Veganism: The Dark Side Of Humanity

We humans sometimes (or most of the time) behave so irrationally that absurd realism becomes our new reality. And since that absurdity is considered the new normal, even the most sensible and humane aspects of our lives can come across as abnormal. One of those “abnormalities” is our diet – namely, a vegan diet.

What should be perceived as the most beautiful way to coexist on this planet (emphasis on coexistence with every other life) is often frowned upon or at best ridiculed. Those standing on the other side, throwing stones at vegans, will offer a plethora of reasons for their behavior. Reasoning with them is a futile exercise simply because they’re not holding reason in their hands, but stones filled with limited subjective experiences, derogatory commentary, and shortsightedness.

This is why I am not going to try to persuade or win anyone over, since it is absurd in their minds anyway. Instead, we are going to examine another dark side of humanity – the one that is dark for (hopefully) most of us. But first, let’s leave a factual reminder, because there is always a slight possibility for transformation. Small, yes – but it is still there.

Clear, evidence-based facts (meaning you may not like them but cannot disprove them) for why a vegan diet is most suitable for human beings:

• Biology & Anatomy:

• • Teeth and Jaw Structure: unlike carnivores with sharp canines whose jaws move only up and down, herbivores have flat molars and jaws that move side to side for chewing. (Right now, you’re probably moving your lower jaw left and right to test it.)
  • Digestive Tract: human intestines are longer than those of carnivores but shorter than those of ruminants, adapted for plant-rich diets.
  • Stomach Acidity: humans have moderately acidic stomachs (pH ~1.5–3.5), enough to digest cooked meat, but we are not equipped for raw meat-heavy diets like carnivores.
  • Enzymes: humans produce amylase in saliva to digest starch – a herbivore trait.
  • Evolutionary Perspective: our physiology favors mostly plant-based foods.

• Health:

• • Lower risk of major diseases (heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers – especially colorectal cancer, obesity).
  • Better weight management: on average, vegans tend to have lower BMI and body fat due to higher fiber intake, lower saturated fat, and more nutrient-dense foods.
  • Lower inflammation: plant foods are rich in antioxidants and phytonutrients, which help reduce systemic inflammation.
  • Longer lifespan: populations that eat mostly plant-based diets often live longer (e.g., “Blue Zones”).

• Ethics:

• • Reduces animal suffering. Modern animal agriculture involves confinement, separation of babies from mothers, slaughter, and painful procedures (debeaking, tail docking, etc.).
  • Each vegan saves lives yearly: more than 100 animals per person are spared annually by not buying animal products

• Environment:

• • Climate: animal agriculture is a top contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, ocean dead zones, and species extinction. Switching to a vegan diet reduces your food-related carbon footprint by up to 73%.
  • Saves massive amounts of land: contrary to a common myth among meat-eaters, raising animals requires enormous farmland and feed crops, whereas plant-based diets use far less land and allow reforestation and biodiversity to recover.
  • Saves water: vegan diets use drastically less water. For example, producing 1 kg of:

• • • Beef uses ~15,000 liters of water
    • Beans use ~1,000 liters
    • Potatoes use ~250 liters.

• Science & Practicality:

• • Human nutritional needs can be met entirely from plants. All essential nutrients can be obtained from plants, plus B12, which is supplemented (even farm animals receive B12 supplements).
  • It’s more efficient: feeding crops to cows, pigs, and chickens wastes energy, protein, water, and calories. It takes about 10 calories of crops to produce 1 calorie of meat.

• Personal:

• • Vegan diets can be delicious and varied. With global cuisines, spices, plant milks, mock meats, and whole foods, vegan eating is more accessible than ever. There’s a saying: Once you go Indian, you never go back. (Okay, I made that up, but once you taste any Indian dish, you’ll know what I mean.)

• Emotional:

• • Many people do not want to hurt animals. They may have a dog or a cat at home (or both), yet order a burger and eat it in front of their pets. Veganism aligns your actions with your values. In other words, when your behavior matches your beliefs, the hypocrisy disappears.

One counter-argument often brought up is that fruits and vegetables also suffer when you eat them. In Yoga, we observe everything as one – that is the very meaning of the word (“unity”). Everything comes from the same source, and the same universal energy throbs in every animate and inanimate thing in nature. In that sense, there is no discrimination between a rock (not the one thrown at vegans, though), a plant, or a cow. However, the level of intelligence in each is different. Although trees and flowers have feelings according to yogic tradition, even modern science tells us that their genetics, complexity, and intelligence are fundamentally different from those of animals—especially from a behavioral standpoint.

Nevertheless, Yoga teaches us to approach every form of life with the utmost respect, especially those that give their own life to sustain ours. This is why expressing gratitude to food before eating it is a central part of a vegan lifestyle. Everything in this material world is a transaction. You cannot live without taking life from someone or something, and vegans are no exception—so it’s not all sunshine and roses. Thus, welcome to the dark side. I mean the carnivore dark side, since we’ve already exposed the notorious herbivore dark side.

When people ask me, “Why are you vegan?” I often respond with a question, “Why don’t you eat human flesh?” They usually fall silent for a moment, waiting for me to crack a joke, but I repeat, “Seriously, why don’t you eat human meat?”

For a meat-loving person, it would be the most reasonable thing to do: eat another human body, because it has all the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients your body needs. Human anatomy is also very similar to that of a pig, and since you enjoy eating pork so much, chances are you’d enjoy eating a fellow human too, right? Pigs in particular are so similar to us that their organs and tissues are used in human transplantation, a field called xenotransplantation (heart valves, skin grafts, cornea transplants, etc.).

Before jumping down my throat, please take a minute to think about it. Around 150,000 people die every day, and all that meat goes to waste. On one hand, it would save countless animal lives; on the other hand, these people would die anyway – they (mostly) don’t have a choice, unlike animals who are killed. So why not kill two birds with one stone (ah, again with the stone and bird killing), but you get the point. Throughout human history there has always been cannibalism in some parts of the world. Maybe not so much today (hopefully not at all), but a few centuries ago you could easily get served on a plate after taking a wrong turn in a jungle or some other remote place. What separates a modern meat-eater from them?

Or maybe we should ask: is there any distinction between them at all? Yes, there is. There is that inner voice that tells you killing and eating another human being is simply wrong. There is a certain level of awareness in you that draws the line somewhere and doesn’t let you cross it. That level of consciousness is probably the result of your childhood, upbringing, education, observation and reflection, discussion and debate, and the practice of moral habits. Remove all of that, and you’d be removing skin from human bone in no time.

In that regard, we can see there are different levels of awareness and consciousness in people, which place them into different categories accordingly. The biggest mistake modern society has made is that it stopped evolving consciousness once their category became the norm. Just as cannibals don’t see anything wrong in chewing on a juicy human liver, meat-eaters apply the same logic based on their level of understanding. But to meat-eaters, there’s a clear distinction between the two.

Just as there is a clear distinction between vegans and meat-eaters. One whose level of perception continued to expand and evolve sees it; the other calls it crazy. And that’s the catch: once our body and brain finish developing in adulthood, our perception stops at that level, and without any conscious effort it cannot progress further. No matter how hard you try to explain it to the other side, they simply won’t see it. To them, you’re on the dark side – but for someone looking with closed eyes, their perception is bound to know only darkness.

And in that darkness, more than 80 billion land animals and between 2 and 4 trillion fish and sea animals are killed every year. Yet they still don’t see it, blessed by the darkness.

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