It's difficult in that you can't go out to a normal dinner without being really careful about what you eat. For instance, if you go to a normal restaurant (not one catering to vegans) and order a salad and ask for no cheese, but they bring you a salad that has cheese, or has croutons that are obviously all buttered up, or something else. Now you have to send it back and wait for them to make you a new one. For a lot of people that's fine. They're happy to get exactly what they want and to wait for it. For me it's not worth the effort, concern, stress or whatever. I just eat the salad.

So yeah, if you aren't bothered by interrogating every waiter at every restaurant you ever go to and returning food regularly, sure...it's not hard to be vegan. I'd rather live mostly vegan and not sweat the small stuff.

This is only true if you go to restaurants that serve dairy-heavy cuisines.

Go to any normal Chinese or Vietnamese or Thai restaurants and it's pretty hard to not find vegan foods on the menu. Mock duck, Buddha's delight, wood ear salad, stir fried soybeans and fermented cabbage, red cooked tofu and mushroom, braised seitan in soy sauce, eggplant in black bean sauce, bok choy in garlic sauce, etc etc -- these are all just normal dishes that are also vegan. The restaurant wouldn't even have to make any special accommodations for you.

This is deeply misleading. You are being flexible, by not trying to think to ahard about what you eat.

The most commmon definition of vegan is "produced without the inflicting suffering on animals". Some dairy/egg/meat free diets use "vegan" as label of convenience. (No one's allergies literally fall along the boundary of "all animal products are unhealthy for me")

Many sugar varieties are not vegan (bone char).

Many beers and wines are not vegan (Isinglass from fish).

Many bagels aren't vegan (L-cysteine from feathers).

Palm oil is not vegan (orangutan habitat destruction).

"Not difficult to be vegan" makes an arbitrary set of simplifying assumptions, namely "Is there a piece of an animal obviously visible in my food). It's not that different from having an occasional piece of cheese.

I'd second this. I read the word vegan as being 100% vegetarian with that being practically impossible to attain. But it's something aim for.

I think I was overtly strict for the first decade of being vegan. Going to the extreme. Consulting the Animal Free Shopper with each purchase.

These days I don't beat myself up so much about it. I'll even take a local ale (probably non-vegan) over a bottled lager. I'll avoid heavily packaged products even if they are vegan. I'll avoid flown in exotic veg.

I think you've got to find a line that you are comfortable with and be prepared to move it.

From the vegan society: A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals - no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.

If you take: A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals.

I'd take that and read it with an emphasis on 'tries'. Easier said than done.

In my mind most steps towards being 100% vegetarian is good. I know meat eaters that are careful to source their meat, and are actually mainly vegan except for say eating meat at the weekend. Who just as much have an issue with some agricultural and farming practices. The only difference between us is that I'm not comfortable with murder for my own personal gain where I can avoid it.

Feasable for some maybe. I'd find it jolly well hard living in some places and very easy in others. Eastern Europe, and heck, a lot of Europe is difficult (if you don't have access to a kitchen).

I've ended up stranded in parts of the UK, where about the only option on the menu is to eat chips and salad. That gets a little boring. In Scotland I was even served powdered potato mash! In Italy I was constantly subject to ridicule. At least near the med there are vegetable options.