The real reason you don't like vegans - or millennials

Vegans may be annoying, and they may be good fodder for a cheap laugh. But really, is the joke on us? Photo / Getty

Why do people dislike vegans so much? Because they taste awful. How do you know someone is a vegan? Because they tell you. I'd throw more vegan jokes at you, but I have a strict five-a-day quota and I don't want to exceed it before lunchtime, when I will be meeting friends for two of my favourite things: cote de boeuf, and light conversation about the smug self-righteousness of people who are controlled enough to exist on plant-based diets.

Veganism is a Marmite subject – Marmite, by the way, is vegan, though it is also made by Unilever, whose portfolio includes some products that may have been tested on animals, so do with that information what you will. But I digress. Mention the word "vegan" in polite company, and watch as half the people present start waxing lyrical about the benefits of eliminating meat and dairy from their diet, while the other half begin to froth at the mouth in murderous rage, as they try to work out how best to cook the vegans on a barbecue. Only Brexit and Donald Trump can hold a candle to veganism when it comes to polarising the masses.

Witness the furore that erupted last week, when it emerged that a food writer in the UK had emailed the editor of Waitrose Food magazine pitching a series of plant-based recipes, only to be turned down with a less than polite reply. "Thanks for this," emailed William Sitwell. "How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?"

There was outrage, of course, because we live in the Age of Outrage. Vegans were outraged, so Sitwell resigned. Then some non-vegans were outraged, because this was an attack on freedom of speech. I have to say that this slightly puzzled me, given that Sitwell was in charge of a supermarket magazine that has the express purpose of boosting the profits of said supermarket, and not, say, The Spectator or The New Statesman.

As someone far pithier than I reflected on Twitter, this would be a bit like the editor of Pets At Home magazine making derogatory jokes about knocking off cat owners; it's not really that surprising that Sitwell felt he had to go, especially not in the same week that the firm's managing director announced plans for Waitrose to target "mindful" consumers such as vegans.

Millennials are often dubbed snowflakes, but they are also the Post-Milk generation – and this world of almond-and-oat dairy alternatives is a concept that all of us brought up on the white stuff find hard to swallow. We mock the young for fetishising lifestyle choices and turning food fads into religions; we pity those who deny themselves the simple pleasure of chocolate and red meat and cheese. Cheese! We think that vegans and vegetarians are hectoring and hypocritical; we don't like it when people younger than us tell us what to do, especially not when they've moved on to some other cause five minutes later.

But this is the thing with veganism: it seems to be sticking around. It is not going anywhere, no matter how hard carnivores such as myself might wish it away with steak tartare and silly jokes about the joys of force-feeding vegans meat as if they were ducks being fattened up to be made into foie gras. And the reason the Post-Milk generation are not going away is because they are right.

This is what is at the heart of our hatred of vegans, what is at the heart of hatred of any type: fear. We are scared of vegans because, like the newly sober or smoke-free person holding up a mirror to their hard-partying friend, we see in them the future, and it is one we don't particularly like because it doesn't involve rare steak or crackling. Crackling! We know that adopting a vegan lifestyle is better not just for our bodies but also for the planet; we are aware that the harvesting of animals for our convenience could one day kill us all.

Humans are evolving right before our very eyes, from voracious consumers of crap into more thoughtful, measured shoppers who will not buy single-use plastics or eat red meat more than once a week. This change is a good thing; because behind all the apparent hectoring there is a kindness, a form of compassion, a sentiment that says: "I care about you and the planet around you."

Vegans may be annoying, and they may be good fodder for a cheap laugh. But really, the joke is on us.