Ask HN: Has the vegan movement been effective?
5 comments
Respectfully, it has been a failure, and I cannot square your assumptions about the situation with the reality of it. Demand for and production of meat has continually increased, as PaulHoule noted.
Per Our Wold in Data, per capita meat consumption has more than doubled globally over the last 60 years. For per capita egg consumption, the only continent to decrease over the last 60 years is Oceania, with Asia and South America more than 5xing. Global milk supply per person has increased the least over this period, only about 15%.
The veganism movement that you refer to was founded in 1944. Over the period of its existence it has lost on all fronts. Yes, people voted with their feet, and it works! It just turns out that they don't want veganism.
And thank God for that. As an agriculturalist, I see veganism as a total aberration, demonstrating a complete disconnect between humans and the natural world that could only exist at scale in an industrialized food system.
That said, I fully support you choosing to eat or not eat whatever you want. More robiola for me.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-consumpti...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-egg-consumptio...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-milk-consumpti...
Per Our Wold in Data, per capita meat consumption has more than doubled globally over the last 60 years. For per capita egg consumption, the only continent to decrease over the last 60 years is Oceania, with Asia and South America more than 5xing. Global milk supply per person has increased the least over this period, only about 15%.
The veganism movement that you refer to was founded in 1944. Over the period of its existence it has lost on all fronts. Yes, people voted with their feet, and it works! It just turns out that they don't want veganism.
And thank God for that. As an agriculturalist, I see veganism as a total aberration, demonstrating a complete disconnect between humans and the natural world that could only exist at scale in an industrialized food system.
That said, I fully support you choosing to eat or not eat whatever you want. More robiola for me.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-consumpti...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-egg-consumptio...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-milk-consumpti...
You probably live in a bubble where people going vegan is a thing. In my circle, is about 0,5% of people. (I'm vegetarian btw)
See https://www.feedstuffs.com/livestock-and-poultry-market-news...
Probably the most important trend in that chart is the share of chicken has greatly increased.
As for future trends: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/07/oecd-fao-agricu...
Probably the most important trend in that chart is the share of chicken has greatly increased.
As for future trends: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/07/oecd-fao-agricu...
Very cool, thanks!
I haven't met anyone who thought of it as a "movement"; everyone I have known who is or was vegan did it for their own ethical and moral reasons (i.e. they didn't expect it to have a wider impact and didn't "need" it to), and one predominantly for health reasons.
not directly a tech topic, but maybe one that could be interesting to the crowd here.
People have different reasons to go vegan, but my understanding was always that one of the most prominent reasons would be the idea to reduce animal suffering in the long term. Basically, if enough people become vegan, the demand for meat and other animal products would be reduced so much that it would be uneconomical for ranchers to keep lifestock for slaughter - or at least reduce the number of lifestock kept.
I think this is interesting, because this would make veganism I believe the largest consumer boycott movement in history and also the largest case study if "voting with your wallet" can actually work.
So by now the movement has been around long enough and has entered large part of the mainstream in many countries that it could have an effect.
So my question would be, are there any studies or other information if it had actually caused a drop in demand for animal products or reduced the number of lifestock?