My wife often quips that on our first stay-at-home date during Covid she made me a fruit bowl for my desert whilst she had ice cream. The fruit was amazing but I (much to my wife’s surprise) also immediately Uber Eats’d a full tub of Vegan Ben & Jerry's.

I’ve personally never met another vegan who chose this lifestyle for “diet” reasons. They’ll be out there for sure, but for the folks I know It’s always been about the animals.

Just because I choose not to eat animals doesn’t mean I’m choosing to be healthy :) I should focus more on the food that I eat but alas, it’s just not how I roll at the moment.

You do get some unintentional health benefits here and there (lower cholesterol in my case) but other trade-offs too for those like me that aren’t as diligent as they should be (lower b-12, iron etc).

This is completely unrelated to the question of “can you be healthy as a vegan”. To that I would say absolutely. Is it the reason most people choose to be vegan - my gut would say no (but I’m not claiming this as fact).

Goddamn I love me some Oreos.

Plus, it’s easier to sit atop a high horse when you’re not eating it ;)

You can be vegan as part of a health conscious diet, but strict veganism is usually motivated by ethics, not health. (That being said obviously there's more market share if you're in the intersection of the venn diagram.)

Veganism is not "a fake health conscious diet". It could be for the people around you but doesn't deserve to be universally qualified as such.

so in order for vegans to be legit for you, they not only have to find alternatives for everything, constantly be on the lookout not to accidentally buy or consume products related to animals, no - they also all have to be eating healthy and organic constantly in order not to be phony fakes.

what a weird form of gatekeeping. at least they're using some form of ethics and trying to change the world in a way they're able to.

coming from a non-vegan, btw, even though this shouldn't even be a requirement.