What is a Vegan?

I get this question a lot. I work with a bunch of meat eaters (is ‘bunch’ the collective term? Answers on a postcard…) some of whom have only recently got their head around what a vegetarian is. Just so you know, a vegetarian doesn’t eat meat. If it once had a heartbeat, veggies don’t eat it. A pet hate of mine during my quarter century as a vegetarian was the constant ‘do you eat fish?’ question. Let me be clear (as the politicians say) Vegetarians Do Not Eat Fish!!! There is now a helpful term for those who eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but still consume fish, and that is pescetarian. (From the Italian for fish, don’t ya know.) I have close friends who are pescetarians so I’m not prejudiced or anything…

Now I’ve got that off my chest we can get back to the subject in hand – what is a vegan? Well, a vegan is someone who consumes no animal products. It sounds easy enough when I put it like that, but let me go into a bit more detail, as you probably consume a lot more animal products than you realise. Did you think of honey as an animal product for example? Vegans obviously don’t eat meat (they’re dead animals, yuck!), but we also don’t eat eggs or any form of dairy such as cream, milk or cheese, as one requires hens or cows to produce these products.

Speaking of cows, they are also used in the leather industry (even many vegetarians don’t wear or buy leather as obviously, cows are not alive at the end of this process.) The same goes for animal fur, like mink, ermine or bearskin but you knew that, didn’t you? Really, unless you’re a member of the royal family, or the aristocracy at the very least, you probably don’t have to work too hard to avoid these things. There have also been some quite horrific practices discovered in the angora industry, so steer clear if you like bunnies. There’s so much cruelty out there it’s tricky to contemplate. And don’t even get me started on Foie Gras…

Let me see, what else is there? Well, silk is one many people don’t think of. Silk worms people! We’re keen to avoid wool too, as sheep are farmed commercially for it, and duck or goose down pillows and duvets, as the clue is in the name. The best illustration of an answer to the question, ‘what is a vegan?’ was put in the form of a quite brilliant flowchart that the Vegan Society produced. The vegan society is a wonderful resource by the way. Here it is.

Simple, eh?

There are all kinds of reasons that people go vegan, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but my personal rule is that if animals have been farmed, bred or commercially exploited in any way to produce something then it’s best avoided. When animals are used for commercial gain the door is opened to corruption and abuse – it’s sad but true. One of the ways we humans can try and redress the balance is to boycott animal products and try to make the world a better place. Man. The best news is you don’t have to wear a poncho to do it! So if you thought the answer to ‘what is a vegan?’ was a hippy weirdo, then I hope I’ve gone some way to setting the record straight.

So, now you know what a vegan is, the next inevitable question is why?