Weak arguments vegans should stop using, or use better
An argument doesn't become good because it defends the right cause. The only one that survives repeated scrutiny is the one that was always true: harming sentient beings without necessity is unjust.
Correcting without losing focus
Correcting our own arguments is part of any movement that takes the truth seriously. A bad argument from a vegan gets taken apart in the first conversation with someone well informed, and the whole cause takes the loss. That is why this page exists.
But correction has a cost. The time and energy of animal advocates are limited, and every hour spent fighting among vegans is an hour less for explaining speciesism, answering the objections of people who still eat animals and producing quality content. It is a trade-off: when infighting takes the place of outward work, the strategy is probably wrong. The End Infighting project gathers the causes and costs of this kind of conflict in social movements.
The line is not clear-cut
Correcting vegans and answering people who exploit animals are not two separate tasks. Dropping a bad argument also prepares the next conversation with someone who is not vegan. Some examples:
- A correction worth making: stop saying "Gorillas, bulls and horses get strong eating only plants". The argument falls at the first reply and swaps an ethical question for a badly told biology story.
- A correction that protects people: refuting "Vegans don't need to supplement B12". Here the error does not just weaken the argument; it puts at risk the health of those who believe it.
- A fight that is probably not worth it: weeks of public argument against an activist over one imprecise sentence, while no one gives a good answer to "where do you get your protein?", which almost every vegan has heard.
- A debate that can drag on: the disagreement over strategy, such as welfare reforms or abolition. It is a legitimate debate, but if it takes up all the space, the animals stop being at the center of the conversation.
A rule of thumb
Before correcting someone, ask: will this correction improve the next conversation with someone who is not yet vegan? If so, correct the argument, not the person, ideally in private or with a better alternative ready. Then get back to the work that matters: explaining why animals count.
Borrowed reason
They talk about health, hunger or the planet instead of the animals. When the borrowed reason falls, the motivation falls with it.
"Going vegan will make you healthier."
It's imprecise: any badly planned diet carries risks.
V2 · Borrowed reason"Veganism would end world hunger."
It ignores that hunger is largely a problem of distribution and political will, not just of farm output.
V3 · Borrowed reason"Go vegan for the planet."
The problem isn't that the environmental argument is false. It's that it is fragile exactly where it most needs to be solid: if the reason to reject animal farming is its environmental impact, cleaner animal farming would solve the problem without solving anything for the animals.
Exaggeration or attack
They claim more than the evidence supports, or attack people instead of discussing what they do.
"Meat eaters are psychopaths."
It's inaccurate and counterproductive. Most of these people have genuine emotional bonds.
V5 · Exaggeration or attack"There's no such thing as an ex-vegan."
Being vegan is an ethical position held up by arguments and repeated choices, not a genetic trait. Any such position can be abandoned. There are ex-abolitionists, ex-feminists and ex-pacifists for the same reason.
V6 · Exaggeration or attack"Using force to protect animals is always wrong."
The question is more open than that certainty suggests. Absolute pacifism trips over its own logic: refusing to stop a greater harm, in practice, lets it happen. And we accept forceful intervention for humans who cannot defend themselves, such as a child being attacked.
V7 · Exaggeration or attack"Being vegan is very expensive."
Coming from a vegan, the phrase confirms one of the myths most used against veganism, and pushes away people who might join.
V8 · Exaggeration or attack"Anemia mostly affects meat eaters."
It's a base-rate fallacy: since most people eat meat, most cases of almost anything occur among meat eaters. That doesn't show that meat causes anemia.
V9 · Exaggeration or attack"Every nutrition body in the world approves vegan diets for everyone."
It overstates the consensus. The US Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the British Dietetic Association say well-planned vegan diets can be appropriate at every stage of life. But the German Nutrition Society, in 2024, neither recommended nor advised against vegan diets for pregnant women, children and older adults, for lack of data, and European pediatric bodies are cautious.
V10 · Exaggeration or attack"Doctors don't know anything about nutrition."
It's a generalization. Nutrition training in medical school is often short, but that doesn't mean no doctor understands the subject, and many specialize in it.
V11 · Exaggeration or attack"In India almost everyone is vegan."
It confuses vegetarianism with veganism. About 39% of Indian adults say they are vegetarian, and milk consumption in the country is very high.
V12 · Exaggeration or attack"Each vegan saves 200 animals a year."
The number looks precise, but it's a simple division: total animals killed divided by the number of people. It ignores that production doesn't fall in the same proportion as demand, because prices drop and others buy part of what was not bought.
V13 · Exaggeration or attack"Hitler wasn't even really a vegetarian."
Hitler's diet is debated by historians, and answering on historical grounds unintentionally accepts that it would matter to the discussion.
V14 · Exaggeration or attack"All animals are slaughtered fully conscious, without stunning."
It's a generalization. In the European Union and in Brazil, the law requires stunning cattle, pigs and poultry before bleeding, and in the United States federal law requires it for mammals, though not for poultry. Most slaughter follows these rules, even with failures and exceptions.
V15 · Exaggeration or attack"Jesus was a vegetarian."
The Gospels describe Jesus eating and offering fish, and the theories that he was vegetarian, for example through a link with the Essenes, have no solid historical basis.
V16 · Exaggeration or attack"Great geniuses like Einstein and Da Vinci were vegan."
It's the same appeal to authority as the opposing argument, just from the other side. If the diet of famous thinkers doesn't prove that eating meat is right, it doesn't prove that not eating it is either.
Wrong criterion
They ground the defense of animals in faith, affection or hierarchy, not in sentience.
"God didn't make animals for humans."
Religious arguments of this kind depend on belief, not on reasons anyone can share, so they don't persuade people of a different faith.
V18 · Wrong criterion"We should love animals."
It confuses affection with respect. No one is obliged to love humans or animals, but no one has the right to harm them for that reason.
V19 · Wrong criterion"Humans come first."
As a general principle, it is plain speciesism, whether applied by vegans or non-vegans.
V20 · Wrong criterion"I'm vegan out of compassion for all living beings."
Veganism's criterion isn't being alive, it's being sentient. Plants, fungi and single-celled organisms are alive, but there's no evidence they can be harmed in the sense that matters.
V21 · Wrong criterion"Pigs are smarter than a three-year-old child."
The comparison is widely shared but rests on weak studies. The experiment in which pigs used a mirror to find food has not been replicated, and comparing the intelligence of species by a single measure has no solid basis.
Objection in disguise
They look like concern for strategy or for the animals, but become a ready excuse to change nothing.
"Comparing it to slavery pushes people away."
It can look like a strategic concern. The test is simple: if it were shown that the comparison is more effective at improving the situation of animals, would you start supporting it? If the answer is no, the objection was always moral, just dressed up as tactics.
V23 · Objection in disguise"Don't show the footage; it's too shocking."
At some point this caution becomes an inverted priority: it treats the discomfort of the viewer as more important than the suffering of those being filmed.
V24 · Objection in disguise"This partial law is unfair to the other animals."
It sounds like an even stronger commitment, but it proves too much: since it's impossible to ban every form of exploitation at once, someone who cares about outcomes would prefer a real reduction in suffering to none.
A fact with no moral weight
They bring up a biological curiosity as if it settled the question. What matters is what happens to the animals.
"Not your mom, not your milk."
It's an appeal to nature: it suggests milk from another species is wrong because nature didn't reserve it for us. Natural doesn't define right, and vegans point out this same mistake in "it's natural to eat meat".
V26 · A fact with no moral weight"Eggs are chicken periods."
Even if the comparison were accurate, it says nothing moral. Being gross doesn't make something wrong, and not being gross wouldn't make it right. The listener can simply say they don't care.
V27 · A fact with no moral weight"No adult animal drinks milk."
It's an appeal to nature. We do many things no other animal does, like cooking, and that doesn't make them wrong; other animals not drinking milk doesn't make milk wrong either.
V28 · A fact with no moral weight"Meat eaters eat more soy than vegans."
It's true that about three quarters of the world's soy becomes animal feed, and that is a good argument about deforestation.
Weak or false science
They make claims about the body or nutrition that the evidence does not support. When they fall, they take the speaker's credibility with them.
"Cats can't be vegan."
Many vegans repeat this as if it were established fact, but the available evidence points the other way. In a study of 1,369 cats published in PLOS ONE in 2023, the 127 fed a vegan diet tended to be as healthy or healthier on all seven general indicators, and a 2021 study of more than a thousand cats in Canada and the US also found no harm. A vegan cat food tested at the Federal University of Lavras, in Brazil, met the cats' needs on the measures assessed.
V30 · Weak or false science"Humans are biologically herbivores."
It isn't an ethical argument. It suggests we should be vegan because we can't make use of meat, milk and eggs, not because exploiting animals is wrong.
V31 · Weak or false science"Vegans are sexier and better in bed."
It takes the focus off the animals and appeals to the listener's self-interest.
V32 · Weak or false science"Broccoli and spinach have more protein than meat."
The confusion comes from charts that count protein per calorie, not per weight. About half of spinach's calories come from protein, but it has very few calories: 100 g provides only about 3 g of protein.
V33 · Weak or false science"Vegans don't need to supplement B12."
It is irresponsible and can put people's health at risk. Calling supplementation "a pharmaceutical industry scam" is a conspiracy claim with no evidence.
V34 · Weak or false science"Gorillas, bulls and horses get strong eating only plants."
It's a false analogy. Cattle digest grass with the help of microbes in the rumen, and horses ferment fiber in the large intestine; the microbes turn fiber and other compounds into nutrients, including protein. Gorillas spend much of the day eating large volumes of leaves and have a gut adapted to ferment them. The human digestive system doesn't work like that.
V35 · Weak or false science"All the B12 in meat comes from supplements."
It's an exaggeration. Farmed pigs and chickens get B12 in their feed, but in cattle B12 is produced by bacteria in the rumen from cobalt, which doesn't always need to be added.
V36 · Weak or false science"Livestock pollutes more than all cars, planes and ships combined."
The phrase comes from the 2006 FAO report, which compared livestock's 18% of emissions with about 13% for transport. But the accounting differed: for livestock it counted the whole chain, from feed to slaughter; for transport, only fuel combustion. One of the authors acknowledged the problem in 2010.
V37 · Weak or false science"Livestock causes 51% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions."
The figure comes from a 2009 piece published by the Worldwatch Institute, which counted, for example, animal respiration, something international methodologies do not count as emissions. It became famous through the documentary *Cowspiracy*.
V38 · Weak or false science"Animal testing is useless: 90% of drugs fail."
It's an exaggeration. About 90% of drug candidates fail in human trials, and species differences are one of the causes. But failures have many other causes, and the figure doesn't prove that tests have never helped.
V39 · Weak or false science"Unseasoned meat tastes of nothing; all the flavor comes from seasoning."
It's an exaggeration. Meat has its own flavor, which comes from fat, from compounds like heme iron and from the reactions that happen when it browns.
V40 · Weak or false science"It's proven that vegans are more empathetic."
The claim usually relies on a 2010 neuroimaging study of 60 people, which measured brain activation in response to images, not behavior. It is modest evidence, not proof.
V41 · Weak or false science"Koko the gorilla held conversations in sign language."
Koko learned many signs, but the claim that she used a language, with grammar and new sentences, does not hold up: the interpretation depended heavily on her trainers.
V42 · Weak or false science"It's proven that meat played no role in human evolution."
It overstates a real study. Barr and colleagues showed in 2022 that the apparent increase in evidence of meat-eating in the time of *Homo erectus* disappears once research effort is accounted for. That weakens one hypothesis, but it doesn't prove meat played no role.
V43 · Weak or false science"Science proves veganism is right."
Science answers questions of fact, such as whether animals feel pain and whether a vegan diet can be healthy. Whether it is right to cause that suffering is a moral question, which no study answers on its own.
V44 · Weak or false science"Oysters and mussels feel pain like any other animal."
The evidence of sentience in bivalves is weak: they have very simple nervous systems with no centralized brain, and even animal advocates admit they may not feel.
Purity and invented rules
They create demands veganism does not make and push away people who might join, without helping a single animal.
"Cultivated meat isn't vegan, because it comes from animals."
The definitional objection confuses the letter of the commitment with its spirit: veganism is not a closed list of forbidden ingredients, it is a commitment to ending unnecessary harm to sentient beings.
V46 · Purity and invented rules"Food that may contain traces of milk isn't vegan."
"May contain traces" is a warning for people with allergies: the product went through machines that also process that ingredient. The ingredient isn't in the recipe.
V47 · Purity and invented rules"A good vegan only eats natural, organic, healthy food."
Nothing in vegan ethics requires that. The concern is not exploiting animals, whether dinner is an organic salad or French fries.
V48 · Purity and invented rules"On a desert island, I'd starve before eating an animal."
The very definition of veganism speaks of avoiding exploitation "as far as is possible and practicable". In a real survival situation, not eating an animal may be beyond what is possible, and saying otherwise creates a demand veganism does not make.
A concession that empties the point
Said to seem flexible or avoid conflict, they turn a question about victims into a personal preference.
"I'm vegan, but I taste the food when I visit my family."
If the reason not to eat animals is the animal, it doesn't change because the table belongs to your family. For whoever died, the occasion makes no difference.
V50 · A concession that empties the point"I'm vegan, but I don't think everyone should be."
It treats as personal taste something that has a victim. No one says "I'm against assaulting people, but I don't think everyone should be." If the harm is unjust when you cause it, it is also unjust when someone else does.
The cause as a tool
They use the animal movement for another purpose, or pretend two goals never conflict.
"Being vegan requires being anti-capitalist."
When someone says this without saying, just as firmly, that anti-capitalists should be vegan, the real goal isn't animal welfare. It's recruiting supporters for another cause from inside the vegan movement.
V52 · The cause as a tool"More expensive meat is bad for ordinary people."
When the price of animal products rises, the drop in consumption is usually treated only as sad news, and not also as what it is: fewer animals killed.
V53 · The cause as a tool"Veganism is only about animals; nothing else matters."
Veganism does focus on animal exploitation, but that's no license to treat other humans unfairly or with prejudice. Humans are sentient too, and the criterion applies to them.
This group comes from the book Veganismo Baseado em Evidências (Evidence-Based Veganism, in Portuguese). The criterion for judging each tactic is the best-case one: which approach, honestly assessed for its consequences, reduces the most suffering.