Vegan Gains

[[File:Vegan Gains.png||thumb|right|165px|Vegan Gains, after watching one too many ''Black Mirror'' episodes, apparently]]
{{youtubenav}}
'''Richard Burgess''', better known as '''Vegan Gains''', is a [[Canada|Canadian]]<ref>[https://youtu.be/XFG9Oo_HAJA?feature=shared&t=455 VEGAN GAINS REACTS TO "YOUTUBE'S MOST PSYCHOTIC VEGAN" ] Comment by Vegan Gaines "I am not Somalian, my dad is from Antiga. That is a piece of misinformation in the documentary that i wanted to correct" </ref> [[vegan]] activist, bodybuilder and [[YouTube]]r. His channel has over 66 million views, and 310 thousand subscribers. 

He is known for his highly-charged videos about [[bodybuilding]] and vegan nutrition, his diatribes and meltdowns against those he disagrees with (which includes "[[SJW]]" ideas, non-vegans, ''and'' other vegan YouTubers) and his abhorrent behaviour and attitudes toward other human beings in general. Besides his commitment to animal rights, he has no conscience and is devoid of morality. 

In addition to discussing veganism, Burgess tends to discuss topics he knows nothing about, such as politics, history, and religion. Nonetheless, his massive ego allows him to believe he is an expert in such topics. He debates a lot of faceless nobodies on these topics because he likely knows that if he were to debate experts who know what they’re talking about, his viewers would see what a fool he is when he doesn’t stay in his lane.

In 2021, Burgess claimed that he agrees with killing carnivorous animals if it reduces "rights" violations. He also said he agrees with killing mice populations if the mice are damaging peoples property or eating human food (crops).<ref name="Carnivores">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIBNUwpWbvo Culling Carnivorous Animals Debate With Vegan Footsoldier]</ref><ref name="2021 interview">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQu-uXUjGQ Live With Vegan Gains]</ref>

In January 2025, Burgess announced that he was divorcing his wife, Jasmin Verhoeven, whom he married in 2016. He stated that "irreconcilable differences" between the two emerged in 2024. Following the marital difficulties, Burgess began regularly making misogynistic comments in his livestreams. He often criticized his wife in his livestreams following the separation, accusing her of financially exploiting him, and being emotionally abusive and manipulative. In August 2025, Burgess began taking steroids.

==Vegan Gains or Vegan Ghoul?==

When his 82-year-old grandfather was suffering from a fatal heart attack, Burgess video-recorded the event and intended to post it online in order to use his grandpa as an example of what happens to meat-eaters.<ref name=dailymail>{{cite news|last=Peel|first=Adrian|url=https://archive.is/wQQ8Z|title=‘Be nice to animals or I’ll kill you’: Knife-wielding vegan bodybuilder makes extraordinary threats against meat eaters in a series of bloodthirsty online rants’|date=10 June, 2016|work=[[The Daily Mail]]}}</ref> Unsurprisingly, it was soon deleted at the request of his family. However, he later explained that his grandfather was abusive to him throughout his life and that this was a reason he filmed him on his deathbed.

When meat-loving bodybuilder Peter Czerwinski (a.k.a. Furious Pete) was diagnosed with [[cancer]] at the age of 30, Burgess stepped in to gloat at what he saw as Czerwinski’s "just desserts"{{sic}} for eating meat and promoting the death and suffering of animals through the use of novelty t-shirts etc, managing to leech heavily off of attention gained from Czerwinski’s enormous subscriber base in the process.<ref>{{cite news|first=Kim|last=Renfro|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/vegan-gains-attacks-furious-pete-about-cancer-and-diet-2016-2/?r=AU&IR=T|title=2 YouTube fitness stars went to war over veganism and cancer|date=March 23, 2016|work=Business Insider}}</ref> He doubled down on the gloating when Czerwinski’s cancer returned after a remission.<ref name=ohno>Vegan Gains. "[https://youtu.be/Okd3vFUwqj4 Furious Pete Has Cancer Again! Oh No!]" YouTube.</ref>

Surprisingly, his response to Rich Piana getting cancer in 2016 was distinctly more empathetic.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRILPkGkkA Rich Piana Has Skin Cancer]". YouTube.</ref>

Unsurprisingly, he returned to ghoulish form after the death of bodybuilder John Meadows. During a live stream, he reviewed a video of John's made a month before his passing. In the video, John stated he was hopeful about his heart health improving within a month. Upon hearing this Vegan Gains broke into hysterical and high-pitched laughter, cackling out "He died! He died the next month!  Oh that's too funny". During the same live stream, in an act of extreme empathy and compassion, he referred to John's son as a "loser", and "piece of fucking shit." After seeing a picture of John's son having caught a fish, he stated that "hopefully he dies of a heart attack soon too... hopefully that piece of crap also fucking dies in his sleep." <ref>YTDRAMA "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWbKdo-TvZk Vegan Gains laugh at John meadows passing. And makes fun of his son. livestream 2021 08 14]" YouTube.</ref>

==Other behaviour and stances== 

Burgess has confessed himself to be a [[sadist]] and misanthropist, and has repeatedly threatened — ironically, he claims — to attack and kill people (including [[children]] and babies) who eat animal products, while wielding a knife on camera.<ref name=dailymail/> 

In particular, he holds a strong aversion to vegan activist and former friend durianrider, the only YouTuber he refuses to mention on stream or in his videos.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYIvDawnqg&ab_channel=The2AMVegan BillBallinger & friends trolling Vegan Gains on "He who shall not be named"]</ref> The hostility stems from durianrider's accusation of Burgess' wife flirting with vegan activist- Joey Carbstrong, as well as Burgess' concerns with durianrider's dietary advice and the rape allegations levied against him.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibNnsNiRVoU&ab_channel=BusyBee Durianrider Worst of The Fitness Industry(Vegan Gains Re-Upload)]
</ref>

He also routinely posts aggressive and insult-filled video responses to other people he disagrees with, nearly always with the title form "[name] vs Vegan Gains". His targets include people on both sides of politics, extending to those who are not even making an argument but simply making a personal announcement they are not vegan or no longer vegan, which he feels the need to "debate" beyond simply correcting any misinformation he thinks they may have spread in their videos. For example, anti-[[social justice]] [[transgender]] YouTuber [[Blaire White]]’s announcement in 2018 that she had quit veganism after 10 years<ref>Blaire White. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io7oKs9B8UU WHY I STOPPED BEING VEGAN AFTER 10 YEARS]". YouTube.</ref> got a particularly virulent pair of responses from him,<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFGgDzsptk Blaire White vs VeganGains]". YouTube.</ref><ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgbX1P5wBbM Blaire White is an SJW Liar]". YouTube.</ref> despite this being among her ''least'' offensive videos.<ref group=note>Which is not saying very much.</ref>

Burgess is hostile to [[feminism]], all humans (he hates himself and therefore wants to inflict pain in others),<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PJtrVC44fE BuzzFeed vs Vegan Gains] on YouTube.</ref><ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://youtu.be/PHrMC7PbWTY Feminist Attacking Veganism?]" YouTube.</ref> [[Islam]],<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pm06CC9-Io Islam vs Vegan Gains]". YouTube.</ref> defends<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBY6n6p944Y Rich Piana Said The 'N’ Word]". YouTube.</ref> and engages in casual [[racism]] and opposes [[Black Lives Matter]],<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7raBIFV3XM Tara Mongeau Is An N Word]".</ref><ref>. 
Reg Flowers. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOuS3KY_9ZA Racist is the New N Word (w/ Vegan Gains & Kat Blaque)]". YouTube.</ref> and is against gender-neutral pronouns.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMnEoLEdtI Gender Neutral Pronouns vs Vegan Gains]". YouTube.</ref> He has attacked [[Laci Green]] for her criticisms of the [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwhqQhNlo9g Laci Green Trump Hating]". YouTube.</ref> and the idea of false [[rape]] accusations,<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDL4vHScubc Laci Green RAPED ME (Parody)]". YouTube.</ref> as well as [[transgender]] [[feminist]] [[Riley Dennis]] for opposing fat-[[shaming]]<ref group=note>She "has claimed that it's not your fault if you're fat"? Shock horror!</ref> and for her (controversial) opinion that transgender-exclusionary dating preferences may be partly socially conditioned.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY4Ed1kY1ZU SJW Says Fat And Dating Isn’t A Choice]". YouTube.</ref> 

Elaborating on his decision to get a vasectomy, Burgess launched into a stunningly [[Misogyny|misogynistic]] diatribe. Although he implied (and later clarified) that he was just trolling, the gesture is still disturbing and in poor taste to say the least. Vegan Gain's "trolling" is usually quite ambiguous and is oftentimes confused for seriousness. 

{{quotebox|Most women only want to have children so that they don't have to work, and that they can get taken care of. Women also use children to control and manipulate you, to prevent you from leaving an unloving abusive relationship, or to steal money from you after you break up. And I don't give a fuck what you say — "oh I love my man and I just want to have babies with him" — it's fucking bullshit. Women trick men into having kids so that they don't have to work, and by the time the kid is five or six years old and it doesn't make any more sense for them to stay stay-at-home moms, and the time comes for them to get a fucking job, they try and trick men into having more children, so that they can keep getting taken care of. And if they don't get what, they want they'll just break up with you and steal money from you until the kid is 18, and the threat of that happening is often enough to trap men into these horrible fucking relationships. I'm not going to let any women take advantage of me like that, and I'm going to take control of things by getting a fucking vasectomy.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fStQISdfSII#t=51s Why I'm Getting a Vasectomy]. ''YouTube''.</ref>}}

The same goes for later comments in the same video, in which he said that babies "make [him] sick", and expressed, in lurid and gory details, a desire to stomp them to death on the pavement.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fStQISdfSII#t=3m39s Why I'm Getting a Vasectomy]. ''YouTube''.</ref> Regarding such trolling — especially on a video that is categorised under "Education" and not under "Comedy" — it might be worth recalling the following [[Ed Brayton]] quote: "If you spend a great deal of your time pretending to be an asshole to get a reaction from people... you aren't pretending. You are an asshole."<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/06/19/ooh-pat-replies-to-us-again/ Ooh, Pat Replies To Us Again], ScienceBlogs</ref>

Burgess has been called out for his stances by saner vegan YouTubers such as Reg Flowers<ref>Reg Flowers. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yBvNPK9a94 Vegan Gains: Toxic Masculinity (and some Prof. Kimberle Crenshaw)]". YouTube.</ref><ref>Reg Flowers. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPA7IkxUdzQ Vegan Gains - Worst of the Worst!]" YouTube.</ref> and [[Unnatural Vegan]].<ref name=unnatural>Unnatural Vegan. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSK2q_60c3I F**k your mom. IT’S OKAY I’M VEGAN! (response to Vegan Gains)]". YouTube.</ref><ref>Unnatural Vegan. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=97&v=SqHFWb_lbS8 Vegan Gains Should Get a Vasectomy (and stop promoting veganism?)]. ''YouTube''.</ref>

==Health and nutrition==
Burgess argues unequivocally for the nutritional superiority of veganism, to the point where he exaggerates its health benefits and makes such unjustifiably strong claims as "cancer is a preventable illness that is caused by animal products and can be treated through a whole foods vegan diet".<ref name=ohno/> He argues that [[humans are herbivores]]<ref>Vegan Gains. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duqcbJbElo4 Joe Rogan Says Vegan Diets Are Bad]. YouTube.</ref> and takes the stance of "personal responsibility for your health" to the extreme endpoint of [[blaming the victim|attributing people's ailments entirely to their consumption of meat and other animal products]] to the exclusion of any other factor. One result of this is that he takes the liberty to engage in [[fat shaming]] of women,<ref name=unnatural/> ironically contrasting with his assertions that thin people such as Eugenia Cooney are "not naturally skinny" and have eating disorders.<ref>Vegan Gains. "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atWoUYYZsUE Eugenia Cooney Is Not Naturally Skinny]". YouTube.</ref>

==YouTube restriction==

In September 2021, all of Burgess's content was removed on his YouTube channel.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/c/VeganGains/videos Videos]</ref>

This led to speculations that Vegan Gains has been permanently banned from YouTube. However, Burgess has since responded claiming he received a second strike from YouTube for making a controversial response video to Enkiri Elite Fitness.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ERivKQEnQM. Comment by Vegan Gains "I didn't get a second strike from reacting to your video. It was my response to Enkiri Elite Fitness that got me the second strike. Debate offer is still on the table. Just email me and we can schedule a debate on the issues you have with my comments on John Meadows."</ref> A second strike means he cannot upload content for 2 weeks<ref>[https://archive.is/TeBzn "Community Guidelines strike basics"]</ref>, so Burgess' account was only temporarily restricted, not banned.

==Views on killing carnivores and mice==
[[File:Vegan Gains 2023.png|thumb|300px|Vegan Gains debating Michael Greger in 2023]]
In April 2021, Burgess argued that he thinks killing carnivorous animals is a good idea and ideally all carnivorous animals need to be wiped out so other animals are not preyed upon.<ref name="2021 interview"/> In response to this, {{wpl|That Vegan Teacher}} asked Burgess does that mean he believes "all the wolves, all the lions and all the predators should be killed". He replied "yeah" and stated his belief that in "most ecosystems most predatory species don't actually do much of anything to control prey populations".<ref name="2021 interview"/> He has claimed that human intervention is more reliable to control animal populations such as using contraceptive guns.<ref name="2021 interview"/> Burgess said that he is "against breeding animals, sterilize them all".<ref name="2021 interview"/>

In October 2021, Burgess in a debate with Vegan Footsoldier said that "he's in favour of killing carnivorous animals" if it reduces "rights" violations.<ref name="Carnivores"/> He did not define what he meant by "rights". In the same debate Burgess stated that he would be in favour of killing every bird of prey on the planet to protect one single mouse from being eaten.<ref name="Carnivores"/> Other vegans have criticized these views as extreme and non-vegan.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_TOt2xkZLM Vegan Gains Should Change Name]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCuFA4uUHI4 Vegan Gains Supports Killing Predators]</ref>

Burgess has said that he is "totally fine" with people poisoning mice populations because they destroy human food (crops) and that poisoning mice is the ethical thing to do to reduce human starvation.<ref name="2021 interview"/> His views on mice are contradictory.

Burgess is unfamiliar with the scientific literature on controlling carnivores; as non-lethal approaches are more effective in protecting livestock.
 
{{quotebox|Non-lethal methods have been found effective in protecting livestock from wild carnivores in numerous situations (e.g., painted eye-spots on cattle versus African lions; low-stress livestock handling by ‘range riders’ to protect cattle from pumas, grizzly bears U. arctos, black bears, gray wolves, and coyotes, fladry flagging against wolves and coyotes. Currently non-lethal methods have been tested with higher standards than have lethal. Combining livestock defenses has also been advocated for decades.<ref>Elbroch, Mark L. and Adrian Treves. "[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320723002070 Perspective: Why might removing carnivores maintain or increase risks for domestic animals?] ''Biological Conservation.'' (July 2023).</ref>}}

===Position on eating carnivorous animals===

Burgess believes that there is nothing wrong with hunting and eating large carnivorous animals such as bears and wolves. He says the only issue (and the only reason why he doesn't do it himself) is due to health concerns- for instance, the risk of parasites and zoonotic disease transmission.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmGnCxBzKto Q&A: On Culling Carnivorous Animals]</ref>

==Stopped clock==

Burgess has had a couple of [[stopped clock]] moments. He has criticized and debunked the pseudoscientific claims of the [[carnivore diet]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INxw0tMGuh0 Carnivore Diet Debunked Part 1], although this is no credit to him as literally any sensible person at all knows that a carnivorous diet is a bad idea. Vegan Gains (YouTube).</ref>  He cited a scientific study that refutes the insulin and weight loss claims of low-carb crank [[Gary Taubes]], and is surprisingly correct in his contention that Taubes is not a scientist and is publishing misinformation to make money. He also has criticized the pseudoscientific claims of [[Shawn Baker]] and [[Paul Saladino]].<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlEbmRyTPRQ Do Only Stupid People Eat Carnivore? Yes!]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxZ7ZIVx7cM Dr. Paul Saladino on oils, root vegetables and more || Vegan Gains Livestream Reaction]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe0GedAU6gk Paul Saladino: July 2022 Bloodwork Review! |​| Vegan Gains Livestream Reaction]</ref>

==Steroid usage==

Burgess began taking steroids on August 1, 2025, initially starting by taking 30mg of testosterone cypionate and 5 IUs of growth hormone everyday. As of October 2025, Burgess is taking 50 mg of testosterone enanthate, 30mg of boldenone, and 5 IUs of growth hormone everyday, in addition to taking retatrutide every week. His decision to take steroids has elicited concerns from some of his fans as well as from other online fitness creators, given his struggles with mental health and proclivity to aggression. Burgess countered these concerns by claiming the steroids are helping him feel more calm, stabilizing his mood, making him less prone to aggressive behavior, and increasing his energy levels and performance in weightlifting.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv_kAOfhUQI]</ref> In January 2026, Burgess stopped taking growth hormone and boldenone, stating that the growth hormone was giving him symptoms of hypothyroidism and carpal tunnel syndrome, which required medication to treat. He is currently only taking testosterone enanthate.

==See also==
*[[Unnatural Vegan]]
*[[Vegan Artbook]] — For another vegan that gives other vegans a bad name.

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g Vegan Gains] on [[YouTube]]
*[https://twitter.com/VeganGains/ Vegan Gains] on [[Twitter]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}} 

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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Categories: Ableism, Animal rights, Antifeminism, Canadians, Food woo promoters, Hard green, Internet kooks, Islamophobes, Living people, Machismo, Pseudoscience promoters, Racists, Rape culture, Sexists, YouTube