Tempted to give Veganuary a go? Although many would argue going vegan can be a healthy choice, it can be controversial too, and some vegans may find themselves being challenged by meat-eaters about why they choose to forego all animal products.

It’s this ongoing debate about the merits of veganism, and the ‘rights and wrongs’ of meat-eating, that led Ed Winters, aka Earthling Ed, to write his latest book, How To Argue With A Meat Eater.

“Throughout my years advocating for veganism, I have encountered every argument against veganism that exists,” says the 29-year-old, who first became vegetarian in 2014 after seeing a story about a truck of chickens which had crashed on the way to a slaughterhouse.

“I was reading this story, and feeling sorry for these chickens and empathising with them, but then I realised that in my fridge was the remains of a KFC. And I realised there was this huge contradiction, so I went vegetarian.”

Around eight months later, he went vegan: “I realised that veganism was about recognising that other animals, while very different to us, deserve to be treated with moral consideration, and anything less than vegan would be to contradict that realisation.”

Winters began researching veganism thoroughly, then speaking publicly about it, even guest-lecturing at universities across the world, including Cambridge and Harvard. How To Argue With A Meat Eater is his second book on the subject, following 2022’s This is Vegan Propaganda.

“It’s such a provocative and emotive conversation,” he says, “that even if you don’t necessarily invite it, it ends up happening sometimes because people are curious, and they want to ask questions.”

So, what are those questions? Winters outlines some of the most frequently asked ones here…

1. Is being being vegan healthier overall than than being a meat eater?

“Yes, certainly,” says Winters. “For example, the World Health Organisation classified that processed meat, and red meat, were class two and class one carcinogens. They looked at over 800 different studies – this is a body of evidence. And what we see consistently in nutrition science is actually increased consumption of things like whole grains, and fruits and vegetables prolongs people’s lives, while the consumption of particularly processed meat and red meat decreases life expectancy, and also increases prevailing chronic disease.”

2. How can you bear to forego the taste of meat?

Winters says questions about missing the taste of meat are among the most common he hears. “A lot of people will say they can never give up eating animal products because they love steak and bacon too much – taste is definitely one of the biggest drivers in terms of why we continue to eat animals.

“I didn’t go vegan because I stopped enjoying the taste of these foods – the reason I made the change to vegan was because I realised that sensory pleasure isn’t more important than the lives and experiences of others. So just because I enjoy having meat doesn’t make it moral to exploit and harm someone else for that fleeting moment.”

3. Weren’t humans ‘designed’ to eat meat?

“It’s not that our bodies are designed to eat meat, it’s just that our bodies can do,” says Winters. “Obviously, we can eat and digest meat, but it doesn’t mean that it’s optimal or preferable for us to do so.

“Historically, we’ve eaten opportunistically, so we’ve eaten what we can to survive. But now we have nutrition science, and accessibility and availability of all different types of foods, so we have choice, which our ancestors did not. There’s nothing about a body that’s designed in a way that means we have to remain meat eaters – we have a choice, and because we have a choice not to, ethically we shouldn’t.”

4. How can I become vegan when my culture is meat-eating?

Winters accepts that meat-eating is part of many cultures, but argues: “Traditions and cultural habits are great when they don’t harm someone else, but culture always has to evolve. We can look across the world and see examples of many cultural practices, which are obviously very immoral and should be stopped. Eating animals is one example. Just because it’s cultural doesn’t mean it’s ethical or moral, and we should always look to change and evolve and make culture as ethical as possible.”

5. Why do people turn a blind eye to killing animals?

“It speaks to how much we like animals, and how much we are against animal cruelty,” says Winters. “We naturally think people who cause harm to animals are doing an immoral thing, which is why we have laws that make kicking dogs immoral, for example. The irony is, if someone went into a field and kicked a lamb they could be arrested for animal cruelty, but for someone to cut the throat of the lambs, that’s considered perfectly acceptable.

“There’s a massive disconnection between the fact that we care about animals, and think causing harm to animals is wrong, yet our food choices are the biggest driver of animal suffering and cruelty on the planet. But if we can get people to recognise that we like animals, we’re against animal cruelty, and therefore the consistent position is to stop paying for these things to happen to animals.”

He notes that because most people don’t see animals being killed for meat, and certainly don’t do it themselves, “we have this comfort that comes from distance. Someone else is getting the blood on their hands rather than us. But the people in slaughterhouses are only doing the job we pay them to do. And if we didn’t pay them, they wouldn’t kill the animals.

“So the blood might literally be on their hands, but really, we have the most bloodstained hands of all because we’re the ones facilitating and paying for this violence to continue.”

6. Other animals eat animals – why shouldn’t we?

“Other animals do a whole host of terrible things, from infanticide to killing one another, and we would never justify those actions and say we should therefore do it,” says Winters. “We have the ability to make moral decisions in ways that other animals can’t, and obviously hold ourselves to different ethical standards than wild animals.”

7. What does the meat industry have to say?

Lucas Daglish, sustainability manager at the  British Meat Processors Association, says: “We believe everyone has the right to choose whether or not to eat meat. However, that choice should be based on reliable information and sound science. All too often, this is not the case.

“While some in the pro-plant-based community have been guilty of distorting science, there is an argument that some in the pro-meat community are also guilty. This polarisation of viewpoints serves to confuse consumers in their quest to make the right decisions. It’s in all our interests to provide the consumer with accurate, science-based evidence to support healthy diets and environmentally-sustainable choices.”

How To Argue With A Meat Eater by Ed Winters is published by Vermilion, priced £16.99. Available now.