I love being vegan, but these 7 challenges are real – VegOut

I’m writing this from an airport restaurant where I just paid $18 for a “veggie wrap” that’s essentially lettuce in a tortilla. The server assured me three times that yes, the bread contains milk, and no, they can’t modify the one pasta dish because the sauce is pre-made. Six years vegan, and I still haven’t figured out how to make airport food work.

Here’s what nobody tells you when you go vegan: the ethics might be clear-cut, but the logistics are a mess. I wouldn’t trade this choice for anything—my values finally match my actions, and that alignment feels like coming home. But Instagram vegans posting their perfect smoothie bowls aren’t showing you the full picture. The challenges are real, persistent, and sometimes absurdly complicated for what should be simple: just trying to eat plants in a world built around eating animals.

1. The mental load of constant ingredient checking

My phone contains approximately 47 screenshots of ingredient lists because I can never remember which seemingly innocent products contain milk powder. Why is there milk in salt and vinegar chips? Who decided margarine needs whey? The mental bandwidth required to maintain a running database of safe products is exhausting.

Last week, I discovered the bread I’d been buying for three months changed their recipe to include honey. No announcement, same packaging, just a tiny ingredient list update that I missed during one rushed grocery run. This constant vigilance—reading every label, researching restaurants beforehand, googling “is wine vegan” for the hundredth time—becomes a part-time job. My non-vegan friends grab food without thinking. I spend ten minutes investigating whether the vegetable soup contains chicken stock.

2. Travel becomes a logic puzzle

I just spent two weeks in rural Wisconsin for a family reunion. The nearest grocery store with tofu was 45 minutes away. Every restaurant menu featured meat as the centerpiece with vegetables as afterthoughts—usually drowning in butter. I survived on french fries, iceberg lettuce salads, and the emergency Clif bars I’d learned to pack after the Iowa incident of 2019.

Travel planning now requires a secondary spreadsheet: which restaurants have options, where’s the nearest grocery store, should I pack protein powder? I’ve eaten peanut butter sandwiches in some of Europe’s finest food cities because finding vegan options while jet-lagged felt impossible. The spontaneity of “let’s just find something when we get there” died with my omnivore days.

3. The emotional labor of other people’s feelings

Nothing prepared me for how much time I’d spend managing other people’s emotions about my food choices. Every meal becomes a potential minefield of defensiveness, guilt, and projection. Someone always needs to announce they “could never give up cheese” or explain why their uncle’s farm is different. I’ve become a part-time therapist for people’s food guilt.

The exhausting part isn’t the comments—it’s the emotional labor of making others comfortable with my choice. I find myself downplaying how easy it is (so they don’t feel bad), agreeing that yes, cheese is delicious (so they don’t think I’m judging), and laughing at the same bacon jokes (so I’m not the humorless vegan). I spend more energy managing reactions to my veganism than I spend actually being vegan.

4. Dating gets weird

Dating while vegan adds a layer of complexity I didn’t anticipate. Do I mention it in my profile? Wait until the first date? The third? I’ve had matches unmatch after learning I’m vegan. I’ve sat through dates where someone spent forty minutes explaining why they need meat for their CrossFit performance.

Even when dating goes well, the logistics get complicated. Their favorite restaurant might be a steakhouse. Meeting their parents involves navigating their mom’s signature dishes. Every relationship requires negotiating whose food philosophy takes precedence, how to handle shared groceries, whether kids would be raised vegan. I once ended a promising relationship because they insisted on keeping bacon in what would be our shared kitchen. These aren’t conversations omnivore couples need to have.

5. The protein question exhaustion

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked about protein, I could afford those $18 airport wraps. It’s not the question itself—protein is important. It’s that it’s the ONLY nutritional concern anyone ever raises, asked with the confidence of someone who’s never tracked their own macros but suddenly became a nutritionist when they learned I’m vegan.

The exhausting part is that no answer satisfies. I can list every plant protein I eat, show them my blood work, deadlift in front of them—doesn’t matter. They’ve already decided I’m protein deficient. Meanwhile, they’re living on coffee and breakfast cereal but somehow my diet is the concerning one. The protein question isn’t really about protein; it’s about justifying why they haven’t made the change themselves.

6. The social isolation at food-centered gatherings

Food is how humans bond, and being vegan can feel like speaking a different language at the dinner table. Birthday cakes I can’t eat. Pizza parties where I eat the salad. BBQs where I bring my own burger and pretend it’s not weird. The isolation isn’t about the food—it’s about being outside the shared experience.

The loneliest part is holidays. Watching your family’s traditional dishes get passed around while you eat your assembled sides. Well-meaning relatives making you a special vegan dish that accidentally contains butter. Feeling like your dietary choice turned you into a problem to be solved rather than a family member to be included. You tell yourself it’s just food, but food is never just food—it’s belonging, tradition, love expressed through sharing. Being outside that circle hurts more than I expected.

7. The imposter syndrome of imperfect veganism

Here’s my dirty secret: my car has leather seats. I bought it used before I went vegan, and I can’t afford to replace it. I take medication tested on animals because the alternative is not treating my condition. I killed a spider in my bathroom last week. By some definitions, I’m failing at veganism daily.

The vegan community can be brutal about purity. Someone’s always more vegan than you, ready to point out your failures. That wine you drank? Filtered with fish bladder. That apple? Coated in shellac. The impossible standards create a constant hum of inadequacy. I’m doing my best in a non-vegan world, but there’s always someone reminding me my best isn’t good enough. The imposter syndrome is real, the guilt is heavy, and sometimes I wonder if my imperfect veganism is worse than no veganism at all.

Final thoughts

Six years in, and these challenges haven’t gotten easier—I’ve just gotten better at navigating them. My phone is full of restaurant screenshots, I travel with protein powder, and I’ve memorized which brands randomly put milk in everything. I’ve learned to navigate the social dynamics, though the emotional labor still exhausts me. I’ve accepted that my veganism will never be perfect, that leather seats and necessary medications don’t negate the thousands of animals I’m not eating.

Would I go back? Never. Not even on the hardest days when I’m hungry at an airport or defending my protein intake for the millionth time. The alignment between my values and actions is worth every inconvenience. The challenges are real, but so is the peace that comes from living according to your principles.

But I won’t pretend it’s easy. It’s not. It’s logistics and planning and constant explanation. It’s isolation and judgment and fifteen-ingredient labels to decode. Anyone who tells you veganism is simple either has privileges you don’t or is selling something. The truth is messier: you can love being vegan and still acknowledge that it’s hard. Both things can be true. Both things are true. And that’s okay.