Veganism is a Simple Concept

From Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary, December 2021

When we advocate for the rights of other animals, we acknowledge that our use of them is immoral and we work towards the swift abolition of all human use and ownership of other animals.

Veganism is a very simple concept. It means living in a way that recognises that other animals have minds and can feel. This is what is termed sentience.

Veganism is also about confronting speciesism.

Speciesism means relating to other animals as if we are superior to them, exploiting and using them as our resources, as if they were unfeeling beings whose lives did not matter as much as our taste, convenience, tradition and habit. Living vegan is the opposite of being speciesist. Although people often think of veganism in terms of kindness or compassion, it is simply about fairness and justice. Vegans respect other animals not because of personal traits such as compassion, but because being vegan is simply the decent thing to do. Because other animals feel and value their lives, and because their lives are not ours to use, vegans avoid all products that contain the bodies or lives of other animals, and all practices that exploit, commodify, otherwise harm or kill them. This includes using them for food, clothing, in our personal care and cleaning products, for research, entertainment, labour or any other reason.

Because our greatest use of other animals occurs in the animal agricultural industry that caters for our demand for flesh, fish, eggs, and dairy, vegans eat a plant diet. The food we eat is an important aspect of our lives, as it is for non-vegans. But veganism is not a diet. A 100% diet can provide all the nutrients we need. Like any other diet, it can be healthy with many benefits or unhealthy, depending on the choices we make. It is important for those of us who advocate veganism, to include scientific sources of information on plant-based nutrition that new vegans can refer to. But advertising veganism as a ‘healthy diet’ is wrong. If the goal is human health, then it is entirely appropriate to advocate for a wholefoods, 100% plant diet but we should be careful to call it a diet rather than a moral belief system. The promotion of a healthy diet is not a necessary or sufficient factor in the advocating veganism, anti-speciesism and animal rights.

In fact, it is wrong to misappropriate the elements of a social justice movement for trite human use such as physical appearance. In general, people who are interested in human health are better served by consulting registered dietitians who specialise in plant-based nutrition than lay people. This is not to say that we should not discuss the very important intersectional elements of the dietary aspects of veganism such as food justice, the human right to information on the nutritional adequacy of a plant-based diet, dispelling the myth that animal products are necessary for human health, and the significant contribution of animal agriculture to climate change, loss of biodiversity and environmental destruction. But they are not the crux of our work for animal rights.

When we advocate for the rights of other animals, we acknowledge that our use of them is immoral and we work towards the swift abolition of all human use and ownership of other animals. This is quite different to animal welfare. Animal welfare is a set of guidelines that advocates the minimum standards of care necessary to keep animals alive until they can be slaughtered; welfare legislation governs how they are controlled, selectively bred, mutilated, violated and slaughtered. Animal welfare perpetuates the status quo that breeds animals for profit. It has nothing to do with their rights.

Veganism is a very simple concept. Please research it for yourself and avoid the plethora of confusing, pseudo-vegan messages that are currently being presented as if they are worthy of consideration. They are not. They are a disgrace to the animals they either misrepresent or ignore and they grossly underestimate the human capacity to do the right thing for the right reasons. We do not need salespersons tactics to confront racism, sexism, ageism or any other social injustice. We do not need them to confront speciesism or promote veganism either.