"But Lions Eat Meat!": A Field Guide to Debunking the Most Tired Anti-Vegan Arguments

It’s a bright and peaceful Sunday morning here in Helsinki. It’s a time for a quiet coffee, a reflective stroll, and a pleasant, low-stakes conversation. Unless, of course, you happen to mention that you are a vegan. As an investigator of human social dynamics, I find this phenomenon absolutely fascinating. A person can announce they are training for a marathon, or that they’ve taken up artisanal pottery, and people will nod politely. But if you mention you don't eat animal products, certain people will instantly transform from a normal acquaintance into a fierce, debate-team captain who is also a self-proclaimed expert in anthropology, biology, and ethics.

Suddenly, you are no longer just having a conversation; you are in a strange, impromptu trial where you must defend your entire existence against a series of bafflingly predictable arguments. They come up so often, with such clockwork regularity, that I’ve come to see them not as arguments, but as a collection of strange, mythical beasts that emerge from the fog whenever a lentil is present.

So, I decided to do what any good investigator would do: I created a bestiary. A field guide. This is an exhaustive, deeply researched, and hopefully very funny manual for identifying, understanding, and dealing with the most common and tired anti-vegan arguments. 🧐

A Bestiary of Bad Arguments: Why This Keeps Happening

Before we get to the specific creatures, I think it’s important to understand the environment they come from. Why do people who have never spent a single second thinking about nutritional biochemistry suddenly become experts when they meet a vegan? My investigation points to two powerful psychological phenomena.

1. Cognitive Dissonance: This is the uncomfortable mental state of holding two conflicting beliefs at once. Most people genuinely like animals and believe that causing unnecessary suffering is wrong. At the same time, they eat meat, a product that requires animal suffering and death. A vegan’s mere presence highlights this contradiction, and the brain, in an attempt to resolve the discomfort, will lash out with arguments to justify its own behavior.

2. Carnism: This is a term coined by psychologist Dr. Melanie Joy to describe the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals. It’s the ideology that makes us see a cow as food, a dog as a friend, and a rat as a pest, without ever questioning why.

In my investigation, I’ve found that these anti-vegan arguments are like the low-level bandits you encounter on the roads in Skyrim. They are not very smart, they all use the same three or four lines of dialogue ("Never should have come here!"), and they are incredibly predictable. This guide is your strategy manual for dealing with them. ⚔️

The Field Guide: A Creature-by-Creature Analysis

Let's get to the creatures themselves. Here are the most common beasts you will encounter in the wild.

Creature #1: The Lion (Scientific Name: Argumentum ad Naturam)

This is the king of the beasts, the most famous and most absurd of all the arguments.

• Habitat: Family barbecues, the comments section of any vegan recipe.

• Attack Pattern: "But lions eat meat! Are you saying a lion is unethical? It's the circle of life." 🦁

• Weak Point: This argument is a textbook example of the Appeal to Nature Fallacy, the mistaken belief that because something is "natural," it is therefore morally good.

• Investigator's Debunk: This line of reasoning is a logical minefield. I have compiled a short list of other things that lions and other animals do in nature that we, as civilized humans, have decided not to use as a model for our own behavior:

  • They often kill the offspring of their rivals.

  • They rarely, if ever, use indoor plumbing.

  • They lick their own genitals in public with a startling lack of shame. 👅

  • They do not, as a rule, get their children vaccinated.

  • They eat their food raw, often while it is still screaming.

    The truth is, we are not lions. Lions are obligate carnivores; they will die if they do not eat meat. Humans are omnivores who can thrive on a plant-based diet. We make thousands of moral choices every day that are completely "unnatural." Appealing to the law of the jungle is a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about the choices we have in a civilized society.

Creature #2: The Caveman (Scientific Name: Argumentum ad Antiquitatem)

This is a close cousin of the Lion, but with more grunting.

• Habitat: Often found near the grill, wielded by men who are very proud of their ability to cook meat over a fire.

• Attack Pattern: "But our ancestors ate meat! We have canine teeth! It’s what made our brains grow big!" 🥩

• Weak Point: This is the Appeal to Tradition Fallacy, the idea that because something has been done for a long time, it is right.

• Investigator's Debunk: Yes, our ancestors did eat meat. They also lived in caves, had a life expectancy of about 30, and probably didn't have great wifi. We have evolved past many of our ancestral habits for very good reasons.

  • The "Canine Teeth" Argument: This one is my favorite. I encourage you to go to a mirror, smile, and look at your "canine" teeth. Now, Google a picture of the canine teeth of a gorilla (a herbivore) or a hippo (also a herbivore). Their canines are terrifying daggers. Ours are tiny, pathetic little bumps, perfectly suited for biting into an apple. Our flat molars and long digestive tracts are far more similar to other herbivores than to true carnivores.

  • The Brain Argument: The theory that meat-eating led to our big brains is just one theory. An equally, if not more, compelling theory is that it was the discovery of fire and the ability to cook starchy carbohydrates (like tubers) that provided the easily accessible glucose needed to fuel our energy-hungry brains.

Creature #3: The Desert Island Dweller (Scientific Name: Reductio ad Absurdum)

This is a classic. It’s a hypothetical designed to back you into a logical corner.

• Habitat: Usually deployed by someone who fancies themselves a clever philosopher.

• Attack Pattern: "Okay, fine. But what if you were stranded on a desert island, and the only thing to eat was a pig? Would you eat the pig then? Checkmate!" 🐷🏝️

• Weak Point: This argument is an irrelevant hypothetical. It has absolutely no bearing on the choices we make in our real, day-to-day lives.

• Investigator's Debunk: My research has concluded that this is a profoundly silly question. I am not on a desert island. I am in a supermarket with a dozen different kinds of beans, a wall of vegetables, and at least six different brands of oat milk. My ethical choices are based on the reality of the world I actually live in, a world of abundant choice. Asking me what I would do in a bizarre, life-or-death survival scenario is not a serious ethical challenge; it's a boring thought experiment. My preferred response is to ask a series of clarifying questions. "How did the pig get on the island? What is the pig eating to survive? And if there's enough vegetation for the pig to live on, why can't I just eat that?"

Creature #4: The Screaming Carrot (Scientific Name: Tu Quoque Fallacy)

This is an attempt to deflect from the issue of animal suffering by claiming that plants suffer too.

• Habitat: The last resort of someone who has lost the argument on all other fronts.

• Attack Pattern: "But plants feel pain too! Studies show they react to stimuli! What about the silent screams of the carrots?" 🥕😱

• Weak Point: This argument relies on a false equivalence and a misunderstanding of biology.

• Investigator's Debunk: As I've explored in other investigations, plants are amazing organisms. They can react to light, gravity, and touch. But they do not have brains, central nervous systems, or pain receptors. They lack any of the biological hardware required to have a subjective experience of "pain" or "suffering." A plant reacting to being cut is a biological reaction; an animal screaming in pain is a subjective experience of terror. To equate the two is a profound failure of the imagination. Furthermore, even if you were deeply concerned about the suffering of plants, a vegan diet is still the answer. The vast majority of crops grown worldwide are used to feed livestock. An omnivorous diet is responsible for orders of magnitude more "plant deaths" than a vegan one.

Advanced Tactics: How to Win by Not Fighting

My investigation revealed that having all the facts and logical rebuttals is only half the battle. The other half is strategy. How do you actually deploy this information without becoming the preachy, annoying vegan stereotype?

• The Art of the Disarming Joke: Humor is your greatest weapon. When someone asks about the desert island, don't lecture them; make a joke. "I'd befriend the pig and we'd work together to build a raft. His name would be Wilbur." 😂

• The "I Don't Know" Power Move: You don't have to be a walking encyclopedia. If someone asks a specific nutritional question you don't know the answer to, it's incredibly powerful to just say, "That's a great question. I'm not sure about the specific numbers on that, but I can look it up." It shows honesty and humility.

• The Graceful Exit: The most important skill is learning to recognize when a conversation is not being had in good faith. Some people don't want to learn; they just want to fight. In these cases, you are not obligated to be their verbal punching bag. A simple, "You know, we probably see the world differently on this, and I don't think we're going to solve it over this bowl of nuts. How about we just agree to disagree?" is a perfectly valid way to end the conversation.

Questions from the Internet

Questions from the Internet: "Why does my choice to be vegan bother other people so much?"

This is the psychological heart of the matter. My investigation concludes it’s because a vegan’s choice is never just about them. Food is deeply social and cultural. By simply ordering the bean burrito, a vegan is implicitly holding up a mirror to the choices of everyone else at the table. It forces a moment of confrontation with that cognitive dissonance I mentioned earlier. It makes people subconsciously question their own habits, and that can feel uncomfortable. The arguments are often not really about you; they are about them, an external projection of an internal conflict.

Questions from the Internet: "What is a good comeback for the 'lions eat meat' argument?"

Ah, the big one. I have compiled a tiered list of responses for you to choose from, based on your mood.

• The Scientific: "Lions are obligate carnivores with a completely different digestive system. We are omnivores with the ability to choose."

• The Philosophical: "We don't base our morality on the actions of wild animals in any other area of our lives. Why should we start with diet?"

• The Absurd: "Lions also don't pay taxes, they contribute nothing to their retirement accounts, and their personal hygiene is appalling. They are not my role models." 🤣

Internal Link Break!

The entire foundation for these debates, and the reason vegans have to answer them in the first place, rests on a very specific ethical philosophy. To arm yourself with the actual arguments for the cause, which is always the best defense, you need to read my deep dive: [What Is Ethical Veganism?]

The Conclusion: It's Not a Debate, It's a Distraction

So, after this tour through the weird and wonderful world of anti-vegan arguments, what is my final conclusion?

I have concluded that these arguments are not, for the most part, serious attempts at a logical debate. They are distractions. They are a collection of well-worn, thought-terminating clichés designed to shut down a conversation and relieve the speaker's own cognitive dissonance. They are the human brain's desperate attempt to say, "Please don't make me think about this."

Your job, as a person navigating these conversations, is not necessarily to "win" every single argument. It is to be prepared, to be confident in your own choices, and, most importantly, to learn to recognize when a conversation is a genuine search for understanding versus when it’s just a game of pointless verbal chess. And sometimes, the most powerful move you can make is to simply refuse to play. ✅

Of course, sometimes the hardest arguments are the ones you have with yourself, like when you're trying to figure out if you're being "vegan enough." I investigated that feeling right here: [The Vegan Imposter Syndrome: Are You 'Vegan Enough' For the Internet?].

Sources

• Joy, M. (2009). Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. Conari Press. (The foundational text on the psychology of eating meat).

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Logical Fallacies. (For definitions of fallacies like Appeal to Nature).

• The Vegan Society. Responses to common arguments against veganism. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/common-arguments

• Singer, P. (1975). Animal Liberation. HarperCollins. (The foundational text of the modern animal rights movement, which addresses many of these arguments).

• The Vegan RD (Ginny Messina, MPH, RD). (Her blog frequently addresses and debunks anti-vegan arguments with scientific rigor). https://www.theveganrd.com/

• Our World in Data. Humans have been eating meat for a long time, but we're now eating more than ever. https://ourworldindata.org/meat-eating-history (For context on the "caveman" argument).

• National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The role of diet in brain evolution. (For scientific papers on the "big brain" argument).