There’s no one standard thing vegan stands for. It depends on the person, much like vegetarianism. You’ll find vegetarians that are that way because of animal rights, health concerns or because they’ve just always been that way. There’s no one box everyone fits neatly into.
I’ve been vegan for 7 years, and for different reasons at different times. I started for health reasons. Then I stopped caring so much about health reasons and did it for animal rights. Then that sort of faded and it was more a matter of “eating the flesh and fluids of animals is icky.” I never tried to push my beliefs on anyone else, though. Now it’s more a matter of “well, I’ve just always been this way.” with a heaping side of “eating the flesh and fluids of animals is icky”.
People are different, simple as that, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shock that they engage in a certain way of living for different reasons.
If that’s really the case then isn’t it kind of a distinction without a difference? Why not just call yourself a “strict vegetarian”. Doesn’t calling yourself a “Vegan” imply some fairly profound and definable difference from simply being a vegetarian. If it’s really that amorphous aren’t a lot of people calling themselves “Vegans” simply vegetarians trying to be trendy and cool?
“Vegetarian” is a broad category; it includes a variety of people, including people who are willing to consume eggs or dairy products. “Vegan” just means the subset of those who do not consume eggs or dairy products (and in some cases, honey).
This seems like a perfectly good distinction to me, especially if I want to know what people I’m liable to want to feed are willing to eat. “Strict vegetarian” tells me that I should double-check my labels and that the person isn’t one of those folks who might be willing to flex for a splash of chicken stock or eat fish; it doesn’t tell me that pasta in cream sauce will not be acceptable.
For some, it is a religion. For others, it is a lifestyle choice. The line is really between where they start projecting their values on other people. Especially when they judge you. Especially when they say that consuming/using animal products means that you hate animals and nature. Those ones are bastards.
Dude, it’s just a diet. Whatever philosphical/political/ethical assocaitions which are attached to it are done so on a purely individual basis. I was (briefly) a vegan myself and I did solely for health reasons.
The term “vegan” is used because it represents a clear demarkation from vegetarians who consume some animal products. “Strict vegetarian” would still be a little ambiguous as to its meaning. People know what “vegan” means, so that’s the word that’s used.
Do they? Just reading the posts in this thread makes me wonder. I always thought a vegan was much more than a “strict vegitarian” or “someone who doesn’t even eat eggs”. I thought a vegan was someone who wouldn’t, for example, use any leather products. That implies a certain philosphy about how to treat animals (ie, not to kill them) rather than just a desire not to eat meat.
I realize there can’t be some monolithic belief system, but it does seem that being a vegan means you have some general philosphical stance that a plain ol’ vegitarian might not.
All the vegans I have known drew very sharp lines between themselves and vegetarians in the area of vegetables. Apparently, fruit was okay to eat, because fruit was basically a delivery system for seeds, and would just rot or be eaten by animals if vegans didn’t eat it, right?
Other vegetables – lettuce, for example – was bad news, because you had to kill the plant itself to eat it. Corn was bad, because you were eating the seeds, and therefore robbing potential corn of a happy, fulfilling corn life.
After meeting several people like this, I decided that “vegan” was a term intended by the Secret Masters of the World to denote “person who is flaky” and left it at that.
There are health benefits to being a vegan? Health benefits not accessible to vegetarians?
Christ — a vegan would never ever wear a leather coat ------ but they would forget and drive a car or take a bus or heat their homes ---- no first hand doubt.
That’s bullshit. I was a vegan who wore a leather coat. I’ve known other vegans who wore leather. I knew a vegan who hunted. It’s just a diet. Non-dietary sues of animal products have nothing to do with the definition although many vegans also shun other uses of animals, they don’t have to in order to be vegans.
Thanks for your kind response Diogenes - but “bullshit” aside — somethiing the vegans I know would never utter (cow or otherwise) If you were a vegan and wore leather coats besides - fine. I know have a new defintion. ‘Some’ people who call themsleves vegans use ‘some’ animal products. Where the boundry is is yet to be defined. Hey – the language is elastic.
Other than your self definition, I can’t find anything in Vegan site literature or cites that could encompass a true “vegan”, under even the most plastic definition of the term, wearing a leather coat.
Only under the most abjectly lazy and uninformed use of the term “Vegan” is it “just a diet”.
You’re the one who’s trying to make the definition more “plastic” by expanding it to include anything other than a dietary choice. Veganism is simply a description of what a person eats. Period.