The Psychological Effects and Motivations Associated with Following a Veg*an Diet

Researcher Network member, Michael Daw, explores the possible effects that a veg*an diet may have on our sense of wellbeing and spiritual connection.

Does following a vegan diet result in better mental health? Whilst this factor isn’t often cited as a primary motivation to change one’s diet, some studies have shown that being vegan or vegetarian may lead to positive psychological effects such as a feeling of empowerment and liberation¹; and a survey comparing those who follow different types of what the authors term ‘restrictive diets’ found that vegans “tended to have somewhat better psychological health than other groups … [and] less stress”².

However, other studies have noted less welcome effects associated with vegan or vegetarian diets. These include strained interpersonal relationships such as those reported by Rosenfeld³, who writes that “vegetarians report backlash from family and friends after revealing their dietary change, anxiety about sharing their dietary preferences with others, constant questioning about their lifestyle, teasing and mocking, stereotyping, [and] everyday acts of discrimination”. Other negative impacts on well-being are the feelings of despair sometimes associated with living in a world that does not share one’s vegan values. The psychologist Clare Mann has termed this as ‘vystopia’, and defines it as “the existential crisis experienced by vegans, arising out of an awareness of the trance-like collusion with a dystopian world and the awareness of the greed, ubiquitous animal exploitation, and speciesism in a modern dystopia”⁴.

Late in 2021, I conducted a survey to examine how self-reported spiritual and paranormal experiences and abilities may be associated with diet and dietary practices. I’ll give a brief taster of my findings concerning such anomalous experiences and veganism at the end of this article; however, my main focus here is on the psychological effects and motivations for veg*anism.

I reached out for participants through thirteen specialist veg*an Facebook groups, with names such as Leeds Vegans & Vegetarians, Vegan Brighton, and Animal Lives Matter. 804 people responded to my survey (633 vegans; 171 vegetarians). My online questionnaire included items related to meat and dairy consumption, as well as other dietary factors such as the consumption of wholefoods and alcohol, and whether participants engage in fasting. Although not central to my PhD research, I took the opportunity to ask whether participants experience any particular psychological, emotional and/or spiritual effects that they felt might be related to their diet. Just under a third of vegans (n=205) and just under a fifth of vegetarians (n=30) reported that they did indeed feel some effect. I conducted a content analysis of responses from these individuals resulting in the six substantive categories shown in Table 1.

The largest category, almost half of responses, comprise those who report enhanced mental health or who feel generally positive psychological associations from their diet, such as:

• I have depression and anxiety which I think my diet helps manage.
• [I] feel happier in mood and sleep better.
• I feel 'better' about myself by eating this diet and feel proud of myself.

Another three percent report increased mental clarity from their diet, for example, “After my first month of being vegan I felt more aware. As if my brain was working better”.

The second largest group, almost a fifth, are those who report increased empathy with other human and non-human animals and/or a feeling of enhanced connectedness from their diet. For example:

• I feel it has heightened my connection with other species.
• I feel more at one with Gaia.
• I feel much more empathy towards others now (all living beings).

Whilst these effects from veg*anism can be seen as largely positive, just over a sixth of responses cite feelings that might be classed as vystopia; indeed some respondents quote precisely this term showing that it has some currency within veg*an communities. Examples of such disquieting emotions include:

• The suffering of animals bred to be killed is always in my mind and it hangs heavily in my heart.
• Emotionally, it [being vegan] took a real strain on my mental health opening my eyes to all the cruelty constantly surrounding me.
• It's hard to accept friends and family don't have the same ethical standards as you do.

Over one in ten responses (twelve percent) report enhanced spiritual and/or paranormal effects, such as:

• Switching to a vegan diet has helped my spiritual awakening process.
• I feel 'clearer' and more open to spiritual experiences than I was before. I feel more grounded and often 'intuitively predict' things.
• I believe this [diet] has increased my … extra sensory perception.

Possibly related to these are a further small number of responses (three percent) who avoid meat and dairy because of the fear and trauma that they suggest remains within these products and is ingested by those who eat them, typified by the following respondent who said that they felt “free from the fear and suffering that is present in the animal’s flesh when it’s slaughtered. That fear and suffering is transferred to us when we eat the flesh”.

Along with reported psychological effects, I also included an open-ended item in my survey about the reasons why participants adopt veg*an diets. I again conducted a content analysis and found that the overwhelming majority of responses tended to belong to one (or more) of three categories: animal welfare concerns (cited by over four-fifths), environmental concerns (almost a third), and matters related to personal health (a quarter). (See Table 2.) A greater proportion of vegans than vegetarians cited animal welfare as their motivation for following a veg*an diet (87 and 72% respectively). The proportions for other reasons were similar across the two groups. These findings broadly echo previous surveys, which have also reported that most motivations for veg*anism tend to be those related to animal welfare, environmentalism, and personal health, albeit in varying proportions, with much smaller numbers citing matters of taste or revulsion, and religious or spiritual reasons^{5, 6}.

In summary, most veg*ans in my survey report largely positive psychological effects from their diet, including enhanced mental health, mental clarity, an increased empathy and connectivity with the world, and positive spiritual and/or paranormal effects. However, a significant minority of responses (largely vegans rather than vegetarians) report a sense of vystopia associated with their diet.

As to the almost one-sixth who report spiritual and/or paranormal effects, including those who suggest that an animal’s fear is transferred into meat and dairy, these responses are more directly related to my PhD project, which is looking at the relationship between dietary practices and ‘psi’, the academic term for so-called paranormal or psychic experiences and abilities, defined on the Psi Encyclopedia. Whilst not the focus for this article, those interested may note that findings from my survey (including a separate sample of those engaged in fasting) showed that reductions in the consumption of both meat and dairy were positively associated with increased reports of spiritual and paranormal experiences and abilities. I hope to present more details of this aspect of my research through future publications and conferences of the Vegan Research Network.

The views expressed by our Research News contributors are not necessarily the views of The Vegan Society.

Table 1.

Psychological, emotional and/or spiritual effects reported from being vegan or vegetarian

Note. n=number of responses. Where more than one effect is reported (a small minority), these are categorised according to which is most prominent. ‘Other’ incorporates responses that are ambiguous or difficult to classify.

Table 2.

Reported reasons for following a vegan or vegetarian diet

Note. n=number of responses. Percentages add up to more than one hundred because many respondents cited more than one reason.

References

1. Simons, J., Vierboom, C., Klink-Lehmann, J., Härlen, I., & Hartmann, M. (2021). Vegetarianism/veganism: A way to feel good. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(7), 1–19.
2. Norwood, R., Cruwys, T., Chachay, V. S., & Sheffield, J. (2019). The psychological characteristics of people consuming vegetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten free and weight loss dietary patterns. Obesity Science and Practice, 5(2), 148–158.
3. Rosenfeld, D. L. (2018). The psychology of vegetarianism: Recent advances and future directions. Appetite, 131, 125–138.
4. Mann, C. (2019). Can the pain of vystopia help to create a more compassionate world? M/C Journal, 22(2).
5. Janssen, M., Busch, C., Rödiger, M., & Hamm, U. (2016). Motives of consumers following a vegan diet and their attitudes towards animal agriculture. Appetite, 105, 643–651.
6. Ruby, M. B. (2012). Vegetarianism. A blossoming field of study. Appetite, 58(1), 141–150.