Veganism

"Vegan" redirects here. For notable vegans, see List of vegans. For other uses, see Vegan (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Vegetarianism, Plant-based diet, Abolitionism, or Vigan.

Veganism
Vegan friendly icon
The symbol widely used to denote a vegan-friendly product
PronunciationVeganism /ˈviːɡənɪzəm/ VEE-gə-niz-əm
Vegan /ˈviːɡən/ VEE-gən[a]
DescriptionAvoiding the use of animal products, particularly in diet
Earliest proponents
Term coined byDorothy Morgan and Donald Watson (November 1944)[3][4]
Notable vegansList of vegans
Notable publicationsList of vegan and plant-based media

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals.[c] A person who practices veganism is known as a vegan.

The foundations of veganism include ethical, moral, environmental, health and humanitarian arguments. Veganism excludes all forms of animal use, whether in agriculture for labour or food (e.g., meat, fish, eggs, milk, dairy products, and honey), in clothing and industry (e.g., leather, wool, fur, and some cosmetics), in entertainment (e.g., zoos, exotic pets, and circuses), or in services (e.g., guide dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs, working animals, and animal testing, including medical experimentation and the use of pharmaceuticals derived from or tested on animals).

A person who practices veganism may do so for personal health benefits or to reduce animal deaths, minimize animal suffering, or minimize their ecological footprint.

Fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, grains and mushrooms are the basic elements of vegan food. Since ancient times individuals have been renouncing the consumption of products of animal origin, but the term "veganism" is modern: it was coined in 1944 by Donald Watson with the aim of differentiating it from vegetarianism, which rejects the consumption of meat but accepts the consumption of other products of animal origin, such as milk, dairy products and eggs.[3][15] Interest in veganism increased significantly in the 2010s.

  1. ^ "Definition of Veganism". Merriam-Webster.com. 25 April 2023. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  2. ^ "The definition of veganism". Dictionary.com. 2016. Archived from the original on 21 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference VeganSociety2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Adams CJ (2014). Never too late to go vegan: the over-50 guide to adopting and thriving on a plant-based diet. Patti Breitman, Virginia Messina. New York: The Experiment. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-61519-098-0. OCLC 864299353. In 1944, the word vegan (pronounced VEEgan) was coined. A group was forming and needed a name. Donald Watson and Dorothy Morgan, members of the group, were at a dance, discussing the need for a word that denoted the kind of vegetarian who used no animal products. What if the first three and last two letters of the word vegetarian were taken to describe people who at the time were called nondairy vegetarians? Morgan proposed the name; Watson liked it, as did the other members. Morgan and Watson married, and along with twenty-three other people, they founded the Vegan Society in England.
  5. ^ "Meaning of vegan". Infoplease.
  6. ^ Records of Buckinghamshire, Volume 3, BPC Letterpress, 1870, 68.
  7. ^ Karen Iacobbo, Michael Iacobbo, Vegetarian America: A History, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, 3. ISBN 978-0-275-97519-7
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Latham1999p168 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Renier H (March 2012). "An Early Vegan: Lewis Gompertz". London Historians. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  10. ^ Richard Francis, Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and their Search for Utopia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, 11. ISBN 978-0-300-17790-9
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference WatsonInterviews was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Pedersen H, Staescu V (2014). "Conclusion: Future Directions for Critical Animal Studies". In Taylor N, Twine R (eds.). The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre. Routledge. pp. 262–276. ISBN 978-1-135-10087-2.
  13. ^ Gary Steiner, 206 Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism, Columbia University Press, 2013.
  14. ^ Gary Francione, "Animal Welfare, Happy Meat and Veganism as the Moral Baseline", in David M. Kaplan, The Philosophy of Food, University of California Press, 2012 (169–189) 182. ISBN 978-0-231-16790-1
  15. ^ Davis J (2016). "The Origins of the Vegans: 1944–46" (PDF). Vegetarian Society. pp. 8, 12. Dorothy, nee Morgan, had passed away about ten years before Donald, having long since retired as head of a small village primary school. ... The Vegan Society AGM on Sunday November 10, 1946, at Friends House, Euston, London (TV Spring 1947 pp.4–5) was reminded that Donald Watson had already said he could not continue running everything himself (He had married Dorothy two weeks earlier).


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