Their body isn’t yours to enjoy

It’s probably the most common excuse in the book: “I could never go vegan - I just love the taste too much.” As if tastebuds are some divine moral compass.

But let’s be honest: many people used to love the taste. I did too. That’s not the point.

The question isn’t whether you enjoy bacon. The question is whether your taste preference is more important than someone else’s life. Because that’s the deal: fifteen minutes of flavour in exchange for a lifetime stolen. Would you apply that logic to a dog? A dolphin? A child? No? Then why does it magically work when the victim is a pig or a chicken?

Your tongue isn’t an ethical argument.

We require more than sensory pleasure to justify something morally. If someone in another country said, “I just love the taste of dog meat,” would you accept that as a good reason to kill dogs? No? Then you’ve already agreed that taste isn’t a defence - it’s just an excuse. And a lazy one at that.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you use taste to justify killing some animals, you have to use it to justify killing any animal. Cats. Whales. Pandas. Golden retrievers. You’ve built a moral system where pleasure justifies slaughter. Good luck sleeping with that one.

Meanwhile, the only thing standing between you and a world where you stop treating sentient beings like flavour sachets is… buying a different product. That’s it. You swap cheese for vegan cheese. You buy oat milk instead of cow breastmilk. It’s not some heroic sacrifice. You’re not storming Normandy. You’re picking the plant-based option in Tesco.

And for that minor inconvenience - a different choice in the supermarket - you’re sparing someone the terror of transport trucks, gas chambers, throat slitting, and electrocution baths. Does that still sound like a fair trade? A cheese toastie for a life?

We always say, “I couldn’t hurt an animal.” Then we pay someone else to do it for us because we like the result on our plate. That’s the entire justification: taste. Not survival. Not necessity. Not lack of access. Just taste.

Let’s stop pretending this is a complex ethical dilemma. It’s not. You just enjoy how they taste, and you’re not ready to let that go. But here’s the kicker: you don’t even have to.

Going vegan doesn’t mean giving up flavour, texture, comfort food or guilty pleasures. It just means your meals stop being graveyards.

I still eat pizza. Spaghetti bolognese. Lasagna. Roast dinners. Burgers. Hot dogs. You name it. The difference? Nobody had to die for it.

You can have all the flavour and none of the blood. And it’s never been easier. Supermarkets are packed with plant-based alternatives. Restaurants have dedicated vegan menus. You can Google how to veganise literally any dish. You could veganise your nan’s shepherd’s pie if you really wanted to.

Yet people cling to this idea that vegan food is boring and bland, as if they’ve only ever eaten raw tofu and wilted lettuce. Spoiler alert: tofu is delicious when you know what you’re doing with it. But even if vegan food were bland, that wouldn’t justify slicing someone’s throat open.

Because here’s what the anti-vegan “flavour” argument boils down to: “I wouldn’t murder someone, but I’d hire someone else to do it if it meant I could eat something I enjoy.”

If that logic makes you squirm, good. It should. Now apply it to the animals being used, abused, and executed because you “could never give up cheese.”

They are individuals. They feel fear. They experience pain. They want to live. They are not commodities. They are not ingredients. They are not here for us.

We always say, “Animals can’t speak for themselves.” But the truth is: they do. They cry out. They tremble. They run. They resist. We’re just too busy chewing to listen.

So here’s the final test: put yourself in their place. Imagine it’s you in the farm, in the truck, in the kill room. Would “they like the taste” justify your death?

No?

Then stop using that excuse to justify theirs.