In her video “What They Don’t Tell You About Going Vegan,” Nisha Vora offers a revealing look at these lesser-known transformations, sharing some of the most important things she wishes she’d known when she made the switch.

Vora, who runs the Rainbow Plant Life YouTube channel, is a Harvard grad and a former corporate lawyer-turned-content creator. She uses her platform to teach people how to cook healthy vegan meals while sharing practical advice for navigating a vegan lifestyle.

This video is an excellent guide for anyone considering veganism or looking to better understand the transition. Watch the video below for all of Vora’s learnings.

People will ask a lot of questions

Vora notes that something that will surprise you when you first go vegan is the reactions you’ll get from people.

“I was not prepared for the amount and frequency of questions I got,” Vora says. From inquiries about protein and assumptions that she’d be eating only salads, to philosophical debates about food ethics, she quickly learned that curiosity – often mixed with skepticism – was inevitable. Developing “stock answers” helped her respond calmly and confidently without draining herself emotionally.

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You’ll grow a thicker skin

Jokes at the expense of vegans are more common than she expected. “Just because you’ve given up eating animals and animal products, you don’t have to lose your sense of humor,” she says.

But there’s a line. When jokes become offensive, especially around animal suffering, Vora doesn’t let them slide. Instead, she advocates for balancing assertiveness with grace.

That said, she also appreciates a good-natured joke. When people say vegans can’t stop talking about being vegan, she laughs and admits: “It’s funny and it’s true. Look at me, I’m vegan and that’s literally all I talk about on this channel.”

Planning becomes second nature

“Since going vegan, I’ve been surprised by how much of a planner I’ve become,” Vora notes. Whether checking restaurant menus ahead of time, calling hosts about parties, or packing snacks for flights, Vora has learned that a little preparation goes a long way. Apps, freezer meals, and homemade snacks help her stay on track. Vora’s go-to travel snacks include trail mix, bananas and nut butter packs, her breakfast cookies, and roasted chickpeas.

The eating gets even better

Vora assumed a vegan diet would be boring, but she was ready to do it for the animals and the planet. Instead, it opened up an entirely new world of flavors. “Without the mentality of ‘I have to have a piece of meat on my plate,’ and then build everything around it, I found that I had so much more flexibility and creativity,” she says. From cauliflower tacos to creamy lentil pastas, her meals became more inventive, and more enjoyable.

Comfort foods are still on the table

Being vegan doesn’t mean abandoning beloved dishes. For example, around Thanksgiving, Vora still enjoys mashed potatoes, cornbread, and mac and cheese. On date-night she still makes mushroom risotto, and when summer rolls around, it’s time for her incredible peach cobbler, just with plant-based swaps. Her comfort food recipes remain a favorite among her audience, proving that ethical eating can still be indulgent.

You can find more plant-based lifestyle tips and recipes on the Rainbow Plant Life YouTube channel.

Read more: Budget-Friendly Vegan Meal Prep Ideas – Under $10 Per Day

This article was written by Editorial Team on the PBN Website.

Read more: Compulsory Meat In Schools Should Be Scrapped, Says Dale Vince

In collaboration with The Vegan Society, Jigsaw Education Group created a comprehensive set of resources on ethical veganism to add to its existing Religion and Worldviews programme. It provides teachers with well-researched materials with which to teach students about ethical veganism as “a recognized and respected worldview within the curriculum,” according to the Vegan Society.

The resources are available on Jigsaw’s education platform. They will give students the opportunity to explore veganism “as a compassionate worldview that encourages respect for all living beings and our environment.”

The launch of the new materials comes in the wake of the change of teaching Religious Education (RE) in schools to Religion and Worldviews (RW). RW is intended to be more inclusive and diverse. “Seeing Jigsaw embrace Ethical Veganism as a Worldview topic is spectacular,” Laura Chepner, Education Officer at The Vegan Society who advised on the materials, said in a statement. “I’m impressed with the care they’ve put into creating these Vegan Society-approved resources, and it warms my heart to know that thousands of educators can now teach the subject confidently and with ease.”

Veganism in schools

The number of vegans in the UK is growing, including among children. A survey in 2021 found that eight percent of children aged five to 16 were already vegan, and 15 percent would like to be in future. As a result, a number of initiatives are aiming to encourage schools to be more inclusive.

Read more: US School Children Get More Access To Healthy Plant-Based Foods Under New Rules

Veganism in Education (VinE) and Vegan Inclusive Education both provide materials for teachers trying to encourage compassion in students along with knowledge for making healthy, ethical, and sustainable choices. More schools in the UK are increasing plant-based options in their catering, and there’s even a school in Sussex that has gone entirely vegan.

Under the Equalities Act 2010, schools also have a legal obligation to support vegan pupils. They must do this by offering vegan food, addressing bullying, and making the school environment inclusive.

Read more: Scottish Meat Industry Launches ‘Meat Vouchers’ For Schools

This article was written by Claire Hamlett on the PBN Website.

Daryl Booth, founder of Sarx, the Christian animal charity behind the videos, told Plant Based News (PBN) that “connecting mainstream Christian culture and animals can sometimes feel like fitting a square peg in a round hole.” The “Vegan Vicars” series aims to address that disconnect and open Christian eyes to the foundations of veganism already in scripture.

Through the interviews, the series explores humanity’s attitude to animals. The vegan vicars discuss passages from the Bible that have helped them on their journey to veganism. Animals are created by God and are therefore due “reverence and respect,” says The Revd Terry Martin. “I think God would weep if He were to go to a factory farm.”

“Whilst the vast majority of Christians love animals and have a passionate concern for their wellbeing, animals are rarely thought of as a faith issue to be addressed in our churches,” Booth told PBN. “This unique video series aims to bridge this gap between faith and animals. The vegan vicars we interviewed from across the UK show how a growing number of Christian leaders have strong faith-based reasons for embracing veganism.”

“A creature cannot praise God from your plate”

Compassion is a recurring theme that the vicars bring up. The word’s Latin root means to “suffer with.” Vegans empathize with suffering animals and try to speak up to protect them from harm. “Christian animal concern goes back a very, very long way,” The Revd Dr Jan Goodair notes in the opening episode.

Dr Goodair discusses animal suffering in relation to the Christian concept of stewardship. Christians believe that humanity has a duty to look after the world and all of its life forms. “I don’t see how we can convince ourselves that intensive farming is in any sense responsible stewardship,” she says.

Booth told PBN that Sarx is trying to make Christians “recognize animal issues as prime faith issues“. Christians should not “walk by whilst millions of God’s creatures suffering in the hellish conditions of factory farms.”

The Revd Canon Dr Paul Overend agrees. “Are we as human beings being compassionate?” he asks. “Are we expressing God’s love, God’s care for His creation?”. The rise of factory farming and ever more intensive agricultural practices have increased the suffering of animals. They have also taken us further away from God, the vicars explain.

“Our fellow creatures were made to praise God,” says The Revd John Ryder. “A creature cannot praise God from your plate.”

Compassion for fellow human beings

It is not only animals suffering directly in farms that we should feel compassion for. The vegan vicars discuss the impacts of animal agriculture on the natural world. Animal agriculture is responsible for at least 16.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. They also emphasize how the meat industry impacts the poorest people on the planet.

Indeed, the climate crisis disproportionately impacts the poorest communities in the world. As such, animal farming is a major cause of environmental racism. “We could, without animal agriculture, free up land the equivalent of the land mass of Africa,” says The Revd Edward Owen. “We would need less than 25 percent of that to feed the whole population of the world.”

The vicars also lament the suffering of slaughterhouse workers. In the UK, most slaughterhouse workers are migrants and work in terrible conditions in extremely difficult jobs. “Even if we can’t evolve our consciences around animals, at the very least we should have a conscience about our fellow human beings,” says The Revd Jae Chandler. Slaughterhouse workers are “suffering mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, as a result of our obsession with eating meat.”

Why do more people not see all this suffering? Meat industry propaganda is a key part of the story. “All the money that’s spent on adverts having us believe that lambs skip joyfully to the slaughterhouse is just a massive lie,” says the Revd Terry Martin.

Should Christians go vegan?

The series presents many compelling reasons why Christians should consider transitioning towards a vegan lifestyle.

Booth told PBN: “Living and eating without recourse to harming animals is a principle quality of God’s original intentions for humanity.” He points to Genesis 1:27, in which God makes humanity in His own image. “In the very next verse, humanity is granted dominion,” Booth says. Then, “a peaceable diet is prescribed in 1:29.” In the passage, God proclaims: “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”

Furthermore, Booth encourages Christians to pay careful attention to other passages in the Bible. “Jesus points to the birds and tells they are all embraced within the love of God (Matthew 10:29-31) and uses the metaphor of a mother hen to illustrate the love of God (Luke 13:34). If Jesus has such a high regard for such animals, God surely must grieve the appalling suffering animals endure within our food systems.”

As more people wake up to the harms of animal agriculture, Christianity must align itself with these true values the Bible teaches, the vicars suggest. Some of the Church’s official messaging on social justice “disenfranchizes a whole number of people who are trying to find a spiritual framework for their lives,” the Revd Canon Dr Paul Overend warns.

On a personal level, the vicars point to newfound “inner peace” after going vegan, alongside health and environmental benefits. Since going vegan, “I am walking the walk and not just talking the talk about God’s care for creation,” says the Revd Dr Jan Goodair.

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This article was written by Daniel Clark on the PBN Website.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario made the “surprising and troubling decision” to rule against Adam Knauff. Knauff argued that ethical veganism counts as a non-religious “creed” – a set of beliefs protected under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal agreed that a creed could be a non-religious belief system. But it decided that ethical veganism didn’t satisfy all the criteria for what constitutes a creed. Knauff and his lawyers will seek review of the decision. 

“This case is important, not just for ethical vegans, but for the ground of creed and the protections that will be afforded to other, important belief systems that are not directly connected to religion,” Wade Poziomka, Knauff’s lawyer, said in a statement. 

Discriminatory treatment

Knauff, a veteran of Ontario’s provincial forest firefighting force, has been vegan for over 25 years. In 2017, he was working long hours in tough conditions fighting wildfires in British Columbia. According to non-profit Animal Justice, which campaigns for stronger animal laws, Knauff’s employer failed to provide appropriate vegan meals for him at the basecamp where he was stationed.

He was often served meals containing animal products, or nutritionally inadequate meals containing no source of protein. Sometimes no food was provided for him at all.

Despite repeated attempts to work with management to improve the situation, nothing changed. 

After Knauff was disciplined and suspended without pay after expressing his frustration, he sued his employer.

A nonsensical decision

Tribunal adjudicator Karen Dawson said that ethical veganism satisfied the first two criteria of a creed. These are that it is “sincerely, freely and deeply held” and is “integrally linked to a person’s identity, self-definition and fulfilment.” 

But she decided the evidence presented by Knauff’s team didn’t meet the third criterion. It “failed to demonstrate how ethical veganism addresses the existence or non-existence of another order of existence and/or a Creator,” she said.

Rejecting Knauff’s case on these grounds “makes no sense,” Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, told Plant Based News (PBN).

“The criterion doesn’t require a deity or higher order,” she explained. “It merely says ethical veganism should address whether a Creator or higher order does exist.” She said it does this “by not having a deity,” the same as religious belief systems like Buddhism. 

Dawson’s decision “seems to imply that a Creator is required but this simply can’t be the case,” said Labchuk, “otherwise non-religious belief systems would require a deity but religious ones would not, which makes no sense.”

The decision is also unexpected because Canada’s human rights laws protect vegans from discrimination for reasons other than for the sake of animals. “A person who was vegan because of a meat an dairy allergy would be covered,” said Labchuk. So would someone “who is vegan for religious reasons” such as being Buddhist or Hare Krishna.

Anti-vegan discrimination

Animal Justice regularly has vegans asking for help because they have been discriminated against. Labchuk said recent cases include a hospital failing to provide appropriate food to a patient and a daycare that wouldn’t accommodate a vegan child. This was in spite of the daycare willingly accommodating allergies and religious dietary requirements.

But Labchuk believes things are improving for vegans. This is partly the result of the creed policy of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Knauff’s case, which made global headlines. 

“There are many, many blogs from employment lawyers advising clients that even though it was still an open question whether vegans are included under creed, that they should respect the belief systems of vegans and ensure they are accommodated,” said Labchuk. “So despite this loss, I think Adam’s case has already had an impact.”

Laws protecting vegans

In 2020, a UK tribunal ruled that ethical veganism was a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010. The judge in the case said that ethical veganism was “important” and “worthy” of respect in a democratic society.

One of the Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights is applicable to vegans. Article 9 states that everyone has the right to live according to their own ethical convictions free from interference.

In Canada, ethical vegans are protected from discrimination under the freedom of conscience provision in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But it only applies to government actions, such as feeding incarcerated people appropriately. Provinces such as Ontario have their own human rights codes that cover employment and other non-governmental contexts.

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This article was written by Claire Hamlett on the PBN Website.