Veganism

This article is about the vegan diet and philosophy. For notable vegans, see List of vegans.

Veganism
Tofu scramble, soy pizza, makizushi, cupcakes
Early proponents	James Pierrepont Greaves (1777–1842) Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) Donald Watson (1910–2005) H. Jay Dinshah (1933–2000)
Origin of the term	November 1, 1944, with the foundation of the British Vegan Society
Description	Elimination of the use of animal products

Veganism ([[WP:IPA for English|/ˈviːgənɪzəm/]]) is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, as well as an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of sentient animals. A follower of veganism is known as a vegan.

Distinctions are sometimes made between different types of vegans and veganism. A dietary vegan (or strict vegetarian) is one who eliminates animal products (not only meat and fish, but also dairy products, eggs and often honey, as well as other animal-derived substances) from their diet. The term ethical vegan is often applied to someone who not only follows a vegan diet, but extends the vegan philosophy into other areas of their life. Another term used is environmental veganism, which refers to the rejection of animal products on the premise that industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.

The term vegan was coined in England in 1944 by Donald Watson, co-founder of the British Vegan Society, to mean "non-dairy vegetarian"; the society also opposed the consumption of eggs. In 1951 the society extended the definition of veganism to mean "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals," and in 1960 H. Jay Dinshah started the American Vegan Society, linking veganism to the Jain concept of ahimsa, the avoidance of violence against living things.

Veganism is a small but growing movement. In many countries the number of vegan restaurants is increasing, and some of the top athletes in certain endurance sports—for instance, the Ironman triathlon and the ultramarathon—practise veganism, including raw veganism. Well-planned vegan diets have been found to offer protection against many degenerative conditions, including heart disease, and are regarded by the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada as appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle. Vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fibre, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, iron, and phytochemicals, and lower in calories, saturated fat, cholesterol, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12. Because unfortified plant foods do not provide vitamin B12 (which is produced by bacterial fermentation), researchers agree that vegans should eat foods fortified with B12 or take a daily supplement.

History

19th century

Further information: History of vegetarianism

Fanny Kemble (1809–1893) by Thomas Sully, 1834. The OED attributes an early use of the word "vegetarian" to her

Vegetarianism is defined by the International Vegetarian Union (IVU) as "a diet of foods derived from plants, with or without eggs, dairy products, and/or honey"; the British Vegetarian Society adds that vegetarians avoid the "by-products of slaughter." The word "vegetarian" seems to have come into use in the early 19th century to refer to those who avoided meat; those who also avoided fish, eggs and dairy products were known as strict or total vegetarians. The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the earliest use of the word to the English actress Fanny Kemble (1809–1893) writing in Georgia in the United States in 1839. It is clear from these early references that the word was in sufficiently widespread use as to be easily understood.

In 1834 Amos Bronson Alcott, the American Transcendentalist and strict vegetarian (father of Louisa May Alcott), opened the Temple School in Boston to promote his ideas, and in 1838 James Pierrepont Greaves opened Alcott House in Surrey, England, a cooperative community and boarding school that followed a strict-vegetarian diet. In 1844 Alcott founded Fruitlands, a strict-vegetarian community in Harvard, Massachusetts, though it lasted only seven months.

Members of Alcott House – along with the ovo-lacto vegetarian Bible Christian Church and readers of the Truth-Tester temperance journal – were involved in 1847 in forming the British Vegetarian Society. The Society held its first meeting, chaired by Salford MP Joseph Brotherton (1783–1857), in September that year at Northwood Villa in Ramsgate. In 1886 the Society published the influential A Plea for Vegetarianism by the English campaigner Henry Salt (1851–1939), one of the first writers to make the paradigm shift from animal welfare to animal rights. In it, Salt acknowledged that he was a vegetarian, writing that this was a "formidable admission" to make, because "a Vegetarian is still regarded, in ordinary society, as little better than a madman." In 1851 an article appeared in the Vegetarian Society's magazine about alternatives to using leather for shoes, which the IVU cites as evidence of the existence in England of another group that wanted to avoid using animal products entirely.

Early 20th century

Further information: History of veganism

Mahatma Gandhi's call to vegetarians in 1931 to focus on morality was a precursor to the ideas of the Vegan Society in 1944.

The first known vegan cookbook, No Animal Food by Rupert H. Wheldon, was published in England by C.W. Daniel in 1910. Leah Leneman writes that in 1912 the editor of TVMHR, the journal of the Vegetarian Society's Manchester branch, started a debate among readers as to whether vegetarians ought to avoid eggs and dairy. He summarized the views of the 24 vegetarians who responded, writing: "The defence of the use of eggs and milk by vegetarians, so far as it has been offered here, is not satisfactory. The only true way is to live on cereals, pulse, fruit, nuts and vegetables." The journal wrote in 1923 that the "ideal position for vegetarians is abstinence from animal products," and that most of the society's members were in a transitional stage. In 1935 it wrote that the issue was becoming more pressing with every year.

In 1931 Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) addressed a meeting in London of the Vegetarian Society—attended by Henry Salt—arguing that it ought to promote a meat-free diet as a moral issue, not as an issue of human health. Norm Phelps writes that this was a rebuke to members of the Society who had focused on the health benefits of vegetarianism. Gandhi argued that "vegetarians had a habit of talking of nothing but food and nothing but disease. I feel that this is the worst way of going about the business. ... I discovered that for remaining staunch to vegetarianism a man requires a moral basis." He became friends with other leading vegetarian campaigners, including Salt and the English physician Anna Kingsford (1846–1888), author of The Perfect Way in Diet (1881). Although Gandhi continued to drink cow's milk—calling it the tragedy of his life that he could not give it up—Phelps argues that his speech was a call for the Society to align itself with Salt's views on animal rights, and a precursor to the ideas of Donald Watson in 1944.

1944: Coining the term "vegan"

Donald Watson, creator of the term "vegan," and co-founder of the British Vegan Society in 1944.

File:VeganSociety.jpg

Logo of the British Vegan Society

In July 1943 Leslie Cross, a member of the Leicester Vegetarian Society, expressed concern in its newsletter, The Vegetarian Messenger, that vegetarians were still eating dairy products. A year later, in August 1944, two of the society's members, Donald Watson (1910–2005) and Elsie "Sally" Shrigley (died 1978), suggested forming a subgroup of non-dairy vegetarians. When the executive committee rejected the idea, they and five others met at the Attic Club in Holborn, London, on November 1 to discuss setting up a separate organization, which they decided to call the Vegan Society.

Other suggestions for a concise term to replace "non-dairy vegetarian" included dairyban, vitan, benevore, sanivore, and beaumangeur, but Watson decided on "vegan" – pronounced "veegun" (/ˈviːɡən/), with the stress on the first syllable – the first three and last two letters of vegetarian and, as Watson put it in 2004, "the beginning and end of vegetarian." The word was first independently published in the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary in 1962, defined as "a vegetarian who eats no butter, eggs, cheese or milk." Fay K. Henderson published Vegan Recipes the following year; it was the first recipe book with the word "vegan" in the title.

The first vegan society in the United States was founded in 1948 by Dr. Catherine Nimmo of Oceano, California, and Rubin Abramowitz of Los Angeles. Nimmo had been a vegan since 1931, and began distributing the British Vegan Society's Vegan newsletter to her mailing list within the United States. In 1951 the British Vegan Society broadened its definition of veganism to "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals." Leslie Cross, the society's vice-president wrote that veganism is a principle, that it is "not so much about welfare [of animals] as liberation." The society pledged to "seek to end the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection and all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man." Members were expected to declare themselves in agreement and to live as closely to the ideal as they could.

In 1957 H. Jay Dinshah (1933–2000), the son of a Parsi from Mumbai, visited a slaughterhouse and read some of Watson's literature. He decided to give up all animal products, and, on February 8, 1960, he founded the American Vegan Society (AVS) in Malaga, New Jersey, incorporating Nimmo's society, and explicitly linking veganism to the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit word meaning "non-harming." The AVS called it "dynamic harmlessness," and to stress the connection with veganism named its magazine Ahimsa. Two key books explained the philosophy: Dinshah's Out of the Jungle: The Way of Dynamic Harmlessness (1965), and Victoria Moran's Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism (1985), the latter first published as a series of essays in Ahimsa. Today the word "veganism" is still used to refer either to the plant-based diet or to a lifestyle that seeks to eliminate animal use entirely. Since 1994 World Vegan Day has been held every November 1, the founding date of the British Vegan Society in 1944.

2000s: Demographics

Further information: List of vegans

In 1997 three percent in the US said they had not used animals for any purpose in the previous two years. In 2005, The Times of London estimated there were 250,000 vegans in the UK, and in 2006 The Independent estimated 600,000. In a 2007 British government survey, two percent self-identified as vegan. The Netherlands Association for Veganism estimated there were 16,000 vegans in the Netherlands as of 2007, around 0.1 percent of the population. A 2008 survey for the Vegetarian Resource Group reported that 0.5 percent of Americans, or one million, identified as vegan.

Animal products

Avoidance

Further information: Animal product and Rendering (food processing)

Lard from pigs

Ethical vegans entirely reject the commodification of animals. The Vegan Society in the UK will only certify a product as vegan if it is free of animal involvement as far as possible and practical.

An animal product is any material derived from animals, including meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, and silk. Other commonly used, but perhaps less well known, animal products are beeswax, bone char, bone china, carmine, casein, cochineal, gelatin, isinglass, lanolin, lard, rennet, shellac, tallow, whey, and yellow grease. Many of these may not be identified in the list of ingredients in the finished product. The detailed reasons vegans may not use a specific animal product are varied. In the case of wool for example, Merino sheep have been bred to have unusually wrinkly skin, which can lead to heat exhaustion in summer and the practice of mulesing to counter flystrike.

Ethical vegans will not use animal products for clothing, toiletries, or any other reason, and will try to avoid ingredients that have been tested on animals. They will not buy fur coats, cars with leather in them, leather shoes, belts, bags, wallets, woollen jumpers, silk scarves, camera film, and certain vaccines, etc. Depending on their economic circumstances, they may donate such items to charity when they become vegan, or use them until they wear out. Clothing made without animal products is widely available in stores and online. Alternatives to wool include cotton, hemp, rayon, and polyester. Some vegan clothes, in particular shoes, are made of petroleum-based products, which has triggered criticism because of the environmental damage associated with production.

Milk and eggs

One of the main differences between a vegan and a typical vegetarian diet is the avoidance of eggs and dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter and yogurt. Ethical vegans state that the production of eggs and dairy causes animal suffering and/or premature death. In battery cage and free-range egg production, unwanted male chicks are culled or discarded at birth during the process of securing a further generation of egg-laying hens. To produce milk from dairy cattle female calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth and fed milk replacer, so that the cow's milk is retained for human consumption. Vegans say that this breaks the natural mother-calf bond. Unwanted male calves are either slaughtered at birth or sent for veal production. To prolong lactation, dairy cows are kept almost permanently pregnant through artificial insemination. After about five years, once the cow's milk production has dropped, they are considered "spent" and sent to slaughter for hamburger meat and their hides. A dairy cow's natural life expectancy is about twenty years.

Honey and other insect products

There is disagreement among vegan groups about the extent to which products from insects must be avoided. Neither the Vegan Society nor the American Vegan Society considers the use of honey, silk, or other insect products to be suitable for vegans, while Vegan Action and Vegan Outreach regard it as a matter of personal choice. Some vegans view the consumption of honey as cruel and exploitative with modern beekeeping a form of enslavement. Once the honey is harvested, it is common practice to substitute the bees natural food store (honey) with sugar or corn syrup to maintain the colony over winter.

Vegan diet

Cuisine

Further information: Wikibooks Cookbook list of vegan recipes

Any plant-based dish may be vegan. Common vegan dishes prepared without animal ingredients include ratatouille, falafel, hummus, veggie burritos, rice and beans, veggie stir-fry, and pasta primavera. Ingredients such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan are widely used in vegan cuisine. Plant cream and plant milk—such as almond milk, grain milk, or soy milk—are used instead of cows' or goats' milk. Vegan recipes will use apple sauce, ground flax seeds, mashed potatoes, soft or silken tofu, or commercial starch-based egg-substitute products, instead of chickens' eggs.

Vegan version of the nutritional food pyramid

Meat analogues, or "mock meats," made of soy or gluten—including vegetarian sausage, vegetarian mince, and veggie burgers—are widely available. Since, however, some meat-free vegetarian foods, including some vegetarian sausages, may include eggs or dairy products, they would be part of an acceptable diet for vegetarians but not for vegans. Cheese analogues made from soy, nuts, and tapioca are commonly used. Vegan cheeses like Teese, Sheese, and Daiya can replace the taste and meltability of dairy cheese in various dishes. Joanne Stepaniak writes that cheese substitutes can be made at home, using recipes from Vegan Vittles, The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook, and The Uncheese Cookbook.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recommends what they call the "Four New Food Groups." They suggest that vegans and vegetarians eat at least three servings of vegetables a day, including dark-green, leafy vegetables such as broccoli, and dark-yellow and orange such as carrots; five servings of whole grains (bread, rice, pasta); three of fruit; and two of legumes (beans, peas, lentils).

Health arguments

Further information: Vegan nutrition and Raw veganism

Winston Craig, chair of the department of nutrition at Andrews University, writes that vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fibre, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, iron, and phytochemicals, and lower in calories, saturated fat, cholesterol, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12. He writes that vegans tend to be thinner, with lower serum cholesterol and lower blood pressure. He also writes that eliminating all animal products increases the risk of nutritional deficiencies; of particular concern are vitamins B-12 and D, calcium, and long-chain n–3 (omega-3) fatty acids. He advises vegans to eat foods fortified with these nutrients or take supplements, and writes that iron and zinc may also be problematic, because of limited bioavailability.

According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a report issued by the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services, a vegetarian diet is associated with lower levels of obesity and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada said in 2003 that properly planned vegan diets were nutritionally adequate for all stages of life, including pregnancy and lactation, and provided health benefits in the treatment and prevention of certain diseases. The Swiss Federal Nutrition Commission and the German Society for Nutrition do not recommend a vegan diet, and caution against it for children, the pregnant, and the elderly.

Dean Ornish is one of a number of physicians who recommend a low-fat vegan diet to prevent and reverse certain degenerative diseases.

Physicians John A. McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn, Neal D. Barnard, Dean Ornish, Michael Greger, and nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell, argue that high animal fat and protein diets, such as the standard American diet, are detrimental to health, and that a low-fat vegan diet can both prevent and reverse degenerative diseases such as coronary artery disease and diabetes. A 2006 study by Barnard found that in people with type 2 diabetes, a low-fat vegan diet reduced weight, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol, and did so to a greater extent than the diet prescribed by the American Diabetes Association. Although there is general consensus amongst doctors advocating plant-based diets, Joel Fuhrman has disagreed with Campbell and Esselstyn on the use of nuts and seeds.

The 12-year Oxford Vegetarian Study of 11,000 subjects recruited between 1980 and 1984 indicated that vegans had lower total- and LDL-cholesterol concentrations than did meat-eaters. Death rates were lower in non-meat eaters than in meat eaters; mortality from ischemic heart disease was positively associated with eating animal fat and with dietary cholesterol levels.

According to the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, diets that avoid meat tend to have lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals. People avoiding meat are reported to have lower body mass index than those following the average Canadian or American diet. From this follows lower death rates from ischemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancers.

A 1999 meta-analysis of five studies comparing mortality rates in Western countries found that mortality from ischemic heart disease was 26 percent lower in vegans than in regular meat-eaters. This was compared to 20 percent lower in occasional meat eaters, 34 percent lower in pescetarians (those who ate fish but no other meat), and 34 percent lower in ovo-lacto vegetarians (those who ate no meat, but did consume animal milk and eggs). The lower rate of protection for vegans compared to pescetarians or ovo-lacto vegetarians is believed to be linked to higher levels of homocysteine, caused by insufficient vitamin B12; it is believed that vegans who consume sufficient B12 should show even lower risk of ischemic heart disease than lacto-ovo vegetarians. No significant difference in mortality was found from other causes.

A large 15-year survey that investigated the association between diet and age-related cataract risk in the UK found that vegans had a 40 percent lower risk of developing cataract compared with the biggest meat eaters.

The American Dietetic Association indicated in 2003 that vegetarian diets may be more common among adolescents with eating disorders, but that the evidence suggests that the adoption of a vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders, rather that "vegetarian diets may be selected to camouflage an existing eating disorder." Other studies and statements by dietitians and counselors support this conclusion.

Vitamin B12

Further information: Vitamin B12 deficiency

That vegans are advised to take vitamin B12 supplements or eat foods fortified with it is often used as an argument against veganism. Reed Mangels of the department of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, writes that vitamin B12 is a bacterial product needed for cell division and the formation and maturation of red blood cells, the synthesis of DNA, and for normal nerve function. She writes that a deficiency can lead to a number of health problems, including megaloblastic anemia and nerve damage.

Neither plants nor animals make B12; it is produced by microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and algae. Herbivorous animals obtain it from bacteria in their rumens, or by eating their own cecotrope faeces; rabbits, for example, produce and eat cecal pellets. When those animals are eaten, they become sources of B12. Plants pulled from the ground and not washed properly may contain B12 from bacteria in the soil, often from faeces; drinking water may also be contaminated with B12-producing bacteria, particularly in the developing world. Mangels writes that vegans in Iran have normal B12 levels because they eat vegetables grown in human manure (known as night soil) and not thoroughly washed before being eaten; she writes that bacteria in the digestive tract of human beings produces B12, but most of it is not absorbed and is expelled in the faeces, with tiny amounts also expelled in the urine. The human mouth is another source of B12, but in small amounts and possibly analog rather than active.

Western vegan diets are likely to be deficient in B12 in part because of increased hygiene. Vegans can obtain B12 by taking a supplement or by eating fortified foods, such as fortified soy milk or cereal, where it may be listed as cobalamin or cyanocobalamin. B12 supplements are produced industrially through bacterial fermentation-synthesis; no animal products are involved in that process. The recommended dietary allowance for adults as of 2011 is 2.4 mcg (or µg) a day.

There is some disagreement within the vegan community as to whether supplementation is needed; several studies of vegans who did not take supplements or eat fortified food, including in Western countries, found no sign of B12 deficiency. Mangels writes that the disagreement is caused in part because there is no gold standard for assessing B12 status, and also because there are very few studies of long-term vegans who have not used supplements or fortified foods. According to Mangels, all Western vegans not using supplements or fortified foods will probably develop a B12 deficiency, though it may be decades before it appears. There are reports that certain plant foods are sources of B12. Mangels writes that fermented foods such as tempeh and miso, as well as sea vegetables (such as arame, wakame, and kombo), algae, Spirulina, and certain greens, grains and legumes, have been cited as B12 sources, as has rainwater. She writes that tiny amounts have been found in barley malt syrup, shiitake mushrooms, parsley and sourdough bread, and higher amounts in Spirulina and nori (a type of edible seaweed), but these products may be sources of B12 analogs (that is, not biologically active). The consensus within the mainstream nutrition community is that vegans and perhaps even vegetarians should eat fortified foods or use supplements.

Protein

Proteins are composed of amino acids, and a common concern with protein acquired from vegetable sources is an adequate intake of the essential amino acids, which cannot be synthesised by the human body. These can be obtained by eating a variety of complementary plant sources that, in combination, provide all eight essential amino acids (e.g. brown rice and beans, or hummus and whole wheat pita, though protein combining in the same meal is not necessary). A 1994 study found a varied intake of such sources to be adequate.

Iodine

Further information: Iodine deficiency

Iodine supplementation may be necessary for vegans in countries where salt is not typically iodized, where it is iodized at low levels, or where, as in Britain or Ireland, dairy products are relied upon for iodine delivery because of low levels in the soil. Iodine can be obtained from most vegan multivitamins or from regular consumption of seaweeds, such as kelp.

Calcium

Pumpkin seed-crusted lentil patties with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and salad.

Vegans are advised to eat three servings per day of a high-calcium food, such as fortified soy milk, almonds, and hazelnuts, and take a calcium supplement as necessary. The EPIC-Oxford study suggested that vegans have an increased risk of bone fractures over meat eaters and vegetarians, likely because of lower dietary calcium intake, but that vegans consuming more than 525 mg/day have a risk of fractures similar to that of other groups.

A 2009 study of bone density found the bone density of vegans was 94 percent that of omnivores, but deemed the difference clinically insignificant. Another study in 2009 by the same researchers examined over 100 vegan post-menopausal women, and found their diet had no adverse effect on bone mineral density (BMD) and no alteration in body composition. Biochemist T. Colin Campbell suggested in The China Study (2005) that osteoporosis is linked to the consumption of animal protein because, unlike plant protein, animal protein increases the acidity of blood and tissues, which is then neutralized by calcium pulled from the bones. Campbell wrote that his China-Cornell-Oxford study of nutrition in the 1980s found that, in rural China, "where the animal to plant ratio [for protein] was about 10 percent, the fracture rate is only one-fifth that of the U.S."

Vitamin D

Vegan Outreach writes that light-skinned people can obtain adequate amounts of vitamin D by spending 10–15 minutes in sunlight each day; dark-skinned people 20 minutes; and the elderly 30 minutes. Otherwise, supplements of between 400 and 1,000 IU are recommended, because most vegan diets contain little or no vitamin D without supplements or fortified foods.

Iron

The iron status of meat-eaters and vegans appears to be similar, and body absorption processes may adjust to lower intakes over time by enhancing absorption efficiency. Molasses is a high-iron food source and many vegans take it in spoonfuls as an iron supplement.

Omega-3 fatty acids

To ensure adequate consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, Vegan Outreach advises vegans to consume 0.5 g of alpha-linolenic acid daily by eating, for example, 1/4 teaspoon of flaxseed oil, and to use oils containing low amounts of omega-6 fatty acids, such as olive, canola, avocado, or peanut oil.

Pregnancy, babies and children

Vegan version of a salad popular in Russia, with wakame, root vegetables, avocados, and vegan mayonnaise.

The American Dietetic Association considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends that vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B12. The Vegan Society recommend that vegan mothers breastfeed to enhance their child's immune system and reduce the risk of allergies. Vitamin B12 deficiency in lactating vegetarian mothers has been linked to deficiencies and neurological disorders in their children. Some research suggests that the essential omega-3 fatty acid α-linolenic acid and its derivatives should also be supplemented in pregnant and lactating vegan mothers, since they are very low in most vegan diets, and the metabolically related docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is essential to the developing visual and central nervous system.

A maternal vegan diet has been associated with low birth weight, and a five times lower likelihood of having twins than those who eat animal products, though the article cited concludes that it is the consumption of dairy products by non-vegans that increases the likelihood of conceiving twins, especially in areas where growth hormone is fed to dairy cattle. Several cases of severe infant or child malnutrition (resulting in spine malformation and fractures) and some infant fatalities have been reported in families in which parents fed their child and themselves a poorly planned vegan diet. Dr. Amy Lanou, nutrition director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and an expert witness for the prosecution in one case, wrote that vegan diets are "not only safe for babies; they're healthier than ones based on animal products." She wrote that "the real problem was that [the child] was not given enough food of any sort."

Dietary, ethical, and environmental perspectives

Dietary veganism

The athlete Carl Lewis adopted a vegan diet in 1990.

Dietary vegans eat an entirely plant-based diet—either for health reasons or out of concern for animal welfare—but may continue to use animal products for other purposes. Joanne Stepaniak, author of Being Vegan (2000), argues that to place the qualifier "dietary" before "vegan" dilutes its meaning—like using the term "secular Catholic" for people who want to practise only some aspects of Catholicism. She writes that people should not call themselves vegan simply because they have embraced the diet: "Practising a vegan diet no more qualifies someone as vegan than eating kosher food qualifies someone as Jewish."

The Associated Press reported in January 2011 that the vegan diet is moving from marginal to mainstream in the United States, with vegan books such as Skinny Bitch (2005) becoming best sellers, and several celebrities exploring vegan diets. According to the AP, over half the 1,500 chefs polled in 2011 by the National Restaurant Association included vegan entrees, and chain restaurants are starting to mark vegan items on their menus.

Oprah Winfrey went on a vegan diet for 21 days in 2008, and in 2011 asked her 378 production staff to do the same for one week. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton adopted a vegan diet in 2010 after cardiac surgery; his daughter Chelsea was already a vegan. His diet followed the advice of Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, and T. Colin Campbell: mostly beans, legumes, vegetables, and fruit, and a daily drink of almond milk, fruit, and protein powder. In November 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek reported that a growing number of American CEOs were becoming vegan, such as Steve Wynn, Mortimer Zuckerman, and Russell Simmons.

Ethical veganism

Philosophy

Further information: Animal rights philosophy and Ethics of eating meat

Feminist writer Carol J. Adams calls animals the absent referent.

Ethical vegans see veganism as a philosophy, lifestyle, and set of principles, not simply a diet. Bob Torres, author of Vegan Freak (2005), writes that ethical veganism consists of "living life consciously as an anti-speciesist." Carol J. Adams, the vegan-feminist writer, has used the concept of the absent referent to describe what she calls a psycho-social detachment between the consumer and the consumed. She wrote in The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990), described by The New York Times as a bible of the vegan community:

Behind every meal of meat is an absence: the death of the animal whose place the meat takes. The 'absent referent' is that which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product. The function of the absent referent is to keep our 'meat' separated from any idea that she or he was once an animal, to keep the 'moo' or 'cluck' or 'baa' away from the meat, to keep something from being seen as having been someone."

Philosopher Tom Regan argues that animals are "subjects-of-a-life."

The philosophical debate about the moral basis of veganism reflects a division of viewpoints within animal rights theory between a rights-based or deontological approach and a utilitarian/consequentialist one. Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, is a rights-theorist who argues that animals possess inherent value as "subjects-of-a-life"—because they have beliefs and desires, an emotional life, memory, and the ability to initiate action in pursuit of goals—and must therefore be viewed as ends in themselves, not as means to an end. He argues that the right of subjects-of-a-life not to be harmed can be overridden only when outweighed by other valid moral principles, but that the reasons cited for eating animal products—pleasure, convenience, and the economic interests of farmers—are not weighty enough to override the animals' moral rights.

Law professor Gary Francione

External videos
Video of Francione speaking about veganism, 2009

Gary L. Francione, professor of law at Rutgers School of Law-Newark, is also a rights-theorist. He argues that "all sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property," and that adopting veganism must be the unequivocal baseline for anyone who sees nonhuman animals as having intrinsic moral value. To fail to do so is like arguing for human rights while continuing to own human slaves, he writes. Francione sees no coherent difference between eating meat and eating dairy or eggs; animals used in the dairy and egg industries live longer, are treated worse, and end up in the same slaughterhouses. He is critical of consequentialist positions that admit of occasional exceptions to vegan principles.

Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, approaches the issue from a utilitarian perspective. He argues that there is no moral or logical justification for refusing to count animal suffering as a consequence when making ethical decisions, and that sentience is "the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others." He does not contend that killing animals is wrong in principle, but argues that from a consequentialist standpoint it should be rejected unless necessary for survival. He therefore advocates both veganism and improved conditions for farm animals to reduce animal suffering.

Debate about the "Paris exemption"

Philosopher Peter Singer writes that personal purity is not the issue.

Unlike Francione, Singer is not concerned about what he calls trivial infractions of vegan principles, arguing that personal purity is not the issue. He supports what is known as the "Paris exemption": if you find yourself in a fine restaurant, allow yourself to eat what you want, and if you're in a strange place without access to vegan food, going vegetarian instead is acceptable.

Singer's support for the "Paris exemption" is part of a debate within the animal rights movement about the extent to which it ought to promote veganism without exception. The positions are reflected by the divide between the animal protectionist side (represented by Singer and PETA), according to which incremental change can achieve real reform, and the abolitionist side (represented by Regan and Francione), according to which apparent welfare reform serves only to persuade the public that animal use is morally unproblematic. Singer said in 2006 that the movement should be more tolerant of people who choose to use animal products if they are careful about making sure the animals had a decent life. Bruce Friedrich of PETA argued in the same year that a strict adherence to veganism can become an obsession. Veganism should not be dogma, he wrote:

[W]e all know people whose reason for not going vegan is that they "can't" give up cheese or ice cream. ... Instead of encouraging them to stop eating all other animal products besides cheese or ice cream, we preach to them about the oppression of dairy cows. Then we go on about how we don’t eat sugar or a veggie burger because of the bun, even though a tiny bit of butter flavor in a bun contributes to significantly less suffering than any non-organic fruit or vegetable does or a plastic bottle or about 100 other things that most of us use. Our fanatical obsession with ingredients not only obscures the animals’ suffering—which was virtually non-existent for that tiny modicum of ingredient—but also nearly guarantees that those around us are not going to make any change at all. So, we’ve preserved our personal purity, but we’ve hurt animals—and that’s anti-vegan.

Francione writes that this position is similar to arguing that, because human rights abuses can never be eliminated entirely, we should not safeguard human rights in situations we control. By failing to ask a server whether something contains animal products, in the interest of avoiding a fuss, he argues that we reinforce the idea that the moral rights of animals are a matter of convenience. He concludes from this that the PETA/Singer position fails even on its own consequentialist terms.

Environmental veganism

Resources and the environment

Further information: Environmental vegetarianism

Female pigs in gestation crates. Vegans see animal agriculture—in particular factory farming—as an infringement of the animals' rights and a threat to the environment.

People who adopt veganism for environmental reasons often do so because it consumes fewer resources and causes less environmental damage. Organizations such as PETA point out that animal agriculture is linked to climate change, water pollution, land degradation, a decline in biodiversity, and that a commercially available animal-based diet uses more land, water, and energy than a strictly vegetarian one.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a report in November 2006 linking animal agriculture to environmental damage. The report, Livestock's Long Shadow, concluded that the livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) was one of the two or three most significant contributors to the planet's most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. According to the report, it is responsible for at least 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in CO₂ equivalents. Livestock sources (including enteric fermentation and manure) account for about 3.1 percent of US anthropogenic GHG emissions expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents. This EPA estimate is based on methodologies agreed to by the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC, with 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC Second Assessment Report used in estimating GHG emissions as carbon dioxide equivalents. In June 2010, a report from United Nations Environment Programme declared that a global shift towards a vegan diet was needed to save the world from hunger, fuel shortages and climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions are not limited to animal husbandry. Plant-based sources such as rice cultivation cause similar problems. A 2007 study that simulated the land use for various diets for the geography of New York State concluded that, although vegetarian diets used the smallest amount of land per capita, a low-fat diet that included some meat and dairy—less than 2 oz (57 g) of meat/eggs per day – significantly less than that consumed by the average American – could support slightly more people on the same available land than could be fed on some high-fat vegetarian diets, since animal food crops are grown on lower-quality land than are crops for human consumption.

Debate over animals killed in crop harvesting

Vegans at the Melbourne "Walk against Warming," December 12, 2009, during the Copenhagen Summit on climate change.

Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, argued in 2001 that the least-harm principle does not require giving up all meat, because a plant-based diet would not kill fewer animals than one containing beef from grass-fed ruminants. Davis wrote that cultivating crops also kills animals, because when a tractor traverses a field, animals are accidentally destroyed. Based on a study finding that wood mouse populations dropped from 25 per hectare to five per hectare after harvest (attributed to migration and mortality), Davis estimated that 10 animals per hectare are killed from crop farming every year. If all 120,000,000 acres (490,000 km²) of cropland in the continental United States were used for a vegan diet, then approximately 500 million animals would die each year. But, if half the cropland were converted to ruminant pastureland, he estimated that only 900,000 animals would die each year—assuming people switched from the eight billion poultry killed each year to beef, lamb, and dairy products.

Davis's analysis was criticized in 2003 by Gaverick Matheny and Andy Lamey in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. Matheny argued that Davis had miscalculated the number of animal deaths based on land area rather than per consumer, and incorrectly equated "the harm done to animals ... to the number of animals killed." Matheny argued that per-consumer, a vegan diet would kill fewer wild animals than a diet adhering to Davis's model, and that vegetarianism "likely allows a greater number of animals with lives worth living to exist." Lamey argued that Davis's calculation of harvesting-related deaths was flawed because based on two studies; one included deaths from predation, which is "morally unobjectionable" for Regan, and the other examined production of a nonstandard crop, which Lamey argued has little relevance to deaths associated with typical crop production. Lamey also argued, like Matheny, that accidental deaths are ethically distinct from intentional ones, and that if Davis includes accidental animal deaths in the moral cost of veganism, he must also evaluate [claimed] increased human deaths associated with his proposed diet, which Lamey argued leaves "Davis, rather than Regan, with the less plausible argument."

See also

• The China Study (book)
• Ahimsa
• Artificial leather
• Edenic diet
• Fruitarianism
• Health food restaurant
• Lacto / Ovo / Ovo-lacto vegetarianism
• Low carbon diet
• Macrobiotic diet
• Pescetarianism
• Roger Crab (1621–1680)
• Semi-vegetarianism
• Veganarchism
• Veg*n
• Vegan organic gardening
• Vegan Prisoners Support Group
• Vegetarianism and religion
• Vegetarianism and wine

Further reading

Articles and books

• Marcus, Erik. Veganism: The New Ethics of Eating. McBooks Press, 2000.
• Pollan, Michael. "An Animal's Place," The New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002.
• Safran Foer, Jonathan. Eating Animals. Hamish Hamilton, 2010.
• Steiner, Gary. "Animal, Vegetable, Miserable", The New York Times, November 21, 2009.
• Stone, Gene (ed.). Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health. The Experiment, 2011.

Early vegan texts

• Riston, Joseph. An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty. London: Wilks and Taylor, 1802.
• Wheldon, Rupert H. No Animal Food. London, 1910 (the first known vegan cookbook).

Vegan societies

• American Vegan Society
• Brazilian Vegan Society
• Indian Vegan
• Japan Vegan Society
• South African Vegan Society
• The Vegan Society (UK)
• The Vegan Society of Australia
• Uruguayan Vegan and Vegetarian Union
• Vegan Ireland
• Vegankind (IRAN)

Other vegan organizations

• Abolition of Speciesism, New Zealand
• Farm Sanctuary
• International Vegan Rights Alliance
• Movement for Compassionate Living
• Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
• The Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation
• TARVE "The Voice For Farmed Animals"
• Vegan Action, administrators of vegan product certification in the US and Canada
• Vegan Outreach, creators of the "Why Vegan?" pamphlet

Resources

• American Dietetic Association. A new food guide for North American vegetarians, 2003
• Vegan Health, Vegan Outreach
• Vegan nutrition, Vegan Society
• Vegan Village
• "A Diet For All Reasons" - Video, a 1993 lecture by Michael Klaper MD

Recipes

• Cest la Vegan
• Healthy Happy Life
• FFVK
• Veganish
• The Vegan Substitute
• Vegan Yum Yum