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 (e.g., meat, fish and other animal seafood, eggs, honey, and dairy products such as milk or cheese), in clothing and fashion (e.g., leather, wool, fur, and some cosmetics), in entertainment (e.g., rodeos, bullfighting, zoos, pet ownership, circuses, dolphinariums and horse racing), in services (e.g., mounted police, working animals, K9s and animal testing), and in medicine (e.g., bile bear farms, wildlife trade). 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.Matthew Cole, "Veganism", in Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz (ed.), Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism, ABC-Clio, 2010 (239–241), 241. "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 reasons too.
Since 1988, The UK's Vegan Society gives this definition 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 Ministry for Consumer Protection 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
Vegetarianism 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.For Valluvar, see Kamil Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India , E. J. Brill, 1973, pp. 156–171.P. S. Sundaram, Tiruvalluvar Kural, Penguin, 1990, p. 13. A. A. Manavalan, Essays and Tributes on Tirukkural (1886–1986 AD) (1 ed.). Chennai: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 2009, pp. 127–129.
One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Ma'arri, famous for his poem "I No Longer Steal From Nature". (). In poem #14. Another vegan who predated the term vegan was English philosopher Lewis Gompertz. The Irish farmer Robert Cook (1646–1726) was a vegan who also predated the term; he did not eat any animal products and did not wear wool or leather, on account of his Protestant interpretation of biblical verses.
Ancient vegan arguments were based on health, the transmigration of souls, animal welfare, and the view — espoused by Porphyry in ("On Abstinence from Animal Food", ) — that if humans deserve justice, then so do animals.Daniel A. Dombrowski, The Philosophy of Vegetarianism, University of Massachusetts Press, 1984, 2.
19th century Vegetarianism established itself as a significant movement in 19th-century Britain and the United States.James Gregory, Of Victorians and Vegetarians, I. B. Tauris, 2007. A minority of vegetarians avoided animal food entirely."International Health Exhibition", The Medical Times and Gazette, 24 May 1884, 712. 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.James C. Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, 69–70: "Word of these cures of pimples, consumption, and virtually all ailments in between was widely distributed by his several publications ..." Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Vindication of Natural Diet, London: F. Pitman, 1884 ; William Lambe, Joel Shew, Water and Vegetable Diet, New York: Fowler's and Wells, 1854 [London, 1815]. 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".Lambe 1854, 55, 94. 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.Andrew F. Smith, Eating History, New York: Columbia University Press, 2013, 29–35 (33 for popularity); Whorton 2014, 38ff. The first known vegan cookbook was Asenath Nicholson's Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians, published in 1849."Key facts". The Vegan Society. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
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,Hart 1995, 14; Francis, Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and their Search for Utopia, 2010. and in England, James Pierrepont Greaves founded the Concordium, a vegan community at Alcott House on Ham Common, in 1838.J. E. M. Latham, Search for a New Eden, Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999, 168.Gregory 2007, 22.
Early 20th century
C. W. Daniel 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.Donald Watson, Vegan News, February 1945, 2–3.
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".Stepaniak 2000, 3.
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.Donald Watson, "The Early History of the Vegan Movement", The Vegan, Autumn 1965, 5–7; Donald Watson, Vegan News, first issue, November 1944. 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 (Barbara Moore, a Russian-British engineer) observing.Richard Farhall, "The First Fifty Years: 1944–1994", iii (full names of members on following pages), published with The Vegan, 10(3), Autumn 1994, between pp. 12 and 13. Later that month, the Vegan Society published its manifesto which advocated that diet "should exclude flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, and animal's milk, butter, and cheese" and encouraged "the manufacture and use of alternatives to animal commodities."Preece, Rod. (2008). Sins of the Flesh: A History of Ethical Vegetarian Thought. UBC Press. pp. 298-299. World Vegan Day is held every 1 November to mark the founding of the Society, and the Society considers November World Vegan Month.
The Vegan News changed its name to The Vegan in November 1945, by which time it had 500 subscribers.The Vegan, 1(5), November 1945; for 500, The Vegan, 10(3), Autumn 1994, iv. It published recipes and a "vegan trade list" of animal-free products, such as toothpastes, shoe polishes, stationery and glue.For an example of the vegan trade list, The Vegan, 2(2), Summer 1946, 6–7. Vegan books appeared, including Vegan Recipes by Fay K. Henderson (1946) and Aids to a Vegan Diet for Children by Kathleen V. Mayo (1948).Joanne Stepaniak, The Vegan Sourcebook, McGraw Hill Professional, 2000, 5; The Vegan, Autumn 1949, 22.
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."The Plantmilk Society", The Vegan, X(3), Winter 1956, 14–16.
Spread to the United States