What to do about all the vegans falling off the wagon?

The organization Faunalytics recently came out with a new version of its popular infographic How to Make and Keep a Vegan. The word keep in the title is important: it was the same Faunalytics which in 2014 came out with a study on current and former vegetarians and vegans. From that, we learned that 84% of those who try a vegetarian or vegan diet, don’t stick to it and fall off the wagon at some point. Eighty-four percent!

Now I had hoped that more than a decade later, that number would be lower, because of the simple reason that today it should be a lot easier to be vegetarian or vegan. Alas, the number of those who give up is still high. A 2025 poll conducted by YouGov and commissioned by he Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG), among veg*ns (vegetarians & vegans) in the United States shows the following numbers:

• 2% of the US population is vegan

• 2% is vegetarian

• 5% were vegetarian for three or more years, but are today neither vegetarian nor vegan

• 1.37% were vegan for three or more years, but are today neither vegetarian nor vegan

So the number of people who were at some point vegetarian or vegan (6.37%) is higher than the people who are presently vegetarian or vegan. And this is only counting those who have been vegetarian or vegan for three years or more. No doubt, the number of ex-veg*ns would be higher if we’d count also shorter periods.

The infographic by Faunalytics, created by Caryn Gynsberg.

What can we learn from this research?

First of all, let’s look at the silver lining. It seems like bad news that so many people give up on being veg*n - and to some extent it is - but it also means that the potential number of veg*ns is a lot higher than it is today. It means that so many more people have considered or may consider going veg*n, and that if we can remove some barriers, there is enormous growth potential for the movement. If all those who started on a veg*n diet, stuck to it, we’d already be a lot closer to critical mass.

Now what are those barriers? According to Faunalytics’ obstacle research, the main barrier back in 2014 was dissatisfaction with the food: “nearly half of lapsed veg*ns experienced cravings, boredom with their veg*n diet, feeling hungry, and other issues related to food dissatisfaction.” Ten years later this may be less of an issue, yet I think we can remain confident that it is still an important part of the reason why people lapse (or don’t start at all). Returning to 2025, in the aforementioned poll, the Vegetarian Resource Group asked people to tick three factors that would cause them not to eat animal products. The second highest ticked item was “alternative products tasted better”. Clearly, we have still a lot of work, not only in the area of food development but also regarding teaching people some new cooking skills. Fortunately there’s an army of social media influencers doing exactly that today.

Can motivation help overcome these barriers?

Obviously, the more motivated someone is, the more adversity they’ll be able to overcome. Now it’s easy to think that increasing people’s ethical (animal-related) motivation is our main task here. I’m not saying it’s not important - but obviously it’s not enough. Still according to the VRG-poll, the most ticked reason that would help people stop using animal products was health: if they knew they’d be healthy without eating those products, they’d more easily give up on them. One can imagine that as long as there are fears about defective health, even quite strong ethical motivation might not be enough (protein concerns are back, in case you haven’t noticed). Moreover, asked about the most important factors in their food decisions, 58% answered taste, 47% cost and 32% personal health - animal welfare was ticked by 7%. This also means, in my view, that while moral motivations may have the most sticking power, it would be misguided to only focus on them, and not on health or environmental motivations: working with these may create a wider funnel for people to get in.

Community

Something else that’s important for people to go and stay vegan is social support. Going veg*n is easier when you do it together with others - and so is staying vegan. Preaching - or catering - to the choir is hence not something redundant. Organizing potlucks among vegans is sometimes frowned upon by ‘real’ activists who are out there in the streets, but if we want a thriving movement, we can’t afford to keep losing people. Being together helps us not just to remain vegan, but also to remain on board as activists.

Pragmatism

The numbers tell us that it is still not easy to go vegan, or to stay vegan. Longtime vegans may disagree and insist that it is easy, but that doesn’t change people’s perception. Rather than doing a lot of wishful thinking and wishful activism, we should be pragmatic. A pragmatic approach to changing people’s eating behavior consists not just of using any argument that might impact our audience, but also of using different asks. We can ask people to reduce, to try Veganuary, to go vegan during weekends… - anything that gets them to try something and cross the threshold, is good. More steps can be taken from there. And for the love of dog, let’s not make veganism harder than it is by insisting on being uber-consistent, and on having to adopt all kinds of political and ideological beliefs as part of the same package.

The wrong question?

Lastly, we may wonder if asking people to go vegan is the wrong question in the first place. Few people go vegan, many more care about animals. Can we ask for different things? Can we give them “permission” (not that it’s ours to give, but okay) to advocate for animals, for the reduction of animal products, even when they are not vegan themselves? I think we should. Can we ask them, perhaps, to donate to organizations that help farmed animals, even though they themselves still consume them or their products? Again, I think we should. Some things are not only easier than going vegan: they might also be more impactful.

Read a lot more about the science of making and keeping vegans.

Here you can watch the webinar with author Caryn Ginsberg and myself on the infographic.