Yesterday I gave you the 5 best things about being vegan and since you can’t have the good without the bad here are the 5 biggest hardships one faces as a vegan.

1. You have to track your nutrient intake

If you don’t track what and how much you eat, you’re going to have a bad time. It’s so easy to undereat as a vegan. Plant foods are not as calorie dense as animal products so you will have to eat more. If you think you can eat the same volume of food you ate as an omnivore you will not eat enough and you will end up feeling weak and fatigued. It’s also quite easy to miss certain nutrients so you must ALWAYS be aware of what you eat and make sure you’re getting all your nutrients. Using Cronometer is your best bet to successfully track your nutrient intake.

2. You have to cook

Even as a person who enjoys cooking, I find this annoying. When you become vegan you have to get comfortable with the kitchen because you’ll be spending a lot of time in it. You’re constantly cooking because there are not many vegan convenience foods, fast food, and ready meals available so if you want to eat, you have to whip out that frying pan.

3. You have to be prepared when going out

When going out you need to do your research before hand. If you don’t, you might end up at a restaurant with zero vegan options and an empty belly. You always have to eat before you leave the house just in case you end up in a situation where there is no food for you to eat or the food you can eat is plain and mediocre. Researching the menu before trying out a restaurant or packing some sort of snack in your bag is something you have to do just to make sure you won’t die of hunger when you’re out and about, living your best life.

4. Not everybody accepts that you’re vegan

There are some people who truly don’t understand why one would not eat meat. Running into such people is inevitable and they’re going to tell you how dumb, unhealthy, weird, expensive, unnecessary, or sad your life is because you don’t eat meat. They present you with false evidence and illogical reasoning and you have to shut up and deal because you don’t want to perpetuate that false stereotype that vegans are self-righteous preachy assholes. You can try to have a discussion with them about how great veganism is and how harmful animal protein is to the body but it won’t change their opinion because willful ignorance is a terribly unshakeable thing.

5. It’s not mainstream

This is probably the ultimate worst thing about being vegan. You’re essentially a hipster but without the pretentious “I discovered it before it was mainstream so I’m better than you” attitude. This time, veganism being a hipster, niche movement isn’t a cool thing. It means that people aren’t readily accepting of your lifestyle choice, there aren’t many options for you at shops,  many people don’t even know what it is, and it’s not always taken into consideration when restaurants plan their menus or shoe companies design new kicks. Whether you’re in a first world country or not, even though it exists, finding vegan-friendly shit is difficult. This is slowly changing and more and more people are becoming vegan each year but we’re still not a large enough population to be taken into consideration by the general society.

A vegan might read this and say that there are far worse things about being vegan but a vegan could look at what I wrote yesterday and say that there are far better things about being vegan. These are just my opinions and the personal struggles I’ve had to face since adopting this lifestyle. And as bad as these may be I do not, for one second, regret going vegan because the good outweighs the bad by light years.