Who is called vegan, who invented the concept of vegan, when?

Veganism, or veganism, is the refusal to use foods of animal origin and other animal products for some reason. It is sometimes called "strict vegetarianism". Vegans refuse to use food, clothing, and all other by-products obtained through the use of animals.

The word vegan was coined in 1944 by Donald Watson, one of the founders of The Vegan Society.

But the concept and trend of "vegetarian" predates veganism.

In 1842, the first people to describe themselves as "vegetarian" and use the word (Alcott House School) appeared in London.

These people ate only plants and in the first half of the 19th century they named themselves after the English word "vegetable".

The word vegan, which is derived from the first and last syllables of the word vegetarian, was introduced to the literature in the 20th century by Donald Watson, one of the founders of The Vegan Society.

After removing animals and animal products from his diet, Donald Watson announced in November 1944 that he would coin a new term "vegan" (to describe people who do not, as vegetarians eat milk and eggs) to differentiate between vegans and vegetarians. A year ago, 40% of dairy cows in England had tuberculosis, and Watson argued that a vegan lifestyle protects people from contaminated food, based on this finding. Three months after coining the term, he published an official explanation of how the word should be pronounced. “It reads as vegan, not vegan,” he wrote in the new Vegan Society newsletter, which has 25 subscribers.

Although the vegan diet was defined at the founding of The Vegan Society in 1944, Leslie J Cross pointed out in 1949 that the society lacked a definition of veganism. He proposed the "principle of the liberation of animals from exploitation by man". This was later clarified as "to put an end to all other uses of animals that include food, commodities, work, hunting, live animal experimentation and exploitation of animal life by man".

The association was first registered as a charity in August 1964, but then its assets were transferred to a new charity when it became a limited company in December 1979. The definition of veganism and the charter of the association have been changed over the years and additions have been made. By the winter of 1988, the current definition was in use, although the wording had changed somewhat over the years.

Donald Watson defined veganism in an interview in 2002 as follows: “Veganism is a way of excluding all forms of exploitation and cruelty to the animal kingdom and of preserving life. It is practiced to exclude meat, fish, poultry, eggs, honey, animal milk, and derivatives, to live with the products of the plant kingdom, and to use alternatives to all commercial goods produced entirely or partially from animals.”

In an interview published on August 11, 2004, about a year before his death, he also gave interesting information about the origin of the word: “I invited my first readers to suggest a shorter term instead of the phrase 'vegetarian no dairy'. Some odd suggestions have been made, such as dairyban, vitan, benevore, sanivore, beaumangeur, and so on. I decided to use my own word, vegan, which includes the first three and last two letters of the word 'vegetarian'. The word was accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary and no attempt was made to develop it.”

History of Veganism

Although the term "veganism" was not used until the early 1940s, this lifestyle actually goes back to ancient Indian and Eastern Mediterranean societies. According to the Vegan Society, evidence that people choose to avoid the consumption and use of animal products goes back 2,000 years.

As early as 500 BC, the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras and many of his followers practiced vegetarianism mainly for religious and moral reasons, while Siddhārtha Gautama (Buddha) was discussing vegetarian diets with his followers. Followers of Hinduism and Jainism also advocated vegetarianism and promoted the belief that humans should not cause pain to other animals. One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Maarri, and his arguments are based on health, transmigration, and animal welfare; He advocated the philosophy that if humans deserve justice, animals do too.

Vegetarianism emerged as an important movement in 19th-century Britain and the United States. In 1813, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published The Verification of Natural Eating, advocating "abstinence from animal food and spirits", and in 1815 William Lambe, a vegan doctor from London, called animal consumption "habitual irritation" and argued that "the earth has nothing to offer us directly". My reason for objecting to the use of every type of substance as food, except for the products of the people, is based on the broad grounds that no other substance is suitable for human organs, and this applies equally strongly not only to meat, fish, chicken but also to eggs, milk, cheese," he explained.

The first vegetarian society was established in England in 1847. Three years later, Sylvester Graham, inventor of the Graham crackers, founded the American Vegetarian Society. In November 1944, Donald Watson announced that he would create a new term to describe people who, unlike vegetarians, do not eat dairy or eggs. A year ago, 40 percent of England's dairy cows had been found to have tuberculosis, and Watson used this to his advantage, arguing that he had proven that the vegan lifestyle protects people from contaminated food. Critics argued that he could not survive on the diet Watson recommended.

In November 1944, Watson and his wife, along with a few friends, left the London Vegetarian Society and formed The Vegan Society because their former bandmates refused to support veganism, which they saw as extreme and antisocial. To describe this new lifestyle, Watson and his then-wife Dorothy Morgan derived the definition of 'vegan' from the first three and last two letters of the word 'vegetarian'.

Donald Watson argued that just as past civilizations were built on the exploitation of slaves, our present civilization was built on the exploitation of animals. When Watson, who dragged the masses behind him with his groundbreaking philosophy, died at the age of 95 in 2005, there were 250,000 self-identified vegans in England. Today that number is over 79 million worldwide.