Vegan Foundation

WHAT IS VEGANISM  

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude— as far as is possible and practicable— 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 animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with: all products derived wholly or partly from animals." -The Vegan Society

PHILOSOPHY  

Veganism is a world view that universally extends an ethical consideration and value to non-human animals.

Since the domestication of animals at least fifteen thousand years ago, and with the advent of Indo-European religious beliefs which place humans as superior to all other forms of life, animals have born the brunt of human aggression and exploitation.

Veganism is informed by modern, scientific understanding. Developments in the fields of evolutionary biology, ethology and neuroscience have resoundingly dismissed the human supremacy myth, now identified as the logical fallacy Anthropocentrism.

The illusion that humans are the most valuable species, performs the same defensive function as egocentrism, sexism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and racism which all seek to rationalize oppressive behavior at the expense of others. It holds that human measures of aesthetic, intelligence and goodness supersede consideration for all non-conspecfics whose value is defined only in reference to perceived utility or threat to humans.

Veganism, confers with scientific consensus, what pre-pastoral animists have understood for hundreds of thousands of years— that non-human animals have consciousness, intelligence, individuality, personality, emotionality and a will to be free to follow their own desire path without coercion, cruelty and violence.

Donald Watson of the Vegan Society, coined the term veganism to address the violence of the animal exploitation industry in every field of human industry and to expressly distinguish the practice from "vegetarianism", which fails to boycott the sexual exploitation of animals for their reproductive systems, labor, expirementation, entertainment and countless more commercial applications.

Furtively, the deceptive counterfactuals promulgating honey, dairy, egg, wool and pet ownership as "vegetarian" practice, remains a hallmark of livestock industry marketing and disinformation efforts. Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarianism, is a product of the meat industry, and all its horrors, but additional includes the terrors of rape, torture and repeated infanticide. Veganism rejects all use of animals and strives to permanently end human conflict with non-human animals.

Unless it becomes possible to obtain non-coercisve informed consent, all animals must be legally presumed to share the same desire as humans to retain their bodily autonomy and freedom.

Vegetarians who consume eggs and dairy are not allies of veganism, they are anti-vegans as they support and condone the violent exploitation of animals for personal enjoyment.

One third of all animals bred and slaughtered by the animal agriculture industry are exploited for reproductive products for human fodder.

Not consuming the flesh of the dead itself, does nothing to prevent the exploitation and slaughter of animals forced to produce these sexual reproductive excrements. They are summarily executed when stress, disease and anguish renders them prematurely unproductive.

Without any humans consuming animal flesh, exploitation will continue to grow and its current capacity exceeded while: petfood, industrial lubricants, clothing, hygiene products and others sectors, will continue to profit from the flesh at discounted rates. Only universal veganism saves all wild and domestic animals from torture and violence by human society.

PROMOTE  

Individual dietary choices account for only one tenant of the vegan practice. Veganism, by definition, promotes alternatives to animal exploitation. Edifying people to the prevailing anti-scientific misrepresentations about human and animal biology, ethics and the impact of animal exploitation by industry and society is fundamental to a vegan practice.

Advocating for non-violent perspectives on humanity's role in the universe, vegans work to amplify the contention against superstitious and magical beliefs regarding human supremacy, evolution and ethology.

Collective education can eradicate prejudice against animals and achieve an ethical approach to interspecies relations. It is not enough simply to change one's diet and habits; vegans must work earnestly to change the diets and habits of others.

"Can time ever be ripe for any reform unless it is ripened by human determination? Did Wilberforce wait for the ‘ripening’ of time before he commenced his fight against slavery? Did Edwin Chadwick, Lord Shaftesbury, and Charles Kingsley wait for such a non-existent moment before trying to convince the great dead weight of public opinion that clean water and bathrooms would be an improvement? If they had declared their intention to poison everybody the opposition they met could hardly have been greater. There is an obvious danger in leaving the fulfilment of our ideals to posterity, for posterity may not have our ideals. Evolution can be retrogressive as well as progressive, indeed there seems always to be a strong gravitation the wrong way unless existing standards are guarded and new visions honoured. For this reason we have formed our Group, the first of its kind, we believe, in this or any other country." -Donald Watson, Founder, The Vegan Society

Eliminating cruelty and violence to any species of animal requires the removal of castes, pyramids and expressions of utility values of individual species determined by hegemonic subordination and superstition.

Biologists understand that consciousness, no matter how small or strange the animal, is not a comparative value but a condition of every nervous system. All animals are equally conscious.

The statement 'Only highly intelligent beings can be fully conscious' exists only in pseudoscience. Acquiescence to animal exploitation in society is an incomplete vegan practice.

Many who identify as vegan do so silently, without actively advocating for veganism or promoting vegan alternatives. Proliferating the facts of veganism and enabling its adoption exponentially increases the number of animals saved.

Providing vegan education and instruction is the foundation of the practice and the impetus for its creation. Animal industries desperately encourage society to shame and criticize those vegans who promote veganism to others, because the truth alone is their sword of Damocles.

With extraordinary vested capital interests in the perpetuation of violent commerce, mobilizing public opinion is the only significant effort poised to end the practice of animal exploitation.

Without the highly visible support of vegans in every sector of society, no hope exists for the emancipation of enslaved animals. With collective action, the task is not insurmountable.

Many thousands of years of legal human bondage ended only through policy prohibition by governing jurisdictions in a relatively short time, proving that popular opinion has great power to change the beliefs and behavior of society.

"In the space of fifty years, the British slaving system was dismantled under pressure from an increasingly hostile and vocal public. The London anti-slavery societies, drawing on networks of provincial correspondents through whom popular support for anti-slavery measures was organised, orchestrated one of the first long-running and successful campaigns to bring 'pressure from without' to bear on parliamentary politics." -Mark Jones, York University

Vegan activism is the practice by which human animal allies of conscience enact radical change by promoting veganism for the betterment of humans, animals and the environment.

Every day, millions of animals die, thousands of humans fall ill and the world races headlong into ecocidal collapse. Every year, more animals are industrially bred and slaughtered than the total sum of all humans who have ever existed in the history of humanity by a factor of ten.

Humanity faces extinction along with our habitat. Through ineffecient use of land, fuel, water and pollution to produce luxury food items, the crisis is upon us. A vegan's silence equals death. Join a vegan outreach organization today: Anonymous for the Voiceless.

PRACTICE  

Veganism, is a mission with the goal to eliminate all exploitation of animals through education to dispel the superstition of anthropocentrism and the ignorance prevalent in society regarding global food management systems and human evolutionary biology.

Vegans seek to identify those consumer choices which are sourced from animals and boycott them. Far exceeding all other human-animal conflicts, the largest death toll occurs in food production.

Other forms of exploitation vegans seek to eliminate include keeping animals as; labor, transportation, entertainment, cosmetics, laboratory research, product testing, clothing and accessories, furniture, decoration, transportation, plastic packaging and containers, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, alternative or folk medicines and potions, detergents and fabric softeners, inks, dyes, colorants, hygiene products and more.

Most non-consmable products only contain animal ingredients because the food industry generates enormous quantities of animals at scale. Without consumers choosing to order animal products to eat, many of these industries would be compelled to seek more economically viable alternative materials for production.

How do I go vegan? Wake up tomorrow and declare to yourself or the world, "I'm vegan now." When confronted with a choice to purchase, consume or make use of animal exploitation, do something else. It's that simple. The key component is education and understanding that all philosophy, all wisdom, is a learning process. Commit yourself to becoming educated on what materials and services are products of the animal abuse industry. Avoid them.

Vegans can expect their practice to be an infinite learning experience. Investigative curiosity is an essential quality as producers are inclined to disguise their product ingredients to avoid off-putting consumers. It is important to audit and make informed decisions through diligent research and sharing of information with others.

Growing your own or purchasing raw agricultural products for food directly from veganic farming is by far the most effective way to boycott animal exploitation industry.

When dining out, choosing only vegan owned and operated businesses is the correct vegan choice to promote vegan enterprise and reject animal-exploitation. Capitalizing on animal violence and vegan's concern for animals by offering 'vegan options' is not 'vegan friendly'.

No buisiness can be 'vegan friendly' while capitalizing off the horrific violence of the animal exploitation industry. Obsequious and duplicitous yes, but anyone who willfully kills your friends and seeks your support, is not your friend.

A leading global food retailer, reported their vegan products were never intended to appeal to existing customers to try alternatives, but to attract new customers and expand their overall business by horizontal marketing targeting vegans.

Before the proliferation of 'vegan options' at non-vegan restaurants, vegan customers were compelled to seek out vegan establishments to find vegan food. Their friends, partners and families would join them, compounding losses to animal exploitation businesses and demonstrating how delicious and easy making vegan choices can be in a vegan restaurant.

The interest to provide 'options' are purely financial. The offerings often contain traces or significant portions of animal products prepared in shared oils and equipment.

Staff are ignorant, untrained, indifferent and often openly hostile to vegans. Workers are frequently directed to substitute animal products without informing the customer should they run out of the plant-food variants.

Cooks and chefs are known to maliciously include animal ingredients out of spite and vengeance for what they perceive as insult to their own beleifs that animals exist for human exploitation, profit and pleasure.

Dining in businesses where animal products are sold, is not a vegan practice.

Vegans are not promoting veganism by demonstrating a demand for vegan food at animal exploitation businesses, they already know. What vegans teach them with their patronage, is how easy it is to laugh in our faces, mock our values, kill our friends, and take our money. Veganism is not an 'option', it's a boycott.

An animal exploitation business has no capacity to sell vegan food, only to further exploit animals by exploiting vegans and their concern for them. In all but extreme cases, vegans have the facilities to cook at home, or patronize vegan food business, which is the only vegan option.

Expecting a business that profits from animal abuse to understand or even care about what they serve to vegans beyond increasing their bottom line, is unwise and invariably leads to consuming animal products and financing animal exploitation.

Promise to be a conscientious vegan through formal protest and economic boycott of animal exploitation industry when dining out for food. Encouraging other vegans to refuse to consume or purchase food from animal product restaurants is known as taking the The Liberation Pledge.

Condoning animal abuse by consumption of animal products independent of the financial contribution to them, whether by theft, sharing, charity or gifts, is not a vegan practice. Boycotts are only effective when unilateral and unconditional action is taken without exception.

It is imperative not to consume or give away a rescue chicken's eggs, but to bury or compost them. Rather than promote the antithesis of veganism, vegans reject their use on principle. Ideating and accepting animals and their sexual reproductive effluvial excrements as food, is the calculably larger source of food waste.

Understanding what you consume is an important part of the vegan practice. Reading labels of packaged foods can help, identifying hidden animal igredients, and heeding allergen warnings about trace ingredients more so.

When tested, all products produced on shared factory equipment return positive indicators for packaging indicated allergen ingredients. Always dispense with all products derived wholly or partly from animals, including traces of death.

You may not always have alternatives to avoid products with traces, but if it were produced from the blood of your loved ones, wouldn't you? If the answer is yes, make the vegan choice and choose an alternate product.

To simplify decisions as a new vegan, imagine animals as humans without anthropomorphizing them as the humans you dislike, but rather, see them as the most kind, the most innocent, and the most gentle people you love and care about, as they likely would be had they not been condenmed to die for the shape they were born.

Would you wear human flesh or visit a prison of the innocent for entertainment? Would you keep a child in your backyard to harvest and eat their excrement? Would you feed a child to your pet cats, simply because they are obligate carnivores? A vegan does not sacrifice one species of domestic animal, to feed another. Learn more about how to feed animal friends a plant-food diet.

You don't have to be an anti-speciesist to be vegan. Hold any magical thinking you like, vegans simply have to extend the courtesy to leave the animals alone and stop ordering their death with their words and wealth. Indubitably, holding an anti-speciesist value system is logically consistent with veganism. Just as it would be inpractical and unlikely to find an ethnosupremacist who rejects and fights against xenophobic oppression.

Regardless of how you feel about animals, prejudice is not a crime. Oppression based on prejudice is and the simplest method to mitigate comitting bigoted acts, is to forgo the bias and adopt an egalitarian view of non-human animals. Understanding nobody chooses how they're born and treating all life with equal merit and compassion, facilitates a vegan practice.

Possible

Possible and practicable guidance in the definition of veganism is not an excuse to do harm intentionally, but recognition that many minority forms of animal exploitation are far beyond consumer control and knowledge.

Furtive exploitation of animals in supply chains is standard practice in industry. Veganism requires practitioners to remain diligent, investigative and curious through education. Vegans cannot rescue every animal and burn down every slaughterhouse.

Practicable is not synonymous with practical. The definition of veganism uses this specific terminology which means; able to be put into practice. There are forms of exploitation that one cannot boycott. This is in opposition to simply what might be convenient or practical. Apathy and sloth are excuses made by anti-vegans.

Examples may include: essential medications, entering public buildings and roadways, paying taxes which subsidize animal livestock feed production, micro-animals in air, food and water, raw agricultural products produced using blood-bone, animal fertilization and animal bioturbation, inhaling suspended aerosols of animal fats from cookstoves on public footpaths or paying for goods and services from people who will definitely spend a vegan's money on animal abuse.

Reducing one's participation in elective commerce overall is the most vegan choice.

The distinction places focus on those behaviors which can be controlled. Few from modern society could survive by re-wilding themselves outside of civilization. Most would die without intensive survival training as the vast majority of Earth's wilderness habitats except the most inhospitable have been destroyed and the knowledge to subsist in nature has been lost.

The goal of veganism is not the eradication of civilization or an impractical adoption of primitivism for billions of people, but rather to adapt human society to effect a mutually reciprocal altruistic relationship with non-humans, free from animal exploitation for the benefit of all.

A non-food scenario a vegan might encounter could include choosing to walk or jog to avoid transportation that endangers animals and contributes to environmental degradation. If one must operate a single occupancy vehicle, choose to drive more slowly and stay alert for animals crossing the roadway.

Follow local wildlife guidance. Do not feed animals on the side of the road. It may seem altruistic, but it draws animals to human activity where they are in danger of collision and death.

All can choose to watch a documentary, in lieu of traveling by jet for a safari to endanger animals by human contact in their few remaining wildnerness reservations. It is always possible to promote alternative forms of recreation where animals are involved.

Reduce all consumption of material and digital goods, clothing, plastics and packaging. Ask yourself, do I need this material possession, or do I simply want it? All feedstock of the materials economy adversely effects the ecosphere and ossifies the rate of habitat loss and species extinction.

Shipping and the energy required to produce, market and retail consumer goods all consumes fossil fuels and produces green house gasses and other particulate heavy metal aerosols. Mineral extraction and competition causes geopolitical military conflict creating more pollution which further stresses all life with pollution and global heating.

Upon learning an activity, product or behavior exploits animals, which can be electively dispensed, vegans adjust their behavior and do so without excuse. With veganism it is always possibile to correct one's mistakes and consistently strive to do better.

Veganism expects curiosity for the systems humans participate in to examine their effect on animals, focusing on modifying personal behaviors that can be controlled and investing effort in effecting policy regarding those forms of animal exploitation which cannot.

Until everyone is vegan, perfection is not possible. A vegan's way of living can always be improved and this informs why veganism is defined as a practice.

Political History

As a new era of human society developed around the world known as the agricutlutral revolution, human societies descended into a dark era of sedentary, pastoral civilization. Anthropaleontologists have discovered that with the domestication of animals: viruses, starvation, human slavery, sexual subjugation, sacrifice and warfare became endemic to human society. Hegemonic relationships within larger societies produced all modern social evils. All rooted in the foundation of exploitation of animals. Colonisation itself can be described as the de facto spread of livestock commerce and pastoralism.

Dogma

Is veganism a religion? Is it a metaphysical enquiry? No. Veganism is not a spiritual belief, it is a secular philosophy open to all, which carries on the tradition of empirical evidence that non-violence, peace, and the absence of suffering is the most harmonious and beneficial manifestation of existence.

While many religious traditions permit the sacrifice of animals in instances of extreme necessity, none require it.

Famously, Islam includes a ritual devotional sacrifice of sharing meat with the less fortunate, but provides specific provisions for abstaining from slaughter when it may cause adversity to the believer.

Despite veganism not espousing any esoteric or spiritual beliefs, every extant religion accords the near universal sentiment that non-violence towards animals is correct and good behavior.

"I praise a non-violent sacrifice at which cattle, goats, rams, chickens, and pigs are not slain, where various creatures are not slaughtered. Someone with three qualities is cast down to hell. What three? They themselves kill living creatures. They encourage others to kill living creatures. And they approve of killing living creatures. I will teach you the beneficial and the harmful. And what is the harmful? Killing living creatures. And what is the beneficial? Not killing living creatures. Laying aside violence in respect of all beings, both those which are still and those which move, in the world, he should not kill, nor cause to kill, nor allow others to kill." - Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

"Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures. Together with our obligation to use the earth's goods responsibly, we are called to recognize that other living beings have a value of their own in God’s eyes: by their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. The Catechism clearly and forcefully criticizes a distorted anthropocentrism: “Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection… Each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God’s infinite wisdom and goodness. Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature, to avoid any disordered use of things”." - Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis

"And say to the people, 'Sanctify your-selves for tomorrow, you will eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, 'Who will give us meat to eat, for life was good for us in Egypt?' Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat. You will eat, not just one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out your nostrils and makes you sick, because you have de-spised the Lord... And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. " - Moses, The Hebrew Bible

"There is not an animal that lives on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but they form communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they all shall be gathered to their Lord in the end... A good deed done to an animal is like a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as cruelty to a human being." - Al Qur'an, 6:38 and Hadith of Abu Umamah al-Bahili

"That which you consider worth destroying is yourself. That which you consider worth disciplining is yourself. That which you consider worth subjugating is yourself. That which you consider worth killing is yourself. The result of actions by you has to be borne by you, so do not destroy anything." - Tirthankara Mahavira, Jain Ācārāṅga Sūtra

"Abstain rigorously from eating the flesh of kine and all beneficent animals least you be made to face a strict reckoning in this world and the next; for by eating the flesh of kine and other domestic animals, you involve your hand in sin, and thereby think, speak, and do what is sinful; for though you may eat but a mouth-ful, you involve your hand in sin, and though a camel be slain by another person in another place, it is as if you who eat its flesh had slain it with your own hand." - Adarbad Mahraspandan, Zoroastrian High Priest

"Only life can give life... Ital is [the diet] of the movement of peace and love, it is not correct for Rastafari to cause pain and suffering through the slaughter and consumption of animals. He shall not make his stomach a cemetery says the Rasta." - Tracy Nicholas, Rastafari: A Way of Life

"The Lord gives the grains and the fruits of the earth for food; and for righteous man there is truly no other lawful substance for the body. Wherefore I say to all those who desire to be disciples, keep your hands from bloodshed and let no flesh meat enter your mouths; for the Lord is just and bountiful; who ordains that man shall LIVE by the fruits and seeds of the earth alone. I am in all creatures and all creatures are in me. In all their joys, I rejoice. In all their afflictions, I am afflicted." - Jesus, Gospel of the Nazirenes