Every now and again, an article decrying the prevalence of depression among vegans and
vegetarians stirs up controversy, most often prompted by the publication of one study or
another assessing the impact of diet on mental health.
While sensational headlines like “The Scary Mental Health Risks of Going Meatless” are
sure to grab attention and pique the Schadenfreude-driven morbid fascination with taking veganism down
a notch, are the studies behind such articles actually the damning evidence of vegan-induced
mental unbalance their purported to be?
Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget.
There is, unsurprisingly, a great deal of back and forth withina the scientific, medical,
and lay communities, about the impact of veganism on mental health, with ample studies indicating
the mood enhancing benefits of a whole foods vegan diet, while others suggest a correlation
between veg inclinations and incidents of mental illness.
While I will go into greater depth on the nutritional side of veganism and mental health
in a separate video, I have included on the blog post for this video, citations to some
of these studies as well as additional resources if you want help making sure your diet is
balanced.
But I’m addressing something in this video that was, for the most part, entirely absent
in the hundreds of studies and articles I consulted, save for a few mentions here and
there—the reason why, if in fact vegans are by and large more depressed, which I have
yet to see any broad enough statistical analysis of, I would not be surprised in the slightest.
In focusing on things like the quality of plant-derived long-chain omega fatty acids,
all of these studies and articles failed to address the issue of awareness.
There are many reasons people refuse to go vegan, but in my personal opinion, one of
if not the main source of that resistance is the pain of accountability and the trauma
of facing the true impact of our choices.
Interestingly enough, the two studies behind the sensationalized headline I mentioned,
stated that participants’ mental illnesses had pre-dated their dietary switch.
This of course lead to speculation that “the experience of a mental disorder increases
the probability of choosing a vegetarian diet,” and that “being a vegetarian [is] a fairly
significant commitment and it picks up people at the fringe of the obsessive-compulsive
spectrum."
Essentially meaning you have to be crazy to even go vegetarian, god forbid vegan.
Framing veganism as a manifestation of dietary neurosis neglects the true breadth and depth
of veganism, and the non-dietary motivations for changing ones diet.
For example, maybe depressed individuals are by nature more sensitive and empathetic to
the suffering of others, influencing both their depressed state and their decision to
go vegan.
There is one preliminary study that ventured into this area, using functional MRIs to observe
and compare the brain activity of omnivores, and ethical vegetarians, and vegans as they
viewed scenes of alternatively human and animal suffering.
While admitting their study’s own limitations, their results suggested higher empathy for
non-human suffering amongst ethical vegans and vegetarians than within omnivores.
Another study, which I cover in-depth my video “The N-Words Meat-Eaters Use,” attempted
to standardize the rationalizations made for eating meat.
A more controversial aspect of their findings, supported by previous work as well, was that
the people who ate the most meat tended to support, endorse, or justify, inequality within
their own species as well.
Denial and justification do function as protective measures.
The true awareness of the horrors we inflict upon animals, of the destruction we’ve wreaked
upon the environment, and the damage we’ve brought upon our own bodies and those of our
children, can prompt both a shift to veganism and an understandable state of depression.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a vegan conversion story devoid of emotional strife.
Of course once we’ve gone through the pain of confronting our own part, we have the pleasure
of watching the vast majority of the world, including our own friends, family, and loved
ones, continue to participate in what we now clearly see as the enslavement, torture, and
murder of innocent beings and decimation of our planet.
Perhaps we see their health declining as they eat themselves to death.
If you’re non-vegan and find this a bit hyperbolic, you’re not alone.
I have two videos that delve into this matter in greater depth, explaining the apparent
emotional volatility, over-sensitivity, and at times outright aggression of vegans.
Both videos are linked in the sidebar and below.
In many ways, going vegan is like becoming an exposed nerve.
Suddenly everything you’ve worked so hard to shield yourself from even thinking about
comes into painfully clear focus—for some all at once, for others, progressively over
time.
Many vegans—whether consciously or not—start to rebuild their protective insulation, understandably
finding it all too much to bear.
If any of us were ever to be fully and completely aware of what was happening every moment in
this world, we’d literally be driven insane.
Activists working on the front lines every day are exposed to a level of trauma rivaling
any war zone.
Whether undercover at slaughterhouses, hearing the horrific cries of pigs in gas chambers,
seeing the terror in the eyes of cows in knock boxes, watching sentient beings bleed out,
gasping through torn tracheas, standing by as billions of male chicks are ground up alive
in the egg industry, infiltrating the dog meat industry where unspeakable torture of
many species is standard practice, or bearing witness outside of slaughterhouses, watching
truck after truck after truck carry terrified beings to their brutal deaths—striving to
educate and inform a widely uninterested—even apathetic—and at times aggressively resistant,
public to the lies they’ve been told and the realities they’ve denied.
For many, being vegan means seeing what we don’t want to see—what our entire society
strives so profoundly hard to block out and ignore.
And even when it is thrust out into the open whether through undercover footage and documentaries,
solid scientific evidence on the medical and environmental fronts, or the overturning of
a livestock truck, literally spilling out into the open the very individuals we want
so much to remain hidden so we can eat their bodies without thinking of their faces, even
then—when the truth is so blatantly exposed, we have well-practiced denials at the ready.
That it’s an isolated event, it’s not like that here, it’s faulty science, we
buy humane products, we need the protein, it’s what has to be done, we need better
standards, vegans are just overly-emotional, and on and on.
Or may be run out of justifications.
And all we’re left with is brazen denial.
As flimsy and ineffective at hiding the truth as the cardboard used to shield the public
execution of the injured survivors of one overturned truck in Canada.
We see, day after day, astoundingly malicious acts of cruelty, and disgustingly selfish
disregard for the lives of others and the environmental crisis affecting us all.
And perhaps even more heartbreakingly, our own family—self-proclaimed animal lovers—continuing
to support everything we’re fighting against.
We watch as our loved ones eat the bodies and secretions of our loved ones.
We watch as those holding the gun or the blade are protected, while those holding the camera
or bottle of water are arrested and vilified, because within the realm of the animal products
industries, the killing of children is standard business practice, and anyone wanting to stop
or even document this reality, is the criminal.
x So if a study does come out one day finding
definitively that vegans are more prone to depression and mental illness than non-vegans,
don’t expect to count me among the shocked.
Honestly, with the state of our world and what we as a species continue to inflict upon
others, ourselves and our planet, not being heartbroken, devastated and enraged is a far
more troubling reaction.
While this video may seem like the worst commercial for veganism ever, going vegan has and does
enhance the physical and mental health of so many people.
But it can simultaneously be incredibly challenging to stay connected to all the suffering and
destruction.
But I for one would not for a second trade the pain of awareness for the comfort of denial.
Yes, there is bliss in ignorance, for the ignorant.
For more information on what I covered today, please see the links in the video description,
including the blog post, where I have provided resources to self-care and decompression ideas
for activists, as well as information on nutrition’s influence on mental health, which I will cover
more in depth in another video.
I do want to note that while this video largely focused on trauma-induced and situational
depression, mental illness does not depend on one’s experiences or beliefs.
In addition, for any vegans with concerns about the ethics of medication, please see
my video “Is Medication Vegan.”
I personally want to thank my $50 and above patrons and my whole Nugget Army Patreon family
for making it possible for me to dedicate myself fulltime to providing free, vegan education.
If you’d like to help support the efforts of Bite Size Vegan please check out the support
links in the video description below or the link in the sidebar.
If you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up and share it around to reach
others struggling, and subscribe for more vegan content every week.
Now go live vegan, with awareness, and I’ll see you s on.
I've heard people say "I thought I was going to be tougher, I thought I was going to be able to handle this."
There's no honor in being able to "handle it."
We should all react that way.
We should all be horrified.
We should all be in tears.
If you're there and you see that and it doesn't— it doesn't rip you apart...
...that's when there might be a problem.