Why Some Vegans Quit—And What You Should Know First
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Most people who go vegan don’t stay vegan. That’s not a fun sentence to open with, and it’s the most useful thing on this page.
Research has put the drop off rate at around 70%, with most of it happening in the first few months.
What’s interesting is that people almost never quit because they stopped caring about animals. They quit for logistical reasons, and every single one of them is preventable.
Here are the eight reasons, and what to do about each one before it gets you.
🌱 1. They Jump In Too Fast
Going from a normal diet to fully vegan on a Monday morning means relearning breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and shopping all at once.
That’s five simultaneous changes. Most people can manage two.
Tip: do one meal at a time. Vegan breakfasts for a fortnight until that’s automatic, then lunches. Start with oat milk and vegan butter, which you’ll barely notice, before you tackle anything harder.
🌱 2. They Miss Their Favorite Foods
Nobody quits because they miss plain chicken breast. They quit because they miss pizza at eleven at night.
The good news is that the substitutes have got genuinely good. Vegan mac and cheese made with a cashew sauce is something I’d serve anyone, and vegan cheese has improved enormously in the last few years.
Tip: work out your three non-negotiable comfort foods and find a vegan version of each before you need it. Not after. A good plant based cookbook is faster than hunting recipes one at a time at midnight.
🌱 3. They Feel Tired Or Hungry All The Time
This is the biggest one, and it’s almost always the same cause: you are eating less than you think.
Plant food is bulkier and lower in calories. Eat the same volume you always did and you’ll be short by several hundred calories a day without noticing.
I made this mistake for about two months and blamed everything except my portion sizes.
Tip: protein at every meal from tofu, lentils, beans or nuts. Eat bigger portions than feels right. Don’t be frightened of potatoes, rice and bread, which are where your energy comes from. If you train and still can’t hit it, vegan protein powder fills the gap without another meal.
And if you’re still flat after a month of eating properly, get your iron and B12 checked rather than assuming the diet doesn’t suit you.
🏷️ 4. They Get Overwhelmed With Labels And Rules
Is honey vegan. Is natural flavouring vegan. Was this wine filtered through fish bladders. Is the sugar bone char refined.
At some point it stops feeling like ethics and starts feeling like homework, and that’s when people burn out.
Tip: get the big things right and stop auditing the small ones. Meat and dairy are 95% of the impact. The trace amount of something in a biscuit is not worth the energy, and chasing it is what makes people give up entirely. Progress beats perfection, every time.
💬 5. Their Social Life Gets Awkward
This is the reason most people actually quit, even when they say it was something else.
Birthdays, barbecues, work lunches, Sunday at your mum’s. Being the person who needs a separate plate every time wears you down faster than any craving.
I’ve eaten bread and salad at more family dinners than I’d like to admit, smiling the whole time.
Tip: always bring a dish, and make it good enough that other people eat it. That flips you from the problem to the person who brought the thing everyone liked.
Have one short answer ready for the questions. I feel better eating this way does the job and closes the subject.
💚 6. They Don’t Have Support
If nobody around you eats this way, every meal becomes a small negotiation. That’s exhausting in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t done it.
Tip: one other person is enough. A friend doing it alongside you, or a group where the questions have already been asked a hundred times. The difference between doing this alone and doing it with one other person is enormous.
🌱 7. They’re Not Sure Why They’re Doing It
People who go vegan for animals or the environment stick with it. People who go vegan to lose weight generally don’t, because once the weight comes off the reason has gone.
Tip: work out what your actual reason is and keep feeding it. Read, watch, learn. Fair warning that the documentaries overstate their case in places, so take the direction rather than every number.
🌱 8. They Think It Has To Be “All Or Nothing”
Here’s the one that does the most damage. You eat something with milk in it, decide you’ve failed, and quit entirely by Friday.
I’ve eaten things I shouldn’t have, sometimes by accident and occasionally not. Nothing happened. The next meal was vegan.
Tip: a slip is a slip, not a verdict. Someone eating this way 90% of the time for ten years does vastly more good than someone perfect for three months who then quits.
✅ Final Thoughts
Almost nobody quits over ethics. They quit because they were tired, hungry, socially worn out, or convinced one mistake meant they’d failed.
Eat enough, go gradually, take the B12, bring a dish, find one other person, and forgive yourself the slips. That’s how you end up in the 30%. 💚
🛒 The Things That Stop People Quitting
Almost nobody quits over ethics. They quit because they were hungry, tired or worn out. These fix that.
- Oat milk: start here. You will barely notice the swap, which is the point.
- Vegan butter: the second easy one. Do these before you tackle anything hard.
- Dried lentils: the not eating enough problem, solved cheaply.
- Vegan protein powder: for when you cannot face another meal but are still short.
- A B12 supplement: if you are flat after a month of eating properly, check this and your iron.
- A plant-based cookbook: find vegan versions of your three comfort foods before you need them, not at midnight.
