This Speech Turned My Family Vegan
... and friends into animal rights activists
Giving speeches can be an incredibly effective way to spread the vegan message. Today, I want to share a powerful speech that you can hold anywhere. It is my most successful one so far. 👇
The speech has received a lot of positive feedback and already inspired a considerable number of people to go vegan. I’ve held it on family gatherings, among friends, during workplace debates on catering policies, in front of university courses, and at public events.
I have refined and shortened the speech dozens of times to distill it down to the most convincing arguments — and want to share it with you as an inspiration. Feel free to use the script, wherever it seems effective and appropriate.
Before you read the script, some remarks:
The speech lasts about 10 minutes. When introducing your speech, let the audience know how long it will take. To make it as impactful and memorable as possible, take your time and deliver it at a steady, unrushed pace.
Choose an appropriate setting. While it’s not necessary for everyone in the audience to agree with your views (in fact, that’s the point of giving the speech), it’s important that they are aware of what to expect and open to listening. This can sometimes be challenging to guarantee. For example, I once delivered a speech on veganism to an audience of 150 people. While I didn’t individually confirm everyone’s readiness for the topic, the organizers announced my speech in advance, and attendees were free to leave if they wished — thankfully, no one did.
Invite your audience to listen with an open heart. Begin your speech by sharing that the topic is deeply personal to you. Acknowledge that it might evoke emotions or even resistance, but express your gratitude for their willingness to approach it with openness and curiosity. Encourage them to make themselves comfortable, and if they feel inclined, to close their eyes.
Tailor the speech as needed. Before delivering it, read through the speech several times — not just to familiarize yourself with it, but to ensure it aligns with your specific audience and setting. If adjustments are necessary to make the message more relevant, authentic, or impactful, don’t hesitate to refine it accordingly.
Why are some words in bold? To make your speech more engaging and memorable, it’s important to avoid speaking in a monotone. The bold words in the script are suggestions for emphasis, helping you bring energy and variation to your delivery.
Sources. Audience members may ask for references to support the claims made in your speech. Rest assured, there are credible sources backing these statements. To avoid distractions during the speech, I’ve chosen not to include links or footnotes in the script. However, you can download a PDF below that contains all the relevant sources.
Don’t try to answer questions if you don’t know the answer! If someone asks a question you can’t confidently address, that’s perfectly okay. Nobody can expect you to be all-knowing, only because you advocate for veganism. Be honest — let the questioner know you’re unsure but willing to research and follow up with accurate information. Most importantly, never attempt to answer without certainty, as this could harm both your credibility and the vegan cause.
Have improvement suggestions? Share them! If you have any feedback or ideas to enhance the speech, feel free to leave a comment — I’d love to hear them. While I can’t promise to incorporate every suggestion into this version (as I want to keep it concise), good ideas will certainly be considered for future speeches and articles.
The speech
People often ask me — and maybe you’re wondering too: “Why is there so much advocacy for veganism these days? Aren't there other issues that deserve our attention as well?”
It’s true: there are many important issues and problems in the world. And obviously, veganism isn’t the only cause we should care about.
However, what makes veganism so special is that it affects so many different areas of life simultaneously. I was not aware of that when I was younger, never really learnt about it in school or at home.
In case you’ve had a similar experience, I'd like to give you a glimpse into the astonishing things that I’ve learned over the last few years — and that have fundamentally changed my view of the world.
My first point begins with an excerpt from a United Nations report:
“The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”
Environmental harms caused and accelerated by the animal industry include soil degradation, species extinction, climate change, water pollution, air pollution, acid rain, overfishing, and the irreversible destruction of marine ecosystems.
The consumption of animal products is also responsible for over 70% of rainforest destruction in South America — and generally the leading cause of deforestation worldwide.
Additionally, animal farming generates more than five times the greenhouse gas emissions of all aircraft in the world taken together.
Recently, an article in The Guardian revealed that the emissions from just thirteen dairy farms match those of the entire United Kingdom.
Second point:
Working conditions for employees in the animal industry are often cruel, leading to frustration, despair, severe accidents, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and an increased risk of suicide.
Working conditions in the animal industry are regularly described as “modern slavery”.
After thorough research into the working conditions of the U.S. animal industry, Bloomberg published an article titled, “America’s Worst Graveyard Shift Is Grinding Up Workers”.
A Business Insider headline reads, “The meat industry is hiding a dark secret, as workers at ‘America's worst job’ wade through seas of blood, guts, and grease”.
The slaughterhouse employees put at risk to satisfy society’s taste for meat are overwhelmingly people of color and members of other disadvantaged minorities.
Third point:
In its official statement, the world's largest organization of nutrition experts, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, confirms that a balanced vegan diet is, quote, “appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes.”
According to the physician and bestselling author Michael Greger, abstaining from animal products has a preventive effect against 14 of the 15 deadliest diseases of our time. Scientifically confirmed health benefits of a vegan diet include (among many others):
Reduced risk of various types of cancer,
Significantly fewer cardiovascular diseases,
Lower risk of diabetes,
Fewer cases of food poisoning,
Reduced need for medications in old age, and
Reduced risk of internal inflammations
Furthermore, the animal industry is the leading cause of antibiotic resistance.
In many countries, including the U.S., more than half of all antibiotics are used on farmed animals, making the industry an ideal breeding ground for resistant bacteria.
In the long run, this will render many types of surgeries impossible, and horrible diseases untreatable. According to predictions, by 2050, 10 million people will die each year from resistant bacteria — more than the current deaths from all types of cancer combined.
Fourth point:
While 24,000 people die from hunger and malnutrition every day, our society wastes massive amounts of grain, corn, soy, and fresh water to grow livestock — resources that could be directly consumed by humans.
Animals are an incredibly inefficient food source. It takes about 100 calories of grain to produce just 12 calories of chicken or 3 calories worth of beef.
The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people (which is more than the current world population!)
And while every third human suffers from water scarcity, the production of one pound of beef uses as much water as a 135 days’ worth of showers.
Fifth and final point:
The animal industry — even when you ignore its effects on public health, world hunger, and exploited workers — remains one of the largest, if not the largest, source of mental and physical suffering in the world.
Most of us wouldn’t tolerate animal abuse if it happened right in front of our eyes.
Yet, every 30 minutes, as many animals are killed for human consumption as people have died in the six years of the Second World War — the deadliest conflict in human history. Every 30 minutes! And this doesn't even count fish and other marine animals.
Contrary to common belief, even the production of eggs and dairy products are deeply cruel. In the egg industry, it is a standard practice to kill all male chicks by gassing them, suffocating them in waste bins, or by shredding them alive.
To make them lactate, dairy cows are forcibly impregnated over and over again. They are bred to produce ten times as much milk as they would naturally, and as a result often suffer from painful udder infections.
Newborn calves in the dairy industry are separated from their mother immediately after birth in a traumatizing procedure — many of them are dehorned and castrated without anesthesia.
While cows have a natural life expectancy of 20 years, it is common in the industry — even on organic farms — for cows to break down from exhaustion after 4 or 5 years of continuous pregnancies and milk production. Milk production declines around that time anyways, so if the dairy cows are still standing, they are killed for hamburgers and beef regardless.
Now, I have talked about:
impacts on climate change and environmental harms,
horrific working conditions,
public health,
world hunger, and
animal suffering.
Having heard all this, please answer this question for yourself:
Should we support this industry?
Should we pay with our money for this incredibly destructive and completely unnecessary industry to continue to exist?
The answer seems more than obvious to me today.
And I have consumed animals for most of my life. Clearly, I’m in no position to point fingers.
But I agree with Jonathan Foer when he says:
“Our response to this industry is ultimately a test of how we respond to the weak, the invisible, the silent — it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another. (...) Those who live today belong to the generations that now know better. (...) We are the ones who will rightly be asked: What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?”
The vegan lifestyle may not be perfect. But it offers a huge contribution to reducing the many harms I have talked about.
To wrap up, let me summarize once again — and now from a positive perspective:
A vegan lifestyle not only avoids unnecessary violence against animals, prevents many forms of environmental destruction and improves your own health, but also protects your fellow human beings from hunger, misery and exploitation.
Honestly, can you think of a more convincing reason to try out a new diet and lifestyle?
…
Thank you so much for listening.
Downloads
You can download the speech in PDF format here (with or without references):
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Great job, Pala! I love that you created an entire speech people can use, and made it concise and convincing.
Excellent, shared!