Veganism
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a vegan; the word is also used to describe foods and materials that are compatible with veganism.
Ethical veganism excludes all forms of [|animal use], whether in agriculture for labour or food, in clothing and fashion, in entertainment, in services, and in medicine. People who follow a vegan diet for the benefits to the environment, their health or for religion are regularly also described as vegans.
Although individuals have been renouncing the consumption of products of animal origin since ancient times, the term "veganism" itself was coined in 1944 by Donald and Dorothy Watson. The aim was to differentiate it from vegetarianism, which rejects the consumption of meat but accepts the consumption of other products of animal origin, such as milk, honey, dairy products, and eggs. Interest in veganism increased significantly in the 2010s.
Definition
Distinctions may be made between several categories of veganism. "Ethical veganism" means avoiding using animals, animal products, and animal-tested products for any purpose, when practicable. The motivation behind this is concern about animal welfare. Another term is "environmental veganism", which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the grounds that the industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable. "Dietary veganism", whose practitioners are also known as "strict vegetarians", refrain from consuming meat, eggs, dairy products, and any other animal-derived substances. This can be for religious reason too.Since 1988, The UK's Vegan Society gives this definitions of veganism:
A 2021 study found this to be the most popular definition amongst vegans from a number of other prominent definitions. It also found that while most vegans ranked diet-only based definitions such as "strict vegetarianism" last, non-vegans picked these far more frequently.
The German consumer protection minister conference approved a definition for food suitable for vegans on 22 April 2016. In 2021, the International Organization for Standardization published standard ISO 23662 on "definitions and technical criteria for foods and food ingredients suitable for vegetarians or vegans and for labelling and claims". However, this was rejected by the Dutch Vegan Association who found the standard inconsistent with their vision.
History
Early history
can be traced back to the Indus Valley civilization in 3300–1300 BCE in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in northern and western ancient India. Early vegetarians included Indian philosophers such as Parshavnatha, Mahavira, Acharya Kundakunda, Umaswati, Samantabhadra, and Valluvar, as well as the Indian emperors Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka.One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Ma'arri, famous for his poem "I No Longer Steal From Nature".. Another vegan who predated the term vegan was English philosopher Lewis Gompertz.
Ancient vegan arguments were based on health, the transmigration of souls, animal welfare, and the view — espoused by Porphyry in De Abstinentia ab Esu Animalium — that if humans deserve justice, then so do animals.
19th century
Vegetarianism established itself as a significant movement in 19th-century Britain and the United States. A minority of vegetarians avoided animal food entirely. In 1813, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published A Vindication of Natural Diet, advocating "abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors", and in 1815, William Lambe, a London physician, said that his "water and vegetable diet" could cure anything from tuberculosis to acne. Lambe called animal food a "habitual irritation" and argued that "milk eating and flesh-eating are but branches of a common system and they must stand or fall together". Sylvester Graham's meatless Graham diet—mostly fruit, vegetables, water, and bread made at home with stoneground flour—became popular as a health remedy in the 1830s in the United States. The first known vegan cookbook was Asenath Nicholson's Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians, published in 1849.Several vegan communities were established around this time. In Massachusetts, Amos Bronson Alcott, father of the novelist Louisa May Alcott, opened the Temple School in 1834 and Fruitlands in 1844, and in England, James Pierrepont Greaves founded the Concordium, a vegan community at Alcott House on Ham Common, in 1838.
Early 20th century
published an early vegan cookbook, Rupert H. Wheldon's No Animal Food: Two Essays and 100 Recipes, in 1910. The consumption of milk and eggs became a battleground over the following decades within the Vegetarian Society. There were regular discussions about it in the Vegetarian Messenger; it appears from the correspondence pages that many opponents of veganism were vegetarians.During a visit to London in 1931, Mahatma Gandhi—who had joined the Vegetarian Society's executive committee when he lived in London from 1888 to 1891—gave a speech to the Society arguing that it ought to promote a meat-free diet as a matter of morality, not health. Lacto-vegetarians acknowledged the ethical consistency of the vegan position but regarded a vegan diet as impracticable and were concerned that it might be an impediment to spreading vegetarianism if vegans found themselves unable to participate in social circles where no non-animal food was available. This became the predominant view of the Vegetarian Society, which in 1935 stated: "The lacto-vegetarians, on the whole, do not defend the practice of consuming the dairy products except on the ground of expediency."
Etymology
In August 1944, several members of the Vegetarian Society asked that a section of its newsletter be devoted to non-dairy vegetarianism. When the request was denied, Donald Watson, secretary of the Leicester branch, set up a new quarterly newsletter, The Vegan News, in November 1944. The word vegan was invented by Watson and Dorothy Morgan, a schoolteacher he later married. The word is based on "the first three and last two letters of 'vegetarian" because it marked, in Watson's words, "the beginning and end of vegetarian". The Vegan News asked its readers if they could think of anything better than vegan to stand for "non-dairy vegetarian". They suggested allvega, neo-vegetarian, dairyban, vitan, benevore, sanivores, and beaumangeur.According to Joanne Stepaniak, the word vegan was first published independently in 1962 by the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, defined as "a vegetarian who eats no butter, eggs, cheese, or milk".
Founding of The Vegan Society
The first edition of The Vegan News attracted more than 100 letters, including from George Bernard Shaw, who resolved to give up eggs and dairy. The Vegan Society held its first meeting in early November at the Attic Club, 144 High Holborn, London. In attendance were Donald Watson, Elsie B. Shrigley, Fay K. Henderson, Alfred Hy Haffenden, Paul Spencer and Bernard Drake, with Mme Pataleewa observing. World Vegan Day is held every 1 November to mark the founding of the Society, and the Society considers November World Vegan Month.File:Barbara Moore.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|alt=photograph of Moore in 1961|Barbara Moore attended the first meeting of The Vegan Society as an observer.
The Vegan News changed its name to The Vegan in November 1945, by which time it had 500 subscribers. It published recipes and a "vegan trade list" of animal-free products, such as toothpastes, shoe polishes, stationery and glue. Vegan books appeared, including Vegan Recipes by Fay K. Henderson and Aids to a Vegan Diet for Children by Kathleen V. Mayo.
The Vegan Society soon made clear that it rejected the use of animals for any purpose, not only in diet. In 1947, Watson wrote: "The vegan renounces it as superstitious that human life depends upon the exploitation of these creatures whose feelings are much the same as our own". From 1948, The Vegans front page read: "Advocating living without exploitation", and in 1951, the Society published its definition of veganism as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals". In 1956, its vice-president, Leslie Cross, founded the Plantmilk Society and in 1965, as Plantmilk Ltd and later Plamil Foods, it began production of one of the first widely distributed soy milks in the Western world.
Spread to the United States
The first vegan society in the U.S. was founded in 1948 by Catherine Nimmo and Rubin Abramowitz in California, who distributed Watson's newsletter. In 1960, H. Jay Dinshah founded the American Vegan Society, linking veganism to the concept of ahimsa, "non-harming" in Sanskrit.Late 20th century
In the 1960s and 1970s, a vegetarian food movement emerged as part of the counterculture in the United States that focused on concerns about diet, the environment, and a distrust of food producers, leading to increasing interest in organic gardening. One of the most influential vegetarian books of that time was Frances Moore Lappé's 1971 Diet for a Small Planet. It sold more than three million copies and suggested "getting off the top of the food chain".The following decades saw research by a group of scientists and doctors in the U.S., including Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, Neal D. Barnard, John A. McDougall, Michael Greger, and biochemist T. Colin Campbell, who argued that diets based on animal fat and animal protein, such as the Western pattern diet, were unhealthy. They produced a series of books that recommend vegan or vegetarian diets, including McDougall's The McDougall Plan, John Robbins's Diet for a New America, which associated meat eating with environmental damage, and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. In 2003 two major North American dietitians' associations claimed that well-planned vegan diets were suitable for all life stages. This was followed by the film Earthlings, Campbell's The China Study, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch, Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, and the film Forks Over Knives.
In the 1980s, veganism became associated with punk subculture and ideologies, particularly straight edge hardcore punk in the U.S. and anarcho-punk in the United Kingdom. This association continues into the 21st century, as evidenced by the prominence of vegan punk events such as Fluff Fest in Europe.