For the last few months of 2024, I ate meat willingly for the first time in three years after following a vegan diet for ethical reasons.
For context, I live in Côte d’Ivoire, where veganism is pretty unknown. Most of the time, I explain it by saying that I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t eat eggs or drink cow milk. During this vegan journey, I came to learn a lot of things. I’ll share my outlooks here.
One of the first objections I faced was: “you can’t be vegan here”, here meaning in Africa. But, if you look closer, you realise that a lot of African dishes are actually vegan or can easily be made vegan. For example, Alloco (fried plantain) and fried yams, are regularly eaten on their own. Another example is Jollof rice as it can easily be made vegan and still taste good. The hard part is the lack of vegan options outside. It takes a lot from the social aspect of life. You go out with friends, and you can barely eat. Your friends may really like you, but it became a bit tiring after a while, and I can feel that.
The social aspect is a real challenge. I had no vegan or vegetarian friends around. During this journey, I realised how central eating and drinking are to human interaction. One thing that was very tiring for me, was having to explain what veganism is and after having to explain why I’m vegan. Even that wasn’t enough. After, you have to prove that your bowel contains no animal product, that your belt is artificial leather, etc. I was lucky to have friends and family that just accepted it and just made fun of me once a while, nothing harmful. Still, they were waiting for my “comeback” as they liked to say.
I ate healthier during this period. I used to eat a lot of street food and did not follow a very much balanced diet. So, when beginning my vegan diet, I looked out a lot for vegan recipes. So I ended up eating much healthier. I’m not claiming that vegan food is healthier than any diet out there. I didn’t become vegan for health or nutrition related reasons. But, due to the lack of vegan options outside, I cooked more and ate a lot more at home. As you can guess, at home, food is “cleaner”. At first, I thought that the vegan diet was actually healthier, but a friend of mine helped me make this link. So, always keep your mind open and be aware of your confirmation bias.
Activism is not negotiable, and this realization made me sad. I sat back and thought about what my actions produced. My one man boycott was pointless. For the vegan cause to actually break through, we need to advocate. Don’t go glue yourself to a building, instead you can run some Instagram page to share recipes, raise awareness. You can even start a food truck or even a “dark kitchen” (a dark kitchen is a restaurant that only runs on food delivery platforms). These were things I was saying to myself. I did nothing. I can’t call myself an ethical vegan anymore.
To be clear, I didn’t miss meat. Thus, I’m going to quickly address this here, people mistakenly take vegans as people that “don’t like” meat. I stopped eating meat because it wasn’t worth the moral dilemma, not because it tastes bad.
I’m sad to add my name to the list of former vegans. However, I still stand against animal cruelty. I’ll always choose vegan options when available. But, I can’t call myself vegan anymore.