It was probably about a year ago when a friend of mine posed a question on social media: "What is a vegan vastlakukkel?" An innocent enough question, but the reaction was surprising. A well-known culture journalist replied with a comment along the lines of, "That's disgusting! Don't try it!" And things continued in much the same tone from there.

I ended up in a bit of a back-and-forth with a woman who otherwise seemed reasonable. She tried to convince me that veganism is harmful to the environment, since growing plant-based food involves poisoning the earth with chemicals, destroying forests and who knows what else. Meanwhile, raising livestock organically is, in her view, beneficial both to humans and to the planet.

What shocked me most in that discussion wasn't even the absurdity of the arguments, but the strange kind of rage with which she attacked veganism. I've seen something similar happen many times before. For example, years ago in a food group, someone posted a photo of the vegan shashlik they had made. Once again, to my surprise, dozens and dozens of comments followed. The mildest of them asked why such a thing would even be called shashlik. In truth, the person hadn't done anything outrageous — just skewered some tofu cubes between tomatoes and onions instead of meat.

I've come across this odd narrative in Estonia several times: that something is about to be banned. When I moved back to Estonia in the early 2000s after ten years away, the late poet Johnny B. Isotamm declared in the smoking corner of the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu that the way things were going, heterosexuality would soon be outlawed. Whatever led him to make that claim, it was absurd either way.

Over the years, I've heard a lot of these predictions about what's going to be banned. And now I see sarcastic comments popping up here and there about how meat-eating is about to be banned — or already is. Which, of course, is nonsense. Just walk into any store and take a look at the sausage section. And if you take veganism at its core, vegans avoid all animal products, which would mean that all dairy products, leather clothing and accessories would have to disappear as well.

Putting aside whether veganism is good or bad, justified or not, what really interests me is why the word "vegan" drives so many otherwise intelligent, educated and tolerant people up the wall.

And once again, it seems this has something to do with generational differences. A few years ago, our institute held an end-of-semester event with a vegan spread. The students came, devoured everything on the table and then went down to the banks of the Emajõgi River to drink wine. And it's not like all our students are vegans — far from it. They're a minority. But there were no grimaces, no eye-rolling.

I've seen this fear of unfamiliar food come up several times in my life. The most ridiculous situation was about ten years ago when I was living in a hotel in Kazakhstan's capital along with a group of Estonians. One evening, I met up with three of them in the hotel restaurant. Kazakhstan, as we know, is located in Central Asia, a true culinary mosaic. This restaurant offered Uzbek, Korean, Kazakh and Uyghur dishes — and of course the usual so-called European fare as well.

What did the Estonians order? One got a pizza, another got shashlik and the third went for a schnitzel. Safe choices — familiar and comfortable. And all three stared at my bowl of kuksu with surprise and horror. (Kuksu is a kind of tangy Korean soup. If you don't know it and want to try, there's a Korean restaurant in Telliskivi, Tallinn, that does it very well. Highly recommended!) Now I understand why hotel zones in places like Turkey and Egypt are full of restaurants offering pizza, hamburgers and American-style steaks — and why they're always packed. Some people are simply afraid of unfamiliar food.

It seems to me that all this vegan-bashing or anti-vegan sentiment is tied to a deeper feeling — that avoiding animal products feels, to many people, like an attack on their core values and way of life. It's interesting that someone who has no problem with same-sex relationships, people of other races or American pop music playing in a café, suddenly becomes outraged when confronted with veganism, vegan food or the vegan lifestyle.

Yes, food is an important part of our identity, both individually and collectively. Critics of veganism tend to reduce it to diet alone, even though food is just one aspect of a broader lifestyle.

What I can't understand is this fear — this near-panic — when someone sitting next to you eats something strange or unfamiliar and just thinking about it gives you goosebumps. Apparently, there are enough such people out there to fill entire comment sections with vegan-hating replies.

Maybe we need to approach this from the other end — starting with that old cliché about looking in the mirror. We could ask ourselves: Why does the word "vegan," or the concept of vegan food, get under my skin and set off alarm bells? And if someone ever figures out the answer, I'd love to hear it. I'm genuinely curious.

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