What stops us going vegan?

(700 words)
Taking on a vegan lifestyle (avoiding animal products) looks like a restriction of convenience. Most people have never had to consider restricting themselves, especially to things they’ve taken for granted all their lives. Nor have they ever needed to consider taking veganism seriously.
So for vegans, we have to weigh up the specific difficulties we’re facing, one by one in order to find out what will get people to consider the animal problem and get them listening to vegan argument. We firstly need to look at every conceivable reason why someone would persuade themselves NOT to go vegan. We have to appreciate how important it is for most people to preserve their freedom of choice of food. We have to reckon with how people approach the idea of going on a diet, taking on a meal program and giving up favourite snacks, treats and indulgencies. Then there’s cuisine and what that means to people; they might like French cuisine or be fond of Chinese or Indian foods, and not like the idea of a favourite cuisine being confined to plant-based foods. But it isn’t just the food we eat but the clothing we wear, and (for the fashion conscious who don’t have much choice of footwear outside the leather range) the shoes we wear. And there’s the zoo visit, especially when children want to see their favourite animals. And explaining to kids why they can’t go to see an animal circus when it comes to town. For teenagers it’s difficult, when they’re in need of a job and find work selling hamburgers at McDonalds when there’s no other work around. You may want to train as a chef in a restaurant, but you’ll inevitably need to cook with animal body parts since virtually every popular dish uses them. For a vegan that career path is out of the question along with just about every career associated with preparing food. And socially vegans are up against it all the time. When we’re invited to dinner or a wedding or any social bash, at some stage the food table confronts us and we either don’t eat or ask for something ‘special’ to be made, which is an irritation to those providing the food. At Christmas we’re given a woollen jumper or there’s a woollen blanket on the bed we share with someone. What do we do about that? What do we say when invited to sit on a leather lounge? How far do we take it? A lover gives you a kiss, and it tastes! Someone you share a kitchen with at home who cooks meat and it makes us feel sick, or they keep things in the fridge which you see every time you open it. Then there are meat scraps in the waste bin and they attract flies in warm weather. You eat your food alongside others who eat things that disgust you, or they want to eat items you feel obliged to cook for them. If you are single and out there looking for a partner, how many suitable vegans are there to choose from? At work you stand out in obvious ways, and you’re the butt of jokes. For children at school there’s nothing in the canteen to buy since vegetarian (let alone vegan) foods don’t sell well enough for canteen fund-raising purposes. What if you join a peace movement dedicated to non-violence and you go to their fund raising sausage sizzle and feel you must try to expand their horizons, in reference to the food they eat. See how far that gets you. There are probably no takers because environmentalists have got enough issues to handle, concerning forests and pollution and global warming, and they can’t cope with extra issues concerning animal farming. Maybe you would like to be involved in a charity which feeds starving children and they donate milk and meat products, or they provide live animals to encourage animal farming. To them they are doing a great job of providing much needed food, and if you don’t approve you’re accused of wanting the kids to starve. Just some of the problems facing us when we go vegan.