Introduction
Veganism is about refraining from consuming any animal products. To the uninitiated this does seem quite daunting at first, but it’s quite easy to do. Usually people don’t know where to start, what to do, what to eat, and how to proceed. That’s where Veganuary comes in.
Veganuary is a great campaign that allows people to have all these questions answered and to get the awesome experience of giving Veganism a try. It gives us the opportunity to tryout this incredible lifestyle in an easy, simple, guided way.
What’s it all About
Veganuary is a month long challenge to eat a vegan diet i.e. without animal products. It can start whenever you feel like, but most people do so during January when they’ve got their new years resolutions fresh in mind.
It provides you with everything you need in order to make your thirty day challenge a major success. You get recipes, guides, cookbooks and more delivered to your email regularly. It also provides loads of information on Vegan nutrition – because as much as we practice Veganism for the benefit of the planet, animals and mitigating social/wealth inequality, we definitely want to ensure that we are healthy vegans in the process.
The Growth of Veganuary
Veganuary has been growing from strength to strength. It started off in 2014 and has been gaining more and more participants throughout the years, with the last year experiencing a 50% increase. That’s like Bitcoin level gains! With that rate of growth I suspect you could see a Vegan-ish world within a decade or two; and this year the campaign is on track to have more than 2 million participants taking part.
The S-curve Adoption graph
The S-Curve is graph that shows how a technology, movement or ideology grows in adoption. A key highlight of the S-curve graph is that a technology or movement grows slowly and steadily at first, but that growth turns explosive after a certain point. It usually takes 10 years to get to 10 percent adoption, but thereafter it takes 10 more years to go to 90% adoption. This has happened with bitcoin, the internet and I believe it will happen with Veganism as well.
Right now Veganism is only at a single digit level of adoption – so it’s still early days, but the growth is exponential. Given the range of new vegan products, services and offerings that have exploded onto the scene, it seems quite clear that this movement will reach mass adoptions in the very near future. When that will be exactly I cannot say for sure, but it will happen. Initiatives like Veganuary go a long way to making this a reality.
Why it works
There have been other initiatives like No Meat Monday in the past, but I think Veganuary works because it gives participants enough time to develop a new habit and get ample exposure to vegan food. Trying Vegan food once off will not provide that long term habit forming process that’s needed to ingrain Veganism. However Veganuary provides enough time for the idea of not eating animal products to sink in and see the amazing health, wealth and mental benefits.
Conclusion
I’ve been Vegan for going six years now. I jumped head first in to Veganism; one day I was a meat eater, the next I was full blown Vegan. Even though this worked for me, having something like Veganuary would have made the transition so much easier especially with regards to nutrition. Thats why I suggest everyone give it try, even current vegans have a a lot to learn by signing up and going through the material.
Anybody attempting Veganuary today will find the process really easy particularly with so much information that the campaign provides.
If you’re thinking of trying Veganism, now is the best time ever to try. Whether it’s for health, environmental or animal welfare reasons, you will be glad you gave it a shot.
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash