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Veganism (also known as strict vegetarianism or pure vegetarianism), as defined by the Vegan Society, is "a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practical—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose." A vegan (one who practices veganism) does not consume or use animal products, notably meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy products. People become vegans for a variety of reasons, including ethical concerns for animal rights or the environment, as well as perceived health benefits and spiritual or religious concerns. Polls have variously reported vegans to be between 0.2% and 1.3% of the US population, and between 0.25% and 0.4% of the UK population.

Definition

The word vegan, usually pronounced , was originally derived from "vegetarian" in 1944 when Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, frustrated that the term "vegetarianism" had come to include the eating of dairy products, founded the UK Vegan Society. They combined the first three and last two letters of vegetarian to form "vegan," which they saw as "the beginning and end of vegetarian." The British Vegan Society defines veganism in this way:

he word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

— Vegan Society

Other vegan societies use similar definitions.

Demographics

A 2002 Time/CNN poll, found that 4% of American adults consider themselves vegetarians, and 5% of self-described vegetarians consider themselves vegans. This suggests that 0.2% of American adults are vegans. Also in 2002, the UK Food Standards Agency reported that 5% of respondents self-identified as vegetarian or vegan. Though 29% of that 5% said they avoided "all animal products" only 5% reported avoiding dairy. Based on these figures, approximately 0.25% of the UK population follow a vegan diet. In 2005, The Times estimated there were 250,000 vegans in Britain, which suggests around 0.4% of the UK population is vegan.

A 2006 poll conducted by Harris Interactive in the United States listed specific foods and asked respondents to indicate which items they never eat, rather than asking respondents to self-identify. The results found that, of the 1,000 adults polled, 1.4% never eat meat, poultry, fish, seafood, dairy products, or eggs. They were, in other words, vegan (except for possibly honey) in their eating habits. The survey found that about 1.4% of men and 1.3% of women have vegan diets.

Animal products

The term "animal product" in a vegan context refers to material derived from animals for human use. Notable animal products include meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, and silk. Common animal by-products include gelatin, lanolin, rennet, whey, beeswax and shellac. Most vegans refrain from supporting industries that use animals directly or indirectly, such as circuses, rodeos, and zoos, and will not use products that are tested on animals.

Animal ingredients can be found in countless products and are used in the production of—though not always present in the final form of—many more; many of these ingredients are esoteric, also have non-animal sources, and especially in non-food products may not even be identified. Although some vegans attempt to avoid all of these ingredients, Vegan Outreach argues that "it can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to shun every minor or hidden animal-derived ingredient," and therefore that doing what is "best for preventing suffering" is more important than identifying and excluding every animal ingredient.

Motivations

Ethics

Vegans generally oppose the violence and cruelty involved in the meat, dairy, non-vegan cosmetics, clothing, and other industries. (See draize test, LD₅₀, animal testing, vivisection, and factory farming.)

Some utilitarian philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer, argue that the suffering of sentient animals is relevant to ethical decisions, though they do not rely on the concept of rights and believe that non-human animals only have an interest in not suffering. Others like Gary L. Francione, believe that all sentient beings have an interest in both not suffering and continuing to live. A common argument is that animals have the ability to feel pleasure so killing them is wrong, because it destroys any hope of future pleasure. He claims that it is therefore unethical to treat them as property or a means to an end (see animal rights). Although these theories draw similar conclusions, they are not wholly compatible with one another.

Health

Some studies have strongly correlated a plant based diet with better health benefits than the Standard American Diet. Vegans claim additional health benefits are gained by not consuming artificial substances such as growth hormones and antibiotics, which are often given to farmed animals.

The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada state that "well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."

Vegan diets tend toward several nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, antioxidant vitamins C and E and phytochemicals.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says that one small scale study has observed that a vegan diet can reduce blood cholesterol in people with, and significantly reduce the complications of Type 2 diabetes.

Vegan athletes compete in a variety of sports, such as powerlifting, bodybuilding, martial arts, long distance running, and many others. Multiple Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis has stated that he became vegan in 1990 and achieved his "best year of track competition" when he ate a vegan diet.

Some studies have found benefits associated with diets rich in whole plant foods, and risks associated with diets rich in animal-based foods. One of the researchers from the 1990 epidemiological study, "The China Study," said "Even small increases in the consumption of animal-based foods was associated with increased disease risk." A 1998 Spanish study asserted that "here is a growing body of evidence to show that consumption of fruit and vegetables may protect against development of cerebrovascular disease." Conversely, studies in Japan found that increased consumption of some animal products coincided with a decrease in risk for some forms of cerebrovascular disease and stroke mortality.

There are also claims that industry livestock feeding practices pose health threats to human consumers. According to Dr. Michael Greger in a January 2004 lecture at MIT (which is the basis for Whistleblower, a 2007 documentary film by Jeff Bellamar) each year more than one million tons of animal excrement are fed back to farm animals raised for human consumption to lower the feed costs. He also says that up to 10% of blood from killed animals is mixed into some cattle feed, and up to 30% of some poultry feed is made up of the blood. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is believed to be caused by cows being fed with contaminated meat and bone meal, a high-protein substance obtained from the remnants of butchered animals, including cows and sheep. In most parts of the developed world, such remnants are no longer allowed in feed for ruminant animals, and the World Health Organization recommends a complete ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding, but the practice persists in a few countries.

Resources and the environment

People who adopt a vegan diet to reduce resource consumption or ecological footprint extend the idea of environmental vegetarianism to all animal products. The fundamental rationale is that each additional trophic level in a food chain passes on only a fraction of the energy it consumes, so a diet that consists of plant products rather than animal products will generally use less of some resources, and indirectly may cause less environmental damage.

A study by Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, assistant professors of geophysics at the University of Chicago, compares the CO₂ production resulting from various human diets. They find that a person switching from the typical American diet to a vegan diet would, on average, reduce CO₂ production significantly more than switching to a hybrid vehicle. They go on to recommend a vegan diet for this reason, as well as the potentially adverse health effects of dietary animal fats and proteins. They go on to support their claims by referencing various studies linking animal fats to cardiovascular diseases and animal proteins to cancer.

The United Nations released a ground breaking report in November 2006 linking animal agriculture to environmental damage. The report, titled "Livestock’s Long Shadow–Environmental Issues and Options," concludes that the livestock sector (primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to our most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases - responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO₂ equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO₂. It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO₂) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO₂).

Vegan cuisine

For recipes and further information see the Wikibooks Cookbook article on Vegan Cuisine.

The cuisines of most nations contain dishes that are suitable for a vegan diet, as are specific traditional ingredients such as tofu, tempeh and the wheat product seitan in Asian diets. Many recipes that traditionally contain animal products can be adapted by substituting vegan ingredients, e.g. nut, grain or soy milk used to replace cow's milk; eggs replaced by substitutes such as products made from starch. Additionally, artificial "meat" products ("analogs" or "mock meats") made from non-animal derived ingredients such as soy or gluten, including imitation sausages, ground beef, burgers, and chicken nuggets are widely available.

Similar diets and lifestyles

Diets such as raw veganism, freeganism and fruitarianism are related to veganism, but have significant differences from standard veganism. There are also numerous religious groups that regularly or occasionally practice a similar diet, including some Buddhist traditions, Jains, Hindus, Rastafarians, and the Seventh-day Adventists.

Health effects

The position of the American Dietetic Association is that "appropriately planned" vegan diets "are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." Vegans are potentially at risk for being deficient in nutrients such as vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iodine and omega-3 fatty acids. These deficiencies can have potentially serious consequences, including anemia, rickets and cretinism in children, and osteomalacia and hyperthyroidism in adults. Supplementation, particularly for vitamin B12, is highly recommended for vegans.

Specific nutrients

Vitamin B₁₂, a bacterial product, cannot be reliably found in plant foods. While it may take one to five years to exhaust some individual's reserves of vitamin B₁₂, many people do not have such reserves and serious health consequences are a risk as a result of B₁₂ deficiency. Additionally, mild B₁₂ deficiency can develop even with such reserves. In a 2002 laboratory study, more of the strict vegan participants' B₁₂ and iron levels were compromised than those of lacto- or lacto-ovo-vegetarian participants. The Vegan Society and Vegan Outreach, among others, recommend that vegans either consistently eat foods fortified with B₁₂ or take a daily or weekly B12 supplement. Tempeh, seaweed, spirulina, organic produce, soil on unwashed vegetables, and intestinal bacteria have not been shown to be reliable sources of B₁₂ for the dietary needs of vegans.

Adequate amounts of vitamin D may be obtained by spending 15 to 30 minutes every few days in the sunlight, although this may be difficult for vegans in areas with low levels of sunlight during winter.

A 2007 study showed that vegans have an increased risk of bone fractures than both meat eaters and vegetarians, likely due to lower dietary calcium intake, but that vegans consuming more than the UK's estimated average requirements for calcium (525 mg/day) had risk of bone fractures similar to other groups. It is recommended that vegans eat three servings per day of a high calcium food, such as fortified soy milk and take a calcium supplement as necessary.

Link with eating disorders

The American Dietetic Association found that vegetarian diets may be more common among adolescents with eating disorders than in the general adolescent population, and that professionals should be aware of adolescents who limit the food choices and exhibit symptoms of eating disorders. The ADA indicates that the evidence suggests that the adoption of a vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders, but "vegetarian diets may be selected to camouflage an existing eating disorder." Other studies and statements by dietitians and counselors support this conclusion.

Vegan pregnancies

The American Dietetic Association considers well planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation," but recommends vegan mothers supplement for iron, vitamin D, and vitamin B₁₂. Severe vitamin B₁₂ deficiency in lactating vegetarian mothers has been linked to deficiencies and neurological disorders in their children. A 2006 study found that vegan mothers are five times less likely to have twins than those who eat animal products.

Ethical criticism

Steven Davis, professor of animal science at Oregon State University, argues that the number of wild animals killed in crop production is greater than those killed in ruminant-pasture production. Whenever a tractor goes through a field to plow, disc, cultivate, apply fertilizer and/or pesticide, and harvest, animals are killed. Davis gives a small sampling of field animals in the U. S. that are threatened by intensive crop production, such as: opossum, rock dove, house sparrow, European starling, black rat, Norway rat, house mouse, Chukar, grey partridge, ring-necked pheasant, wild turkey, cottontail rabbit, gray-tailed vole, and numerous species of amphibians. In one small example, an alfalfa harvest caused a 50% decline in the gray-tailed vole population. According to Davis, if all of the cropland in the U. S. were used to produce crops for a vegan diet, it is estimated that around 1.8 billion animals would be killed annually.

Gaverick Matheny, a Ph.D. candidate in agricultural economics at the University of Maryland, claims that Davis' reasoning contains several major flaws, including distorting the notion of "harm" to animals, and miscalculating the number of animal deaths based upon areas of land rather than per consumer. Matheny claims that vegetarianism actually kills less animals, promotes better treatment of animals, and allows more animals to exist.

Other critics have questioned the validity of the ethical claims put forward by vegans, stating that "the belief that all life is sacred can lead to absurdities such as allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or vipers to run loose on one's premises." However, many vegans do not believe that all animal life is sacred. For instance, Peter Singer, who is vegan for utilitarian reasons, has stated that the benefit caused by a good taste for the human who consumes animal products is more than negated by the pain felt by the beings who are consumed.

References

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12. ^ "Vegan FAQs". Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-03-11. Is refined sugar vegan? It depends on how you define 'vegan.' Refined sugars do not contain any animal products, and so by an ingredients-based definition of vegan, refined sugar is vegan. ... However, if one accepts a process-based definition of vegan, then many other familiar products would also not be considered vegan. For instance, steel and vulcanized rubber are produced using animal fats and, in many areas, groundwater and surface water is filtered through bone charcoal filters.
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19. "On Living With Compassion (Old version)". Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-03-10. We believe that framing veganism as the avoidance of a specific list of "bad" ingredients is not the best way to achieve results. When looked at closely, any ingredients-based definition of vegan collapses into inconsistencies. This is why we stress that the essence of being vegan is working to end cruelty to animals.
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52. ^ "Vegan Health: Bone Health". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. 2007-01-09. Retrieved 2007-02-23.
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82. Singer, Peter (1979). "The case against using animals for food is at its strongest when animals are made to lead miserable lives so that their flesh can be made available to humans at the lowest possible cost. ... In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire duration of their lives. ... To avoid speciesism we must stop these practices." Practical Ethics, Cambridge 1979. Chapter 3.

See also

• List of vegans
• Lacto vegetarianism
• Ovo vegetarianism
• Raw food diet
• Farm Sanctuary

External links

General

• Vegan Society (UK)
• Vegan Action, US vegan product certification
• Vegan Outreach, creators of the popular "Why Vegan?" pamphlet
• American Vegan Society
• Vegan Society of Australia
• Movement for Compassionate Living (the Vegan Way)

Health/Nutrition

• American Dietetic Association position on vegetarian diet
• The Vegan Society (UK) webpages on nutrition
• Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
• The Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation

Ethical

• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Mercy for Animals
• Farm Sanctuary

• Veganism
• Vegetarianism
• Animal rights
• Intentional living