People go vegan for a mix of reasons, but the most common motivations fall into three broad categories: concerns about animal welfare, personal health, and the environmental impact of animal agriculture. Large surveys consistently rank these as the top drivers, with cultural influences and weight management rounding out the list. Most vegans cite more than one reason, and the motivation that gets someone started often differs from the one that keeps them committed long term.
Animal Welfare
For many vegans, the decision starts with a simple question: is the suffering involved in producing meat, dairy, and eggs justified? The scale of modern animal agriculture makes that question hard to ignore. In 2021, roughly 73.8 billion chickens, 1.4 billion pigs, 617 million sheep, 501 million goats, and 332 million cattle were slaughtered worldwide. An estimated 124 billion farmed fish are killed each year on top of that.
Numbers alone don’t tell the full story. The conditions animals endure during their lives are a major motivator. Pigs in industrial farms spend their lives in cramped, stressful enclosures with chronic discomfort. Dairy cows have their calves removed shortly after birth so the milk can be redirected to human consumption. Chickens are frequently debeaked to prevent fighting caused by overcrowding, and many broiler hens cannot turn around for their entire lives. Castration without pain relief remains standard practice for several species. People who go vegan for ethical reasons generally view these conditions as a form of unnecessary harm, since plant-based alternatives exist.
Health Benefits
Health is often the entry point for people who weren’t initially motivated by ethics. The evidence linking plant-based diets to lower rates of heart disease and type 2 diabetes is substantial. In one large cohort study, vegan men had roughly half the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared to non-vegetarians. Type 2 diabetes prevalence was 2.9% among vegans versus 7.6% among non-vegetarians, and at a two-year follow-up, vegans developed new cases of diabetes at about one-quarter the rate.
Cancer risk also plays a role in the decision. The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency classifies processed meat (bacon, sausages, hot dogs, deli meats) as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category as tobacco smoking and asbestos. That doesn’t mean processed meat is equally dangerous, but it does mean the evidence that it causes colorectal cancer is considered convincing. Red meat sits in Group 2A, meaning it’s probably carcinogenic to humans based on the available data. For people already concerned about cancer risk, eliminating these foods entirely feels like a straightforward protective step.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the largest organization of food and nutrition professionals in the United States, has stated that appropriately planned vegan diets are nutritionally adequate for all stages of life, including pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and older adulthood. The key phrase is “appropriately planned.” Vegans need to pay attention to a handful of nutrients that are harder to get from plants alone, particularly vitamin B12, iron, omega-3 fatty acids, and calcium. But with some planning or supplementation, these gaps are manageable.
Environmental Impact
Animal agriculture is one of the most resource-intensive systems on the planet, and environmental concern is a growing driver of veganism, especially among younger adults. Livestock accounts for about 80% of all agricultural land use globally when you combine grazing land with cropland dedicated to growing animal feed. Despite occupying that enormous footprint, meat and dairy provide a much smaller share of the world’s total protein and calories. Only 16% of global cropland grows food that humans eat directly.
At the individual level, the numbers are striking. Research comparing diets with equal calorie intake found that a vegan diet produces 46% less carbon dioxide than an omnivorous diet, uses 33% less land, and requires 7% less water. In practical terms, an omnivore’s food generates about 3.8 kilograms of CO2 equivalents per day, while a vegan’s generates about 2.1 kilograms. For people who feel limited in their ability to address climate change, changing what they eat represents one of the largest single actions within their direct control.
Cultural and Social Influences
Not everyone arrives at veganism through a rational cost-benefit analysis. Cultural and social factors play a significant role. Some people grow up in traditions where plant-based eating is the norm, particularly in parts of South Asia. Others are influenced by documentaries, social media, or friends and partners who are already vegan. The increasing visibility of plant-based options in restaurants and grocery stores has also lowered the barrier to entry. What once required specialty shopping and home cooking from scratch is now available as a grab-and-go option in most supermarkets.
Weight management is another commonly reported motivator, though it tends to overlap with general health goals. Plant-based diets are typically higher in fiber and lower in calorie density, which can make it easier to maintain a healthy weight without strict calorie counting.
What It Actually Costs
One common assumption is that veganism is expensive, but the data is more nuanced. A study comparing daily food costs across diet groups found that vegan and omnivore diets cost nearly the same amount, with no statistically significant difference between them. Vegetarian diets (which include dairy and eggs) were actually the cheapest of the three groups. The daily cost gap between a vegan and vegetarian diet worked out to less than half a euro, or roughly 14 euros per month. Staples like beans, lentils, rice, oats, and seasonal vegetables are among the cheapest foods available anywhere. The costs rise when people rely heavily on specialty meat substitutes and vegan convenience products, but a whole-foods approach can be quite affordable.
Why People Stay
A pattern that researchers observe repeatedly is that the reason someone goes vegan often shifts over time. Someone who starts for health reasons may become more aware of the ethical and environmental dimensions and find those harder to walk away from. Someone who starts for animal welfare may discover they feel physically better and find that reinforces the commitment. This layering of motivations helps explain why long-term vegans tend to cite multiple reasons rather than a single one. The more reasons stack up, the more resilient the decision becomes.