I feel you. I strongly identified with the ethos of veganism, and dabbled on-and-off for quite a while, before finally taking the permanent plunge.

While we’re all different people facing different challenges, I hope that by sharing a little bit about my experiences, and the things that were holding me back from committing to veganism, perhaps some of this will ring true or be helpful to you as well.

“I totally agree with you, but I could never give up cheese.”

This is probably the #1 “I agree, but…” comment that I hear. As a formerly cheese-obsessed (and now vegan-cheese-obsessed) person, I get it. If you want to find out how I went from eating every variety of French cheese imaginable, to eating zero dairy — and it wasn’t that difficult — check out How could you stop eating CHEESE?!, where I discuss this at length.

Other barriers

Check out these pages for solutions to some other common barriers that people encounter:

• The cost problem — is it more expensive?

• The all-or-nothing problem — do I have to be TOTALLY vegan?

• The nutrition problem — PROTEIN!

• The willpower problem — meat cravings

• The family problem — holidays, judgment, and so on

Or maybe you have a “taking the leap” problem: you want to leap, but taking the leap is scary. Everybody’s different, but when I was having this ‘leap’ problem, it was extremely helpful for me to watch Melanie Joy’s presentation about the psychology of eating meat. Her presentation was really thoughtful, respectful, and understanding — so I didn’t feel attacked — but it was also really inspiring, logical, and informative — so that I felt motivated to take action. It was the little nudge that I needed so I could say, “Well, here goes nothin’!” and leap.