We rarely question what it really costs—psychologically—to live by our ethics in a world that doesn’t share them. This is a personal reflection on a claim that unsettled people for all the right reasons.
When I published a recent article examining the mental health risks associated with vegan diets, I didn't expect the quiet intensity of the response. Some wrote to say they finally felt seen, that their struggles had been dismissed for too long. Others were angry. A few accused me of giving ammunition to bad-faith critics of veganism. The article, based on medical studies and meta-analyses, outlined a troubling pattern: higher prevalence of depression and anxiety among those who adopt plant-based diets. But it wasn't just the data that caused discomfort—it was what the data implied. That something as morally virtuous and ethically sound as veganism might, for some people, quietly erode their mental well-being. That the psychological cost of "doing the right thing" may not be equally distributed. That's what I want to unpack here.
In the hours after that article went live, I kept coming back to one question: What exactly are we reacting to when we read that veganism may harm mental health? For many, it's not about B12, omega-3s, or amino acid profiles. It's about identity. Lifestyle. Moral framework. Community. Hope. Veganism is rarely just a diet; it's a declaration of self. And when something threatens that, even at the edges, it feels like more than a scientific critique—it feels like a personal affront. But the deeper I looked, the more I realized: this isn't just about vegans. It's about how we form belief systems around food, and how those systems take on emotional weight, psychological rigidity, and even spiritual significance. Once a diet becomes a symbol of who you are, admitting it might be affecting your mental health starts to feel like heresy.
And yet, we can't ignore what's emerging. Studies have consistently shown elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm ideation among vegans and vegetarians compared to omnivores. These correlations hold even when accounting for socioeconomic factors and health consciousness. They are especially pronounced in younger populations—teens and people under 30—many of whom adopt veganism during key periods of identity formation. It's tempting to chalk it all up to nutrient deficiencies, and yes, that's part of the story. But I believe there's a much deeper terrain to explore, one rooted in how belief systems interact with emotional regulation and social disconnection. One that isn't confined to plant-based living, but is simply magnified by it.
Think about what it means to live by an ethical food code in a world that doesn't share your values. Every meal becomes a test. Every group dinner carries a potential for tension. There's a subtle exhaustion that builds over time—a need to explain, to justify, to double-check labels, to navigate micro-aggressions or jokes, to carry the weight of moral vigilance. What does that do to a person's nervous system? To their sense of ease? Even for those who feel empowered by their choices, there's often a low-grade hypervigilance humming beneath the surface. It's a kind of spiritual burnout that doesn't show up in nutrient panels but reveals itself in sleeplessness, mood volatility, and emotional fatigue.
I've been thinking a lot about something we explore over on The Vessel, the platform I co-created with shaman Rudá Iandê: that personal growth often begins when we stop performing clarity and start inhabiting contradiction. The same is true here. You can care deeply about animals, about planetary health, about sustainability—and still acknowledge that your chosen lifestyle might be costing you something. Not because it's inherently harmful, but because you're swimming upstream. Because you're trying to make your values visible in a world that commodifies convenience and mocks moral ambition. If there's a real mental health cost to veganism, I suspect it lives in that psychic friction—in the daily, invisible drag of trying to hold purity in a polluted system.
It's here that I want to draw a clearer line between nutrition and psychology, because collapsing the two is part of what makes this issue so murky. Yes, the absence of certain nutrients—B12, iron, zinc, EPA/DHA—can exacerbate or even trigger mental health conditions. But that's the mechanical part. The more insidious toll comes from what I'd call ethical over-identification: the tendency to build one's entire self-worth around adherence to a cause. In many of the private messages I received after the article was published, what emerges isn't just dietary stress—it's moral perfectionism, identity rigidity, and a deep fear of falling short. These aren't nutrient issues. They're existential ones.
What does it mean to fail as a vegan? For some, it's a slip-up—an accidental bite of dairy, a forgotten ingredient. For others, it becomes a source of self-loathing, shame, or even a trigger for disordered eating. The very structure of veganism—a binary, yes/no, in/out framework—can appeal to people who crave moral certainty or control. And while that framework can empower, it can also imprison. I've read messages from people who felt they couldn't tell their vegan friends they were struggling because they feared judgment or abandonment. I've seen comments from readers who felt they were "betraying the movement" simply by taking omega-3 fish oil after their anxiety became unbearable. That is not freedom. That's ideology masquerading as health.
This is where things get complicated, because veganism as a movement is rooted in compassion. It's about minimizing harm, about expanding the circle of moral concern beyond the human species. But in practice, it's clear that outward-facing compassion sometimes doesn't extend inward. The same people who advocate for animals with fierce tenderness often speak to themselves with brutality. They override their bodies. They ignore their mental decline. They stay silent about their doubts because they fear being cast out of their moral community. In this way, some forms of modern veganism mirror the very systems they claim to resist: shaming, exclusion, purity tests, and a thinly veiled hierarchy of worth.
What I'm suggesting isn't that veganism is to blame, but that our current mental health crisis intersects with it in ways we haven't fully explored. If you live in a society that already makes you feel like you're not enough—unless you're productive, impressive, fit, morally upright, and socially conscious—then any lifestyle that demands constant vigilance will amplify those internal pressures. Veganism, for some, becomes one more front in the war for self-worth. It's not surprising that anxiety and depression might rise under those conditions. What's surprising is how rarely we talk about it openly.
I recently explored this tension in a different context, writing about false kindness and subtle emotional manipulation. One of the key ideas was that kindness, when detached from honesty, becomes a form of control. I think the same principle applies here. If a movement asks you to be kind to animals, but shames you for being honest about your emotional limits, is that really kindness? Or is it a silent kind of conformity—where everyone performs ethical strength while secretly unraveling?
What we need is space for contradiction. Space to say: "This lifestyle aligns with my values, and it's making me feel unwell." Space to explore alternative ways of supporting animal welfare and planetary health without collapsing under a rigid identity. Space to admit that sometimes, the body says no even when the mind says yes. Not every vegan will resonate with this. But many do—and they're tired of suffering in silence, of whispering their doubts in private forums, of pretending their choice is easy when it's not.
Having spent years building platforms like Ideapod and The Vessel—spaces designed precisely for the kind of honest, uncomfortable conversations that mainstream culture tends to avoid—I've come to believe that the most important growth happens at the intersection of conviction and vulnerability. This isn't about abandoning your values. It's about refusing to let your values abandon you. If veganism is making you unwell, that doesn't mean veganism is wrong—it may mean the way you're carrying it needs to change. And if we can't say that out loud without fear, then we've replaced one form of oppression with another.
