal products and appeared to be very devoted to her ethical vegan beliefs. 

In that earlier interview, Goodwin certainly gave a convincing impersonation of a real vegan. She made sure to use the world "cruel" when referring to animal use. She didn't excuse Kimmel's meat eating as a personal choice that was just as valid as any vegan's -- instead she said she was against humans eating animals. She compared a turkey's personality to a dog's, a good tactic for making animal lovers realize that the dog they love is no more adorable than the turkeys they eat. She said that she didn't give up animal products because she disliked the taste, and emphasized her own past animal use, two things many vegans bring up to show how normal they are and how anyone (no matter how ardent their corpse-munching background) can be a vegan.

What happened to Ginnifer Goodwin? She used to be a good person. She was an ambassador for Farm Sanctuary, she graced the cover of VegNews magazine, and in an interview with Oprah.com, she demonstrated an above-average grasp of mandatory vegan talking points, like that veganism is easy, that it made her skin clear up, that it gave her a feeling of lightness (which Alicia Silverstone has also experienced), and that taste and tradition are feeble excuses for animal use:

I educated myself. I relinquished the safety blanket of my ignorance.

This education about health led to a revelation about animals-as-products. It became so clear: I love animals. How can I eat them or make them suffer for something as selfish as taste or tradition?

I knew that the way to be proactive was to convert to a vegan diet (a vegan lifestyle—which means not using animal products of any kind—quickly followed). I found great resources from the Humane Society and from Farm Sanctuary, an animal protection program. I read wonderful books like Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's The Pig Who Sang to the Moon, about the emotional lives of farm animals.

And in making this life change, I've found I have more energy, I sleep better, and my skin has cleared up. My taste buds awoke! I appreciate food in a whole new way. As for my soul, I quickly began feeling a lightness I'd never known before. Now I take responsibility for my actions. I am aware. And it's easy.

Because of veganism, I find myself embracing all living things, even the trees outside, in unexpected ways. I never feel guilty because of what I've eaten or because of the handbag I'm carrying.

When people ask, I always tell them, "I didn't stop eating animal products because I didn't like the taste. I loved the taste! But in this life, I want to inflict as little pain as possible." To everyone who argues that we can treat our fellow earthlings this way and so we should, I like to quote Harry Potter' s Dumbledore, who said: "It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities." I adore that.

Sound familiar? Kind of weird that she no longer believes a word of this. Well, all the worse for Goodwin, who should know better than to eat bacon-covered meatloaf, and is now forever on the vegan shitlist. If only she had never gone vegan in the first place!

The vegan blog QuarryGirl, not known for its subtlety, got straight to the point with the title of its entry, "ginnifer goodwin is awful," in which they say that Goodwin "giggles like an idiot" throughout the "vile" interview (what is there to laugh about when there are millions of animals dying every day?); the commenters on the entry are even less forgiving, and vegan message boards aren't too happy for Goodwin either.

The vegan reaction to ex-vegan celebrities shows how personally they take veganism and slights against it. Goodwin does not bash vegans in this interview, nor does she say that veganism is stupid, pointless or harmful. The harshest she gets is at the end is when she says it is unbearable to go home to vegan dinners with her vegan family. But since vegans believe that plants have no feelings, there's no reason for them to think that vegan food is offended by Goodwin's distaste for it. Vegans are so wrapped up in what they eat that to belittle vegan cuisine is to psychologically assault vegans and all they stand for.

As usual in veganism, it's not about plants or animals, it's about vegans. All the comments are about this being a set-back for veganism and how she has betrayed vegans, with a few token references to how the animals are going to suffer due to Goodwin's new diet. Of course it's bad enough that she quit veganism, but even worse is that she didn't slink off to the shadows to eat her scrambled eggs in shameful isolation, and is instead talking about her decision and thus giving validity to anti-vegan claims. What will this do to the popular perception of veganism?, etc. etc. and so on. The reason I don't write about every vegan celebrity who goes ex is that I would have to write pretty much the same thing every time.

Dumbledore, as usual, was right. Veganism is all about choices, not results. It's not about the consequences of what you do, but rather why you are doing it. So there are good reasons to be vegan (ethics) and bad reasons to be vegan (health, trendiness, sometimes the environment). Then there are bad reasons to quit veganism, and... bad reasons to quit veganism.

Even though health concerns were one of the first things that initiated her vegan phase, "boring health problems" broke her resolve. Vegans like to talk about how "veganism is not a sacrifice," and this is an important illusion for vegans to maintain, because the second vegans realize that their lives are irresolvably worse due to their veganism, they start to look for ways out. Ethics are a luxury. Goodwin was able to talk a big ethical game when veganism was easy, but once she could see it was detrimental to herself, she cracked. Being subject to physical realities is a disadvantage veganism has that other ethical beliefs typically don't. Advocating gay marriage does not necessitate starting a pill regime. Few anti-racists have to actively suppress the urge to attack someone of a difference race. Unlike many other beliefs, veganism entails real sacrifice, and once you realize this, animal suffering starts to seem less pressing.

The decision to swan dive below the moral baseline is not a choice to be made lightly, which helps explain why vegans are so appalled by Goodwin laughing throughout this interview. But it is also not a choice to be made for health reasons in the midst of wrenching, conflicted emotions, which it appears to have been for Goodwin. It's just not a choice to be made at all. As Gary Francione says, "we have no choice" -- we have to be vegan. Except, we clearly don't, as those pesky ex-vegans keep reminding us.

Ex-vegans are awful, not because of what they do to the animals (most of them consume fewer animals than non-vegans over the course of their lives), but because of what they do to vegans. It's troubling to think that someone could seem to believe everything vegans do, just as ferociously, and then change their minds as if they never accepted any of it. It exposes vegan ethical philosophy for what it is -- abstract and subjective thoughts, with behavioral implications, that are potentially transient. Vegans like to think their daily lives and identities are based on something rather more solid than that.

In her most recent entry New Vitamin D and Calcium RDAs: What They Mean for Vegans, The Vegan RD Virginia Messina writes:

Vegans get their vitamin D the same way that omnivores do—from fortified foods and sunshine. The evidence suggests that vitamin D2 is as effective as D3 in raising blood levels of 25OHD, so there is no particular issue here regarding vegan nutrition.

This echos what she said about vitamin D in an earlier entry, Recommended Supplements for Vegans:

If you live where it’s sunny and warm all year and you spend time outdoors without sunscreen, you can make enough. The rest of us need a supplement or fortified foods (just like omnivores do) supplying 1,000 I.U.s of vitamin D." 

If your primary source for nutrition information is The Vegan RD (and whose isn't?), your only possible conclusion from this is that vitamin D does not occur naturally in any foods. The only sources of vitamin D are supplements and the sun, and both of those are vegan, which means omnivores and vegans are in the exact same boat on this one. You are missing out on absolutely no unsupplemented sources of vitamin D by being vegan, vegans, because you know that D omnis are getting in dairy? Totally fortified.

That, however, would be a faulty conclusion. Some foods do contain vitamin D and most of them (except for certain mushrooms) are animal products.

As I type this I'm eating a salad that contains raw eggs, raw cow heart, raw cow blood, sardines, anchovies, butternut squash and salad greens. This salad is known as "The Ex-Vegan Special," and I know exactly what you're thinking -- "That salad doesn't contain vitamin D." But it does. I am getting Vitamin D by eating this salad and none of it is fortified. And I'm not cheating by eating this outside while I sunbathe either. (It's night.) How is this possible?

VeganHealth.org knows why:

The only significant, natural sources of vitamin D in foods are fatty fish (e.g. cod liver oil, mackerel, salmon, sardines), eggs (if chickens have been fed vitamin D), and mushrooms (if treated with UVB rays)

Reed Mangels knew why when she co-wrote a book with Virginia and Mark Messina, evidently sneaking this passage past the two of them:

[Vitamin D] is found primarily in fish oils and the flesh of fatty fish and in eggs from hens that have been fed vitamin D. Cholecalciferol (D3) is the form of vitamin D found in animal foods.

Chris Masterjohn knows why:

Vitamin D was originally associated with cod liver oil and exposure to ultraviolet light. It is found in the highest amounts in fish livers, the flesh of fatty fish, and the blood of land animals; and in smaller amounts in butter and lard from animals raised with plenty of exposure to sunshine.

And strangely, even Virgina Messina circa a year ago knew why:

Research suggests that low intakes of vitamin D, vitamin B12, and omega-3 fatty acids might lead to depression. For everyone—omnivores included—the only sources of vitamin D are supplements, fortified foods and sun exposure. (Actually, there are a few animal sources of vitamin D, but it is very unlikely that omnivores can eat enough of them to meet needs; that’s why cow’s milk is fortified.)

If Messina knows that vitamin D exists in some animal products, why does she gloss over this now? Because these sources are "few"? Vitamin D isn't in every animal product, but this chart (via Chris Masterjohn) shows there are some significant sources:

Congrats to vegan silver ear fungus for topping the list, by the way, albeit with D2.

It's true that my salad isn't something many omnivores typically eat in these parts. Most Americans would reach for the ranch before squeezing a bloody heart over their salad bowl. But plenty of "normal" omnivores eat salmon, mackerel, halibut, tuna and sardines. These are not weird foods. One-hundred grams of herring provides 1,100 IUs of vitamin D, says the chart. I used to put Trader Joe's canned smoked herring on my salads all the time. If only I'd known I barely needed to go outside those days -- imagine how many more vegan message board posts I could've read. But guess who would never have told me this? The Vegan RD, that's who.

This doesn't mean omnivores don't have to worry about vitamin D. Many omnivores aren't doing cod liver oil shots every day, or even eating fish at all, and could benefit from supplementation, especially if they're computer-addicted shut-ins who live in the Pacific Northwest. But even the occasional herring or salmon would give shade-dwelling omnivores who don't supplement an advantage over a vegan who got the same amount of sun and also didn't supplement.

Vitamin D is not an even playing field for all diets and it could be helpful to Messina's readership if she were more clear about this. Especially since Messina is an opponent of the health argument for veganism, presenting herself as science-based source of nutritional advice for vegans who want facts and not vegan wishful thinking. When she says "Vegans get their vitamin D the same way that omnivores do—from fortified foods and sunshine," she betrays a subtle tendency to present veganism in a more favorable light than the facts may warrant.

* You have something positive to say about Weston A. Price or the foundation that bears his name. The Weston A. Price Foundation promotes the consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol, the two most lethal food substances according to the standard vegan health argument because both of them are closely allied with animal products. Also, Weston A. Price was a dentist, and vegans hate dentists.

* You have kind words for Lierre Keith and/or Derrick Jensen. Lierre Keith cited Wikipedia in The Vegetarian Myth and Derrick Jensen thinks salmon wants him to eat them. If you could believe the words of two people who are against civilization yet use computers, no wonder you were too dumb to make veganism work.

* A naturopath helped convince you to quit veganism. That's how Lierre Keith got out of veganism, and Lierre Keith cited Wikipedia.

* You were a raw foodist or dabbled in raw foodism. That's too restrictive. You did veganism wrong.

* You were a low-fat vegan. That's too restrictive. You did veganism wrong.

* You were macrobiotic or dabbled in macrobiotics. That's too restrictive. You did veganism wrong.

* You were a junk food vegan. That's not restrictive enough. You did veganism wrong.

* You followed all the nutritional recommendations on VeganHealth.org. You didn't really follow the VeganHealth.org guidelines. Stop lying.

* You left the strict rules of veganism for another diet with rules, such as a Paleolithic-inspired diet. This proves you were only ever attracted to veganism due to your orthorexic obsession with a perfect diet and thus were vegan for the wrong reasons. 

* You left veganism for a diet with no rules whatsoever. This proves you have no willpower. It's not veganism's fault you are incapable of restricting yourself in any way.

* You had an eating disorder while you were vegan. You were selfishly using veganism as a cover for your own problem and now you're doing best to make veganism look like a culprit, when really it had nothing to do with veganism and was always your own fault.

* You were too militant a vegan. Macrobiotics teaches that the extreme of something becomes its opposite. Extreme "vegangelicalism" inevitably becomes ex-vegangelicalism.

* You were too complacent a vegan. You thought it was enough to quietly eat your Gardein BBQ Pulled Shreds while never visiting a farm sanctuary and educating no one about the evils of factory farms. Did you ever care at all? You might as well have given up veganism. What good were you doing anyway?

* You didn't get your blood work done before quitting veganism. You had an easily-corrected deficiency that a simple blood test would have illuminated and a supplement would have cured. You didn't care enough to make this minimal effort because you wanted an excuse to eat animals again.

* You were deficient in iron and had negative side effects from iron supplementation. You should have found another way to get iron besides animal products.

* You don't have a note from a vegan doctor giving you permission to eat animal products. You let your meat-eating doctor talk you out of veganism instead of going to a vegan doctor who would have known exactly what you were doing wrong and how to fix it veganically.

* You have a note from a vegan doctor begging you to eat animal products for the sake of your physical and mental health. You should have kept trying new vegan doctors until you found one who refused to give you that note.

* You were an abolitionist vegan. Your veganism was based on logical consistency rather than empathy. You never cared about animals -- you only cared about the philosophical arguments in favor of veganism. A chink in Gary L. Francione's intellectual armor is all it took for you to go back to torturing sentient beings for their secretions.

* You weren't an abolitionist vegan. Your veganism rested on nebulous emotion instead of rock-hard epistemological ground. The moment you could look at a cow and feel nothing for this alien creature pointlessly standing in a field, eating grass and crapping, you lost any semblance of a basis you had for not eating factory farmed veal. 

* You claim you instantly felt better after eating animal products again. If this happened or seemed to happen, it was the placebo effect, but you act like there is some magical substance in meat that cured your depression, brain fog and lack of energy all at once. What else could you be deluded about? Um, gee, I don't know... everything?

* You over-indulge in meat now that you've given up veganism. You were always a closet gourmand, desperate for any possible excuse to enjoy food again.

* You barely eat any animals even though you've given up veganism. The fact that you remain so close to veganism shows that you still know it's right.

* You eat every part of the animal, including the spleens and pizzles, claiming this honors the animals by not wasting them. Okay, then, when we kill you, we'll be sure to eat your spleen and pizzle so as to not waste you. Feeling honored yet? 

* You say thanks to the dead animal for giving its life to you. Idiot, dead animals can't hear your thanks. Even if they could, they don't speak English and surely wouldn't offer themselves up for your selfish, taste-driven consumption. But okay, fair enough. When we kill you, we'll be sure to thank your dead body. Would that justify our murder? "But your honor, we said thanks, gracias and merci!"

* You say "death is necessary for life." Why don't we kill you then and see how much you like what's necessary for life?

* You were vegan for the environment. The vegan environmental argument is a bonus and should never be your primary motivation. Animal rights and environmentalism sometimes conflict, and you need to be sure you'll pick the animals every time.  

* You were vegan for health. Like the orthorexic who eventually flees to paleo, you never had an ethical foundation for veganism. You are nothing but a food faddist chasing every new trend that promises to postpone your decay and demise. Anyone who goes vegan for a selfish reason like this will leave veganism as soon as it's advantageous to do so.

* You were vegan for ethics. You were so concerned with other animals that you forgot about yourself, needlessly sacrificing your health on an unsupplemented junk food vegan diet as lent your voice to the voiceless. Ultimately this did a disservice to the animals because your health failed and you blamed it on them for being so cute and innocent and tricking you into not eating them.

* You insist that your new lifestyle is morally superior to veganism, being better for animals, the environment or both. Your "new ethics" are nothing but a rationalization to cover your guilt at secretly still knowing veganism is right. You haven't found a new form of meaningful eating -- you've given up meaningful eating. Admit it.

* You go back to eating meat without a philosophical justification. You were obviously never really interested in ethics.

Dan Cudahy of "Unpopular Vegan Essays" -- a popular essay blog amongst the abolitionist-leaning "logical vegan" crowd -- has written a generally ignored and ostracized essay addressing the excitement over "A Vegan No More". In "On Ex-Vegans", Cudahy writes that ex-vegans don't exist, by definition, because the definition of true veganism includes the word "lifelong":

For some of us, “vegan” means a strong, lifelong, and morally internalized commitment to avoiding the use of animals and animal products as much as is reasonably possible in an extremely speciesist society that uses animal products ubiquitously. ... There may be a lot of “ex-vegans”, but when they were “vegans”, what did that mean? Did they go without animal products for several hours daily (“vegan before 6pm”)? Did they go on a “vegan health diet” for a few weeks, months, or years only as a fad diet right after their Atkins diet? If they were vegan for “animal rights” reasons, what did they mean by that? Are they referring to a concern about animal welfare?

If you aren't vegan for life, you never had the commitment that true veganism entails, which means you were never vegan. So much for the ex-vegan problem. Although this may create a new problem if "lifelong" is taken to mean "covering the entirety of one's life," since that would exclude everyone except for vegans from birth to death at an old age, which so far is no one. Hopefully Cudahy doesn't mean that.

Cudahy goes on to explain that any and all defects hovering in the vicinity of veganism belong to the ex-vegan and not veganism:

The point here is that ex-vegans are at least partly a reflection of their own character traits at this point in their lives (characters can be built and improved upon or diminish throughout life), not a reflection of veganism. ...

The point here is that vegans often become ex-vegans at least partly due to the poverty of their reasons for previously being vegan, which is no reflection of veganism or the many excellent reasons for being vegan. ...

Again, the negative grandstanding is a reflection of the ex-vegan’s ego and character at this time in life, not a reflection of veganism. ...

So ex-vegans have personality problems and were never really vegan. You know, the usual. The reason I'm bringing up Cudahy's post is that at the end of it, he makes a point that Messina implied in her "Do Ex-Vegans' Stories Make the Case Against Veganism?" entry that I didn't address in my response.

In her entry, Messina said that Tasha (the vegan no more) enjoyed her new meaty diet so much that it made her "suspicious." Suspicious of what, Messina doesn't quite say, but she's getting at something that Cudahy spells out more explicitly: if you are going to quit veganism because of failing health, you should re-introduce animal products only reluctantly and in the minimal amount possible required to thrive. Animal products should be your medicine -- and every time you take them, you should hold your nose and gag. 

Cudahy writes:

If such ex-vegans are serious and genuine about a “failure to thrive”, we should expect them to continue veganism in every other way they are reasonably able, and to continue to fully support the ethical reasons and environmental benefits they previously did. If they do, and they are genuine and sincere about their health issues, and consume limited, prescribed quantities of animal products with the strong reservation that a person who was prescribed a highly undesirable medicine took the medicine, I see no reason why they should announce that they are no longer vegan. ...

While I’m almost certain that, based on significant reading of materials written by experts in nutrition science, absolutely no animal products are necessary for any human to thrive, I could believe in the sincerity of someone who embraces veganism in their lives as much as they believe they possibly can, even if they consume some “limited, prescriptive amount of certain animal products” with the regret and reservation of someone who undergoes a painful treatment to maintain their health. Sadly, I have yet to see one case among ex-vegans that would even remotely fit this description.

 And of course Cudahy doesn't forget to say:

It is also worth noting here that the mainstream American Dietetic Association’s position paper on vegan diets concludes that well-planned vegan diets are appropriate for people of all ages and all stages of life.

Now that's a twist. He calls it "the mainstream American Dietetic Association" instead of "the conservative American Dietetic Association". I'll have to start looking out for that one.

As for his point that failure-to-thrive ex-vegans need to treat animal products as a dreadful tonic that you take only when absolutely necessary, that actually kind of makes sense... but only if you've never had to change your ethics in order to quit veganism.

Messina makes an allowance for ex-vegan ethical revisions in her own entry:

I understand that someone who believes they require meat may need to tweak their overall perspective to make it feel ethically okay to eat it. But, there is a big difference between choosing to include small amounts of meat in your diet for health reasons versus absolutely reveling in meat consumption as is reflected in Tasha’s recent twitter post: “Bacon, bacon, bacon…how did I ever live without you for so long?”

Along with revealing their ascetic streaks, Messina and Cudahy underestimate the significance of the change required to go from "It's always wrong to eat animal products and veganism is perfectly healthy" to "Veganism is not perfectly healthy and this makes it okay to eat animal products."

For any vegan other than the most undogmatic "personal choice" style vegan who is ever-aware that veganism is at best an attempt to reduce suffering rather than a perfect moral philosophy that everyone must adapt as a minimum standard of decency, this requires more than a tweak. Just admitting that veganism might not be entirely healthy is enough to shatter many vegans' conception of their philosophy. Cudahy, for instance, is "almost certain" that "absolutely no animal products are necessary for any human to thrive." (Any? Including humans with deadly allergies to multiple vegan staples?) When personal experience teaches you that animal products actually are necessary for some humans to thrive, everything else about veganism is up for review.

But the main reason that ex-vegans don't mimic vegans as best as they possibly can is a lack of motivation.

There are a number of things that keep people vegan: A negative emotional reaction at thought of eating animal products (what I call guilt and what vegans call compassion); a logic-based belief in the inherent wrongness of animal product consumption; a place in the vegan community; habit -- you are so used to avoiding animal products that eating them again requires an effort; avoiding backlash from vegan friends and family members; purity -- repulsion at the prospect of animal products crossing your lips and being inside of you; disgust/no longer having a taste for animal products; fear of animal products making you feel ill; fear that animal products are detrimental to your short-term and long-term health; and the sense of identity that comes with being a vegan.

Those are the main things that keep vegans vegan, and you lose every single one of them when you become an ex-vegan. It's no wonder Cudahy says, "Sadly, I have yet to see one case among ex-vegans that would even remotely fit this description [of being as close to veganism as health allows]." Messina and Cudahy are expecting ex-vegans to hew as closely to veganism as possible without having any of the motivators that make people vegan.

True, ex-vegans can be concerned with suffering and still see animal products as a contribution to that. But once ex-vegans accept, as they must, that their existence is going to cause suffering no matter what (something vegans will admit when pressed but mostly overlook, as we can see in one vegan's recent revelation while reading The Vegetarian Myth), they don't usually worry as much about the suffering-causing potential of every single thing they do. Nor do they tend to leave animal products in their special category of the most significant suffering contributor. Ex-vegans lack a binary view of suffering as something that you create by eating salmon and shut off by eating tofu. Allowing yourself to eat even a tiny amount of meat for health reasons makes the vegan idea that "you're either moral or you're not" go haywire.

Even if ex-vegans maintained the vegan idea that animal products are what cause suffering above all else, it isn't easy to recalibrate your internal guilt alarm to permit some animal products but then go off whenever you exceed a limit determined to be the minimal amount needed for health. Few ex-vegans are willing to venture back into eating animal products with guilt still being an issue, so they find a way to lose the guilt entirely. If you feel zero guilt about eating one piece of cheese, multiply that by an entire wheel of cheese and you still have zero guilt. What's to keep you from eating the wheel of cheese, then, besides the size of your stomach and haranguing from vegan dietitians?

Combine this lack of motivation to be vegan-like with ex-vegans realizing that omnivorous food is usually more delicious and satisfying than vegan food -- and makes socializing easier -- and you have a recipe for ex-vegan love affairs with meat.

If the direct effects of animal product consumption were readily evident, it might be easier for ex-vegans to take the minimal animal product approach. The problem is that any positive effects that come from reducing animal product consumption are abstract. This is one reason vegans tend to be so concerned with personal purity. Any less-negative effects they have on animals and the environment is invisible to them. Vegans can't see any suffering they (possibly) prevent by lowering the demand for animal products enough that fewer farm animals come into existence; all they can see that they don't allow even trace amounts of exploitation products into themselves. So they have to put a lot of importance on that part. Ex-vegans, on the other hand, no longer have personal purity to make it look like they're accomplishing something.

When you can eat a small amount of animal products without guilt, and nothing horrible happens that you can see, the spell veganism casts is broken. Many ex-vegans are left with the feeling that they have nothing to show for their years of veganism (one reason to stay vegan as long as possible is to delay having this realization). That kind of mitigates the desire to curtail your animal product consumption to the absolute minimum, especially for ex-vegans who come to love the taste and nourishment that animal products offer.

Vegans are prone to equating animal products with suffering and veganism with non-suffering. For ex-vegans concerned with other issues such as overpopulation, human suffering, oil extraction or agriculture, and who think they can make a positive impact by supporting small farms, it's not that simple. These nuances make it difficult for ex-vegans to keep track of the fluctuations in suffering that their behavior causes, something which is immeasurable anyway, but which vegans think they can gauge by their purity.

Besides, as long as most vegans see veganism as an all-or-nothing thing, most ex-vegans are going to have to agree with them. Why should ex-vegans bother trying to get close to the vegan ideal when most vegans despise ex-vegans more than any other group and disbelieve them when they say they need animal products to feel healthy?

Vegans like Cudahy promote the idea that you either are or are not vegan, and there are no meaningful degrees. In "On Ex-Vegans", Cudahy dismisses the true veganness of anyone who doesn't meet his stringent definition, such as Mark Bittman with his "Vegan Before 6pm" idea. You're either vegan for a lifetime or you were never vegan at all, Cudahy says. So why is he upset when ex-vegans don't find anything compelling about near-veganism? How could they when vegans refuse to allow anything other than pure veganism to count for anything?