Vegans avoid all products which cause harm to animals. Many products and industries are portrayed as benign (e.g. wool) or as simply ‘by-products’ of the meat or dairy industry (e.g. leather) through decades, or centuries, of marketing reinforcing our cultural preconceptions. We also have a collective human tendency to not want to fully look at the harms we cause to animals through our human desires – for taste, for fashion, or for any cheap or convenient products derived from exploiting animals.

In fact, almost every industry that generates profit from animals ultimately ends up harming them. The human instinct to maximise profit, along with our economically driven society, combine to incrementally worsen the treatment of animals to enable increases in revenue. If animals are kept purely for what they can give to humans (e.g. only ever keeping sheep for their wool), and then those products are commoditised (we sell the wool), we begin to walk down a path where small additional harms (not providing shelter or purchasing cheaper, lower quality food for them) gives the business owner additional increases in profitability. When we scale these industries into the vast behemoths of modern animal agriculture, harms are committed on a vast scale.

And, if you have fallen by the wayside for a period, revisiting your ‘why’ by watching a documentary such as Dominion, visiting the website of respected campaigners such as Farm Transparency Project or - if you feel able to do so - taking part in a slaughterhouse vigil with an organisation like Animal Save Australia can all help you to remember why you wanted to be vegan in the first place. Now go and make something delicious out of plants!