Vegan Foods

What is vegan food?

Simple definition

What do we mean when we say "vegan?" Veganism means not using animals as things. When a feeling creature is made into a thing, it can be bought and sold, disposed of, converted into other forms, or used up making something else. Donald Watson created the word "veganism" in 1944 to refer to a lifestyle that avoids the use of animals. The Vegan Society, created by Watson, defines "Vegan food" with these rules. This list does not include all possible non-vegan items, since there are many animal products left out of the list. The Society publishes a more detailed list of items that are not considered vegan. Since these lists don't tell you what is not vegan, there is always the possibility of coming across a completely new animal-derived food.

I would propose a simpler definition:

This is a rather strict definition, since there are many factors outside of our control, such as the use of manure or bone phosphate as fertilizer, or the use of draught animals for tilling fields. A practical definition would be a food made without requiring the use of animals. For example, nitrogen fertilizer can be made with either blood meal or corn protein. By this definition, a non-vegan food, such as steamed mussels, can only be made by using animals.

Vegan history

Veganism came into being when Watson coined the term. People may or may not have followed the principles of veganism before then, but it is hard to say since before then the term did not exist.

Prior to that time, the term 'vegetarian' would have been used to mean someone who ate no meat. The difference is that vegetarians commonly include animal products in their diet, such as eggs, milk, and cheese. Vegetarianism is also often taken to include eating chicken, fish, and shellfish. I have run across this definition, which often seems to arise through a lack of familiarity with the concept of vegetarianism.

Lenten and ritual religious fasts often exclude meat.

Due to the lack of a label for veganism in the historical context, and due to the fact that we have to rely on self-reporting for diet claims, it is very hard to say who was or was not vegan. Claims that any historical figure was vegetarian or vegan should be viewed with scepticism. They might not have had a clear idea of what was animal, mineral, or vegetable, simply due to the limitations of human understanding at the time. Another reason to doubt claims of historic vegans is the simple fact of food insecurity. Famine and hunger often provided ample reason to eat whatever was at hand.  ¹  This idea is developed more fully in the next section.

Marginal food items

The gene for the adult production of lactase, the enzyme needed to digest milk, is a relatively recent human development. This hints that the digestive system is prone to change in response to evolutionary pressure. It is not hard to consider the Abrahamic Garden of Eden as a race-memory of a richly tropical past, where the environment had many sources of fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

The Ice Age that rewrote the face of the planet just as easily could have changed us - to eat meat instead of starve, to digest milk rather than kill our precious herds out of hunger. I would make the claim that the marginal food is meat, that has to be cooked to be eaten, that causes vascular damage, that really should be considered a food only as a last resort before oblivion in a harsh environment. Perhaps the natural abundance of nourishing fruits and vegetables is why there are so many raw food vegans in Hawaii.

Notes