Vegan for a month, vegan for life? Exploring how food practices change through participation in a short-term vegan challenge

The pervasive preference for animal products in global diets is compromising planetary health and causing mass undue suffering. Despite evidence that plant-based diets are more sustainable, more ethical, and healthier than diets rich in meat, dairy, and eggs, the (over)consumption of animal products remains a deeply entrenched cultural norm. Campaigns challenging people to try veganism for a month have the potential to disrupt this norm by facilitating practices like vegan shopping, cooking, and eating. This research applies theories of social practice to explore the influence of short-term vegan challenges on food practices, including what facilitates and complicates efforts to change. 31 participants took part in a vegan challenge and shared their experiences through surveys, qualitative interviews, and food photo diaries. The study provides insight into how existing everyday food practices tend to be deeply entrenched despite active efforts to change. The findings suggest that agentive power is distributed across social, material, and bodily pillars, facilitating and hindering efforts towards vegan eating in various ways. Participant experiences revealed how societal norms complicated vegan eating by instilling feelings of social discomfort while social support and sharing positive experiences with vegan food aided dietary change efforts. The availability of affordable, tasty, and filling vegan food was necessary to carry out vegan food practices. Eating vegan in a meat-intensive food environment required extra work to build competence, especially without prior knowledge; participants had to learn how to shop for and cook healthy, tasty, and filling vegan food. Vegan challenges offer an opportunity for experimenting with new foods, gaining competence, reflecting on food habits and values, and learning in a shared community of practice. However, embedded sociomaterial histories and carnistic environments complicate dietary change efforts. Participation in the vegan challenge more often led to flexitarianism rather than veganism and many participants largely returned to old habits. Nevertheless, the challenge facilitated experimentation with unfamiliar, socially deviant practices and led to increased competence in vegan shopping, cooking, and eating, which was sometimes integrated into existing food practices, reshaping them to be more sustainable.