Talk:Veganism

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References

World demographics

I've been scouring the other wikipedias and non-english websites for statistics relating to vegans. By and large, this has been a failure. There appear to be no/poor statistics for vegans (or even vegetarians) in Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Possibly useful:

Germany

Veganismus wikipedia article provides "between 250,000 and 460,500". This is cited to veganwelt.de, which itself cites no source. This number is repeated on a number of german vegan websites, but none of them (that I can understand) have an authoritative source linked or listed. This source appears to provide an estimate for vegetarians, but I could not glean any info regarding vegans. Perhaps someone with better German could do so.

Netherlands

Veganisme wikipedia article provides "16,000 vegans." Sourced to veganisme.org, which I cannot understand, but which appears to be an estimate from the Netherlands vegan society.

Russia

Веганизм wikipedia article provides a bunch of statistics, and although most of them appear to be the UK/US/Germany stats that I've listed above. But maybe someone who can read Russian would be able to find something better.

Yay. So in sum, the german citation is kind of crappy, and we might have a citation for the Netherlands. Anybody else have any luck? Kellen^T 22:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I added the Netherlands and Germany estimates, though they're not very good. I also added an intro paragraph stating that data is not available for most countries. The wording could probably be changed. Kellen^T 12:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Couple of questions

Very informative article, congratulations. I've identified one minor point that needs correcting and have a question for experts.

The minor point is that under the sub-heading "calcium" there is a reference to a study "by Oxford" with a link that directs to the English city of that name. I suspect that "University of Oxford" was meant but even that is vague and it would be more satisfactory to say "a team of X-specialism researchers at the University of Oxford".

The question is whether vegans avoid beer and wine as fish products are frequently used to clarify these beverages? If so, are other alcoholic drinks acceptable?

Thanks.

Itsmejudith 11:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You are probably right about the Oxford ref, but I don't know enough about that particular statement to change it.

On the alcohol front, yes, vegans would avoid beers and wines (and ciders etc...) that contain or use animal products in their production. There are plenty of vegan friendly beers though, for example any that follow the German purity laws, and quite a few lagers are also. Also, many cheap wines are vegan (Blossom Hill in the UK is vegan AFAIK). And there are a few cider manufacturers which produce vegan ciders (Thatchers, Stowford Press, etc...).

If you are in the UK, this site is a good resource for finding out whether things are vegan or not.-Localzuk^(talk) 11:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, pretty much any beer that follows Germany's Reinheitsgebot is vegan, as by law it can only contain water, hops, barley, and yeast. As for non-beer/wine/cider beverages, some distilled spirits are filtered through bone char, which obviously disqualifies it - there are some lists of hard alcohol at Localzuk's link. Cheers, Skinwalker 13:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Manx brewed beers from Bushy's are vegan as well (just thought I'd mention that as I'm from there :D), as they follow (and exceed) the old (now repealed) Manx purity laws (which were similar to the newer German laws).-Localzuk^(talk) 14:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I question the quality of this article based on the Good article criteria. For that reason, I have listed the article at Good article review. Issues needing to be address are listed there and you are invited to comment. Regards, Tarret 14:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Review is here: Wikipedia:Good article review#Veganism Kellen^T 22:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Picture of the intensive pig farm

Hello, my English is not really good but i have some qestions about this picture. Has this Picture ,in this article an effect like a propaganda? Is it licensed to take it over, with the same text to the german veganism article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.211.12 (talk) 13:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Edits must be justified

Byproducts are part of avoidance, animal right issues are moral issues and the nutritional statement is corrected now from a medical point of view. Please don't edit without justification.Jenny^Len☤ 14:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, everyone here edits with justification, so I don't understand what that means. I restored the sentence in the intro about supplementation after thinking it over. It more carefully summarizes the content of the rest of the article about supplementation, and does not take sides on the contentious issue of the relative health of vegans vs. vegetarians vs. omnivores. We do, however, need to have a better cite at the end of this sentence, and I will look for one in the near future. Cheers, Skinwalker 15:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I sourced the supplementation sentence to this[1] position paper by the American Dietetic Association. The paper specifically lists each nutrient mentioned in the sentence in the context of veganism, not vegetarianism, and says that vegans should supplement. Comments? Skinwalker 16:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Good. Kellen^T 10:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry; just read this after the fact. I made an informative edit about veganism in French which caused a lot of confusion amongst some of us in Canada when it came to dietary needs. Just trying to avoid international confusion. This is, however, common knowledge, so if we feel we need to link to a translation page let me know. I believe the French "vegetalien" page is accurate. Cpt ricard 07:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

UICW-report moved to Environmental vegetarianism

Sorry about my mistake. I wrongfully placed the report due to my confusion between veganism and vegetarianism. I moved it to environmental vegetarianism; so note that if you see its removal, it wasn't banditry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.165.22 (talk) 08:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Paragraphs needing work

Here are some sections I think could use some attention:

• The Jarvis bit should be rewritten to give more context if his is indeed a notable viewpoint, and the part about Singer after it should be properly cited, if there at all.
• The Davis/Matheny paragraphs should be condensed into a single paragraph. The Davis part has undue weight in my opinion, since it's a discussion of a hypothetical agricultural model.
• Both intro paragraphs in "Health" seem like fragments and the second one makes no direct connection to veganism.
• The whole "Benefits" section is fragmented and could use a rewrite to make a coherent statement
• The child abuse/deaths section of "pregnancies and children" should choose between giving the facts of each case or making only more general statements, not giving a general description then a very specific fact then back to a general description.
• The UN paragraph and Systems Analysis paragraphs of "Environmentalism" do not make assertions tied to veganism.

I will eventually work on some of these myself, but perhaps other editors can get to them first. Kellen^T 12:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Please do not touch the ethical concerns section, especially the material concerning Davis and Matheny. You originally eliminated the criticism section and merged this material into ethical concerns, only to now make the claim that it is "undue weight" and "hypotethical", obviously clearing the way for the elimination of all criticism of veganism. Ethics is, by its very nature theoretical, so your argument doesn't hold any weight. Davis gives an example of applied ethics in the field of environmental ethics, and as an animal scientist he has the authority to make these statements; Davis' opinions were not only published in a scholarly journal by were given at a conference. Matheny doesn't have the qualifications that Davis does, nor is he a scientist, but we've allowed him to stay in the article as a good faith effort to represent a minority POV; in the discipline of nutrition, veganism is the minority POV. It is not undue weight to quote an animal scientist about the agricultural ramifications of veganism. More importantly, the recent GA review recommended delisting this article due to its continued suppression of criticism; please don't prove them correct. There is a plethora of criticism that does not appear in this article, such as that made by food writer Nina Planck in her controversial "Death by Veganism" piece in the New York Times, as well as the criticism of veganism by sports nutritionists as found in Wolinsky et al. If you think this article would be better served by a separate Criticism of veganism article, with the appropriate "Criticism" header and summary subsection, I'll go ahead and create it. —Viriditas | Talk 08:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Kellen, I notice that you reverted almost all of User:Jennylen's contributions, a scientist who has expertise in the field of medicine and ethics. Is there a particular reason that you feel her edits are not up to par, or does one have to be a practicing vegan in good membership standing with PETA in order to edit this article? —Viriditas | Talk 09:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)