Terms
9 March 2011
I’ve talked before about the different reasons a person might choose a vegan lifestyle, but I haven’t been using specific terms. Instead I’ve been saying, for example, “a person who goes vegan for animal equality reasons,” which is a little verbose. So I did a little research and found some terms that are already in use. They’re pretty self explanatory, but I’ll explain them a little further. That is to say, I’ll give my interpretation and throw in a little bias.
Dietary Vegan
I wanted to call this Nutritional Vegan, but then I found that Dietary Vegan is already in use. Contrary to popular belief, a vegan diet is very healthy, when it’s done right. In fact, many people believe that it’s healthier than eating meat, dairy, eggs, etc. Dietary Vegans have made the choice to go vegan for health reasons. There is a misconception out there that people who choose veganism are placing ethics above nutrition. Actually, nutrition itself is reason enough to choose veganism.
Dietary Vegans are only vegan in the food that they eat. They may wear leather and fur and generally make use of other animal products in their lives, just not in their meals.
Ethical Vegan
These are the people who choose veganism because they don’t want animals to be abused. They eat vegan and wear vegan. They are also the group that people complain about when they complain about vegans. PETA is a group of Ethical Vegans.
Because Ethical Vegans choose veganism for reasons other than nutrition, they might be the ones who do it wrong. A Dietary Vegan is more likely to pay extremely close attention to the nutritional elements, while an Ethical Vegan might only pay extremely close attention to making sure even the trace ingredients are free of animal cruelty.
Don’t get me wrong. Ethical Vegans can be delightful people, and they can eat good, nutritional food. All I’m saying is that this is who people are probably thinking of when they get annoyed with vegans.
EcoVegan
The reason I first went vegetarian. For the planet. EcoVegans choose veganism because it causes less harm to the planet.
This is a subject that I’ve talked about before and I’ll talk about again. Today, I’ll just give one example. Every action requires energy. Growing plants requires a certain amount of energy. We could eat those plants, or we could feed them to animals, which requires more energy, and then eat those animals. It’s just another step along the way that requires energy. And energy is only one of the resources. There’s also land and water.
EcoVegans choose veganism to help the planet. They most likely eat and wear vegan.
Religious Vegan
This one seems simple at first. This group believes that God wants them to be vegan. Done. But wait, there’s more. With religion in general, it seems that followers have explanations other than simply “God wants us to.” It’s more like, “God wants us to because...”
So when you dig deeper, it’s probably God wants us to be vegan because it’s better for our health, we should take care of all of God’s creatures, and we should take care of God’s planet. So, while Religious Vegans are probably content following their God’s rules without question, if you question them, they may give you a more worldly explanation.
These are terms I’m going to start using more often, and now you know exactly what I mean when I use them.
