The Daily Mail Declared Veganism Dead Again
Every few months, someone in the press declares veganism dead.
Not because animal exploitation has suddenly become defensible. Because a restaurant closed. Because a celebrity ate fish. Because someone found a vegan sausage roll too expensive. Because the Daily Mail, famously on the side of Hitler in the 1930s, needed another culture-war headline.
This time, Fred Kelly has gone with the usual anti-vegan pick-and-mix: unhealthy, overpriced, ultra-processed, extreme, joyless, cult-like, politically suspect and apparently responsible for every tired influencer who failed to plan a meal properly.
The first problem is obvious. The article keeps confusing veganism with a plant-based diet, while briefly admitting veganism is not just a diet. Veganism is a justice movement. It is a rejection of using animals as commodities. It includes food, but it does not begin and end with food.
The article wants the emotional force of attacking veganism while mostly talking about nutrition, supermarket trends and restaurants. If someone eats chips, jam sandwiches and Coke, that does not disprove veganism. It proves chips, jam sandwiches and Coke exist.
Nobody serious says every plant-based food is healthy. Nobody serious says a person can ignore basic nutrition and magically thrive because they avoided animal products. A balanced plantbased diet needs reliable B12. So does the general population, especially older people. B12 deficiency is not a vegan issue, it’s a human issue. It is just useful to pretend it is when you want to turn a tragedy into a headline.
The same applies to calcium. The article includes the claim that there are “so few plants” you can get calcium from. This is nonsense. Kale, bok choy, spring greens, fortified plant milks, fortified yoghurts, fortified cereals, calcium-set tofu, tempeh, edamame, chickpeas, beans, lentils, sesame seeds, tahini, chia seeds, almonds, dried figs, dried apricots and some seaweeds all exist. That is not a shortage. That is a shopping list.
Then comes the ultra-processed panic. Vegan sausages and burgers are apparently dangerous because they are ultra-processed. Fine. Let’s talk about ultra-processed foods properly. The UK diet is already full of them. The most normalised versions are sausages, bacon, burgers, nuggets, sliced meats, hot dogs and other animal products people eat without a second thought. Funny how “ultra-processed” only becomes a moral emergency when the sausage is made from plants.
Plant-based alternatives are not all health foods. They are also not automatically worse than the animal products they replace. Many contain fewer calories, better fats, more fibre and no animal flesh. Swapping some animal products for plant-based alternatives can reduce LDL cholesterol. Meanwhile, animal products bring their own risks, including food poisoning, antibiotic resistance concerns, industrial pollutants and processed meat’s link with cancer. But nuance does not generate the same clicks as “veganism is dead”.
The market argument is just as selective. The article points to restaurant closures, declining premium brands and Beyond Meat’s falling share price as proof that veganism has collapsed. This is like declaring coffee dead because one expensive café shut down. The reality is more boring for anti-vegans. The market is changing. Some expensive branded products are struggling. Some restaurants overexpanded. Some novelty has worn off. At the same time, own-brand plant-based products, tofu, tempeh, seitan, falafel and cheaper everyday options are growing. That does not look like death. It looks like a market maturing.
People are not necessarily buying the £5.50 celebrity-backed burger anymore. They may be buying tofu, beans and supermarket own-brand mince instead. That is not the collapse of plant-based eating. That is people adapting during a cost-of-living crisis.
The environmental section is even weaker. The article quotes Joseph Poore to suggest some air-freighted fruit and vegetables can have a higher footprint per kilogram than poultry. This is technically possible and wildly misleading as a general argument. Poore’s wider research is famous because it found avoiding animal foods is one of the most effective ways to reduce environmental impact.
And yes, almonds use water. Everyone knows. This line has been dragged around for years as if cow’s milk does not exist. Cow’s milk uses far more water than plant milks, while also using more land, producing more greenhouse gases and causing more pollution. The almond milk talking point survives because people want one thirsty, and optional, crop to cancel out an entire system of animal exploitation. It does not.
Then we get the predictable eating disorder angle. Some people use dietary labels to restrict food. That is serious. It deserves care, not lazy weaponisation. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, British Dietetic Association and BEAT have made clear that vegetarianism and veganism should not be treated as causes of eating disorders. Sometimes a person with an eating disorder may adopt a label to hide part of the illness. That is not the same as veganism causing the illness. Again, the distinction is obvious unless your whole article depends on blurring it.
The strangest part is the guilt complaint. Apparently vegans are “very good at making you feel guilty”. Maybe. Or maybe guilt is what happens when someone points out that animals are being used, confined, killed and sold as products, and the defence is “but I like cheese”. That is not vegan manipulation. That is cognitive dissonance knocking on the door.
The Daily Mail frames veganism as fringe, extreme and politically loaded. But if veganism is so dead, why does it still need killing in print every few months? Why are anti-vegan influencers building platforms around cooking steak to spite strangers? Why are people still so emotionally invested in proving they are not affected by a movement they claim has failed?
Dead movements do not need constant hit pieces.
What is really happening is simpler. Veganism has been dragged into the culture war because it challenges entitlement. It says animals are not resources. It says tradition is not consent. It says taste is not a moral argument. It says the question is not whether exploitation can be made cheaper, trendier or less embarrassing, but whether we have the right to use someone else’s body at all. That is why the backlash is so loud.
Not because veganism is dead.
Because it is still a threat.