Vegan. Wtf does that word even mean?

It's that word that you may have heard some hippie down at the natural foods store say, and it is stirring up quite the buzz. Celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and athletes like Brendan Brazier are swearing by their vegan diets and environmentalists such as Al Gore and Bill Gates are saying veganism can be the key to saving the planet from environmental destruction. How much of this is true, and what really is vegan? Are vegans batshit crazy? Why the hell would anybody want to adopt this “extremist” lifestyle? Well, here’s your Vegan 101 lesson, in case you want to know more about the lifestyle. As a disclaimer: Many sections of this post can (and should) have their own posts, so consider this an overview.

First, a history lesson. (Feel free to skip this if origin stories ain’t your cup of tea.)

Veganism stems from vegetarianism. We’ll touch more on the differences between them later, but in short, they are NOT the same. There’s evidence of vegetarianism dating back to BC times. Pythagoras (the a² + b² = c² guy from 8^th grade math class), is said to be one of the early advocates for a vegetarian diet back in the 400 BCs. The concept of veganism, on the other hand, did not start to take shape until the 1800s in England when poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and physician William Lambe began to publicly declare dairy and eggs as unethical and unhealthy. In 1847, due to demand, the Vegetarian Society was formed in the UK and amassed a steady group of attendees, including a guy named Donald Watson. Fast forward to 1944 and the idea of vegan is solidified by Watson. He wanted to write a column about excluding dairy and eggs from a vegetarian diet in a Vegetarian Society publication. When the Vegetarian Society refused to let him, he launched his own newsletter to sound off his ideas and beliefs. He coined the term vegan and founded The Vegan Society.

Boom! There ya go, the story of vegan in a nutshell.

Vegetarian vs. Vegan, what’s the difference?

So, let’s get two things straight to start.

1. Vegan is pronounced vee-gan and not vay-gun. It drives vegans and non-vegans nuts when said wrong, so please, check your pronunciation.

2. It is not the same as vegetarian.

Okay, so what’s the difference? Well, in its most broad sense, vegetarian is the abstention of all animal flesh from one’s diet. That would include anything from beef to fish/shellfish and from chicken to bugs. There are different subcategories of vegetarianism for people who don’t give up all flesh, for whatever the reason. For example, pescetarians still eat fish and pollotarians still eat chicken, but both groups omit everything else. Many vegetarians give up gelatin as well (gelatin is made by boiling animal bones or tissues), but it is a grey area. While some vegetarians choose to use products not tested on animals and/or don’t wear leather, vegetarian is a diet more than it is a lifestyle.

Vegan extends to greater depths.

Vegan is the abstention of ALL animal-derived products in one’s life. In regards to diet, this includes the elimination of meat, fish, dairy (yes, that means cheese and butter), eggs, gelatin, sugars that contain bone char, and for some, honey. Veganism affects more than just food, though. All-around vegans do not wear any animal-derived clothes (so leather, suede, feathers, silk, reptile skins, etc.) or use any products tested on animals. Many vegans will also boycott animals in entertainment and stress adopting over shopping for pets.

Why people go vegan.

Going vegan is a personal choice and someone can have many reasons for doing so, but generally, those reasons fall into some combination of the following three categories:

1. Moral Reasons: The animal rights peeps.

2. Health Reasons: The health nuts.

3. Environmental Reasons: The tree-huggers.

Let’s touch a bit on each.

Moral (Caution: If you click the links, you may see some disturbing things.)

People who go vegan for moral reasons are often referred to as ethical vegans. There’s a documentary that outlines ethical veganism really well called “Earthlings.” It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, it’s VERY difficult to get through, and quite honestly, there are some really fucked up visuals in it, but it touches on the five forms of animal exploitation and why they are so harmful to animals. According to Earthlings, the food, clothing, entertainment, and pet (think puppy mills and exotic pets) industries along with vivisection (fancy word for animal testing) are the primary forms of animal abuse. As this is meant to be an overview, I won’t go in-depth at this time on each of those, but feel free to refer to the links for more info or check out Earthlings.

Health

American physician Caldwell Esselstyn and professor of nutritional biochemistry T. Colin Campbell explain the vegan diet pretty darn well in “Forks Over Knives” (which is on Netflix.) They stress on how the world needs to adopt a whole foods plant-based diet and explain how all the nutrients (including protein) humans need can be found in plants. “The China Study,” which is also heavily referenced in Fork Over Knives, is said to be one of the most comprehensive studies of nutrition around. Basically, the study, which was headed by Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine, included 367 variables, 65 counties in China, and 6,500 adults (who completed questionnaires, blood tests, etc). In short, the results concluded that animal-based foods have alarming links to cancer, heart diseases, obesity, diabetes, and a slew of other health conditions. Plant-based foods were shown to not yield the same negative effects that animal-based foods did, and in some cases, they could REVERSE the conditions brought on by animal foods. Seriously, this shit blew my mind when I saw it and then read up on it. For clarity sake, a lot of “vegans for health” don’t necessarily abstain from the other areas of veganism. Some do, but not others.

Environmental

In 2010, the United Nations published a report that urged people to explore more plant-based options due the negative effects of animal agriculture on the environment. What effects? Well, animal agriculture accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. You may be thinking, “Oh 18 percent, that’s not much!” To put it in perspective, transportation exhaust is only responsible for 13 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. If you add the byproducts of livestock into the mix, those numbers increase. We’re talking high levels of carbon dioxide and, even worse, methane leaking into the environment and wreaking havoc on the atmosphere. Considering animal agriculture takes up one-third of the world’s ice-free land, that means a lot of bad shit is hitting our ozone and contributing to global warming.

Agriculture also accounts for 80-90 percent of the United States’ water consumption. In general, animal-based products take much more water to produce than plant-based products. Think about it. Plant products are still needed in the production of animal ones. Cows need food, food for them is plant-based, those plants need water and then, once harvested, the plant-based food needs to be transported to the cow that still needs water to drink in addition to the food. I don’t think I need to tell you that cows eat and drink a lot. The result? One pound of beef can take a moderate average of 2,500 gallons of water to use. To the environmentally-conscious vegan, this is extremely wasteful when it’s much more water and energy efficient to consume plant products.

There’s a ton of evidence out there about how harmful animal products are to the environment. I’m not even going to touch on the effects of animal agriculture on rainforests, oceans, biodiversity, and a bunch of other things that we shouldn’t want to mess with. “Cowspiracy” (also on Netflix), is an awesome documentary about all this stuff if you want more info. I’d also encourage you to check out their site’s fact page which has some really crazy stats all with sources.

Going vegan can be hard. I’m not going to boss you around and tell you that you have to go vegan. I’ll still be your friend if you’re not. But I will tell you that going vegan is not that difficult, and it's getting increasingly easier. I went vegan in 2007, and it was very different. Grocery stores did not carry as many vegan cheeses and mock meat substitutes to ease the transition, vegan restaurants and vegan options on menus were scarce, and people had no idea what the term vegan even meant. Now, I’m finding vegan-friendly brands like Gardein and Daiya at Key Foods, cities are teeming with vegan places and options, and it is much more mainstream. Being vegan doesn’t happen overnight, but like so many other things, if you put your mind to it, it’s totally possible.

So, are vegans batshit crazy? I like to think no. Passionate, for sure. Crazy? No. Vegans have so many reasons for why they choose to abstain from animal-product and there is plenty of evidence to validate those reasons. While the world may never go vegan, there are growing number people interested in leather alternatives and cashew cheese. That diversity and creativity is a glorious thing. (Like seriously, who would have thought that chickpea brine could be an egg white substitute?) If you’re someone reading this who doesn’t agree with veganism, I’d like to tell you “that’s cool.” Thanks for your time and I hope I’ve given you some insight into why this ideology developed. I will ask you to respect vegans and I will ask vegans to respect non-vegans as well. I’m tired of vegans being the butt of so many jokes but I’m equally tired of vegans who think they have a moral high ground over people who aren’t. I like to think that we are all people that are trying to do our best to do some good in the world. We all have our causes that we stand for. It’s one thing to challenge one another, but let’s not cut each other down. There’s enough bullshit we all deal with daily. Coexist.