Veganism

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Distinctions may be made between several categories of veganism. Dietary vegans, also known as "strict vegetarians", refrain from consuming meat, eggs, dairy products, and any other animal-derived substances. An ethical vegan is someone who not only follows a plant-based diet but extends the philosophy into other areas of their lives, opposes the use of animals for any purpose, and tries to avoid any cruelty and exploitation of all animals including humans. Another term is " environmental veganism", which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the premise that the industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.
Matthew Cole, "Veganism", in Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz (ed.), ''Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism'', ABC-Clio, 2010 (239–241)
241

Well-planned vegan diets are regarded as appropriate for all stages of life, including infancy and pregnancy, as said by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the British Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, and the Italian Society of Human Nutrition. The German Society for Nutritionwhich is a non-profit organisation and not an official health agencydoes not recommend vegan diets for children or adolescents, or during pregnancy and breastfeeding. There is inconsistent evidence for vegan diets providing a protective effect against metabolic syndrome; some evidence suggests that a vegan diet can help with weight loss, especially in the short term. Vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fiber, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, iron, and phytochemicals, and lower in dietary energy, saturated fat, cholesterol, omega-3 fatty acid, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B₁₂. A poorly-planned vegan diet may lead to nutritional deficiencies that nullify any beneficial effects and may cause serious health issues, some of which can only be prevented with fortified foods or dietary supplements. Vitamin B₁₂ supplementation is important because its deficiency can cause blood disorders and potentially irreversible neurological damage; this danger is also one of the most common in poorly-planned non-vegan diets.

The word ''vegan'' was coined by Donald Watson and his then-future wife Dorothy Morgan in 1944. Interest in veganism increased significantly in the 2010s.

Origins

''Vegetarian'' etymology

The term "vegetarian" has been in use since around 1839 to refer to what was previously described as a vegetable regimen or diet. Its origin is an irregular compound of ''vegetable'' and the suffix '' -arian'' (in the sense of "supporter, believer" as in ''humanitarian''). The earliest known written use is attributed to actress, writer and abolitionist Fanny Kemble, in her ''Journal of a Residence on a Georgian plantation in 1838–1839''.

History

Vegetarianism can be traced to Indus Valley civilization in 3300–1300 BCE in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in northern and western ancient India. Early vegetarians included Indian philosophers such as Parshavnatha, Mahavira, Acharya Kundakunda, Umaswati, Samantabhadra, and the Tamil poet Valluvar; the Indian emperors Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka; Greek philosophers such as Empedocles, Theophrastus, Plutarch, Plotinus, and Porphyry; and the Roman poet Ovid and the playwright Seneca the Younger.
Daniel A. Dombrowski, ''The Philosophy of Vegetarianism'', University of Massachusetts Press, 1984, 2. The Greek sage Pythagoras may have advocated an early form of strict vegetarianism, but his life is so obscure that it is disputed whether he ever advocated any form of vegetarianism at all. He almost certainly prohibited his followers from eating beans and from wearing woolen garments. Eudoxus of Cnidus, a student of Archytas and Plato, writes that "Pythagoras was distinguished by such purity and so avoided killing and killers that he not only abstained from animal foods, but even kept his distance from cooks and hunters". One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Maʿarri (). Their arguments were based on health, the transmigration of souls, animal welfare, and the view—espoused by Porphyry in ("On Abstinence from Animal Food", )—that if humans deserve justice, then so do animals.

Vegetarianism established itself as a significant movement in 19th-century Britain and the United States. A minority of vegetarians avoided animal food entirely. In 1813, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published '' A Vindication of Natural Diet'', advocating "abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors", and in 1815, William Lambe, a London physician, stated that his "water and vegetable diet" could cure anything from tuberculosis to acne. Lambe called animal food a "habitual irritation", and argued that "milk eating and flesh-eating are but branches of a common system and they must stand or fall together". Sylvester Graham's meatless Graham diet—mostly fruit, vegetables, water, and bread made at home with stoneground flour—became popular as a health remedy in the 1830s in the United States. Several vegan communities were established around this time. In Massachusetts, Amos Bronson Alcott, father of the novelist Louisa May Alcott, opened the Temple School in 1834 and Fruitlands in 1844, and in England, James Pierrepont Greaves founded the Concordium, a vegan community at Alcott House on Ham Common, in 1838.J. E. M. Latham, ''Search for a New Eden'', Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999, 168.

Vegetarian Society

In 1843, members of Alcott House created the British and Foreign Society for the Promotion of Humanity and Abstinence from Animal Food, led by Sophia Chichester, a wealthy benefactor of Alcott House. Alcott House also helped to establish the UK Vegetarian Society, which held its first meeting in 1847 in Ramsgate, Kent. ''The Medical Times and Gazette'' in London reported in 1884:

An article in the Society's magazine, the ''Vegetarian Messenger'', in 1851 discussed alternatives to shoe leather, which suggests the presence of vegans within the membership who rejected animal use entirely, not only in diet. By the 1886 publication of Henry S. Salt's ''A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays'', he asserts that, "It is quite true that most—not all—Food Reformers admit into their diet such animal food as milk, butter, cheese, and eggs..." Russell Thacher Trall's ''The Hygeian Home Cook-Book'' published in 1874 is the first known vegan cookbook in America.Smith, Andrew F. (2015). ''Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover's Companion to New York City''. Oxford University Press. p. 617. The book contains recipes "without the employment of milk, sugar, salt, yeast, acids, alkalies, grease, or condiments of any kind." An early vegan cookbook, Rupert H. Wheldon's ''No Animal Food: Two Essays and 100 Recipes'', was published by C. W. Daniel in 1910. The consumption of milk and eggs became a battleground over the following decades. There were regular discussions about it in the ''Vegetarian Messenger''; it appears from the correspondence pages that many opponents of veganism came from vegetarians.

During a visit to London in 1931, Mahatma Gandhi—who had joined the Vegetarian Society's executive committee when he lived in London from 1888 to 1891—gave a speech to the Society arguing that it ought to promote a meat-free diet as a matter of morality, not health. Lacto-vegetarians acknowledged the ethical consistency of the vegan position but regarded a vegan diet as impracticable and were concerned that it might be an impediment to spreading vegetarianism if vegans found themselves unable to participate in social circles where no non-animal food was available. This became the predominant view of the Vegetarian Society, which in 1935 stated: "The lacto-vegetarians, on the whole, do not defend the practice of consuming the dairy products except on the ground of expediency."

''Vegan'' etymology

In August 1944, several members of the Vegetarian Society asked that a section of its newsletter be devoted to non-dairy vegetarianism. When the request was turned down, Donald Watson, secretary of the Leicester branch, set up a new quarterly newsletter in November 1944, priced tuppence. He called it ''The Vegan News''. The word ''vegan'' was invented by Watson and Dorothy Morgan, a schoolteacher he would later marry. The word is based on "the first three and last two letters of 'vegetarian because it marked, in Mr Watson's words, "the beginning and end of vegetarian". ''The Vegan News'' asked its readers if they could think of anything better than ''vegan'' to stand for "non-dairy vegetarian". They suggested ''allvega'', ''neo-vegetarian'', ''dairyban'', ''vitan'', ''benevore'', ''sanivores'', and ''beaumangeur''.

The first edition attracted more than 100 letters, including from George Bernard Shaw, who resolved to give up eggs and dairy.Donald Watson, "The Early History of the Vegan Movement"
''The Vegan''
Autumn 1965, 5–7; Donald Watson
''Vegan News''
first issue, November 1944. The new Vegan Society held its first meeting in early November at the Attic Club, 144 High Holborn, London. Those in attendance were Donald Watson, Elsie B. Shrigley, Fay K. Henderson, Alfred Hy Haffenden, Paul Spencer and Bernard Drake, with Mme Pataleewa ( Barbara Moore, a Russian-British engineer) observing.Richard Farhall
"The First Fifty Years: 1944–1994"
iii (full names of members on following pages), published with ''The Vegan'', 10(3), Autumn 1994, between pp. 12 and 13. World Vegan Day is held every 1 November to mark the founding of the Society and the month of November is considered by the Society to be World Vegan Month.

''The Vegan News'' changed its name to ''The Vegan'' in November 1945, by which time it had 500 subscribers. It published recipes and a "vegan trade list" of animal-free products, such as toothpastes, shoe polishes, stationery and glue. Vegan books appeared, including ''Vegan Recipes'' by Fay K. Henderson (1946) and ''Aids to a Vegan Diet for Children'' by Kathleen V. Mayo (1948).

The Vegan Society soon made clear that it rejected the use of animals for any purpose, not only in diet. In 1947, Watson wrote: "The vegan renounces it as superstitious that human life depends upon the exploitation of these creatures whose feelings are much the same as our own ...". From 1948, ''The Vegan''s front page read: "Advocating living without exploitation", and in 1951, the Society published its definition of ''veganism'' as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals". In 1956, its vice-president, Leslie Cross, founded the Plantmilk Society; and in 1965, as Plantmilk Ltd and later Plamil Foods, it began production of one of the first widely distributed soy milks in the Western world."The Plantmilk Society", ''The Vegan'', X(3), Winter 1956, 14–16.

The first vegan society in the United States was founded in 1948 by Catherine Nimmo and Rubin Abramowitz in California, who distributed Watson's newsletter. In 1960, H. Jay Dinshah founded the American Vegan Society (AVS), linking veganism to the concept of '' ahimsa'', "non-harming" in Sanskrit. According to Joanne Stepaniak, the word ''vegan'' was first published independently in 1962 by the ''Oxford Illustrated Dictionary'', defined as "a vegetarian who eats no butter, eggs, cheese, or milk".

Definition

Since 1988, The Vegan Society defines veganism as follows:

The European Commission was granted the power to adopt an implementing act on food information related to suitability of a food for vegans by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in article 36 of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. The German consumer protection minister conference approved a definition for food suitable for vegans on 22 April 2016. The European Vegetarian Union adopted this text for a proposal for a legally binding definition based on Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 in July 2019.

In 2021, the International Organization for Standardization published standard ISO 23662 on "definitions and technical criteria for foods and food ingredients suitable for vegetarians or vegans and for labelling and claims".

Increasing interest

Alternative food movements

In the 1960s and 1970s, a vegetarian food movement emerged as part of the counterculture in the United States that focused on concerns about diet, the environment, and a distrust of food producers, leading to increasing interest in organic gardening.Iacobbo, Karen and Michael Iacobbo. "Chapter 9: Peace, Love, and Vegetarianism: The Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s", In ''Vegetarian America: A History''. Westport: Praeger, 2004. One of the most influential vegetarian books of that time was Frances Moore Lappé's 1971 text, '' Diet for a Small Planet''. It sold more than three million copies and suggested "getting off the top of the food chain".

The following decades saw research by a group of scientists and doctors in the United States, including physicians Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, Neal D. Barnard, John A. McDougall, Michael Greger, and biochemist T. Colin Campbell, who argued that diets based on animal fat and animal protein, such as the Western pattern diet, were detrimental to health. They produced a series of books that recommend vegan or vegetarian diets, including McDougall's ''The McDougall Plan'' (1983), John Robbins's '' Diet for a New America'' (1987), which associated meat eating with environmental damage, and ''Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease'' (1990). In 2003 two major North American dietitians' associations indicated that well-planned vegan diets were suitable for all life stages. This was followed by the film '' Earthlings'' (2005), Campbell's '' The China Study'' (2005), Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin's '' Skinny Bitch'' (2005), Jonathan Safran Foer's '' Eating Animals'' (2009), and the film '' Forks over Knives'' (2011).

In the 1980s, veganism became associated with punk subculture and ideologies, particularly straight edge hardcore punk in the United States; and anarcho-punk in the United Kingdom. This association continues on into the 21st century, as evinced by the prominence of vegan punk events such as Fluff Fest in Europe.

Into the mainstream

The vegan diet became increasingly mainstream in the 2010s,Nick Pendergrast, "Environmental Concerns and the Mainstreaming of Veganism", in T. Raphaely (ed.), ''Impact of Meat Consumption on Health and Environmental Sustainability'', IGI Global, 2015
106
especially in the latter half. ''The Economist'' declared 2019 "the year of the vegan". Chain restaurants began marking vegan items on their menus and supermarkets improved their selection of vegan-processed food.

The global mock-meat market increased by 18 percent between 2005 and 2010, and in the United States by eight percent between 2012 and 2015, to $553 million a year. The Vegetarian Butcher (), the first known vegetarian butcher shop, selling mock meats, opened in the Netherlands in 2010, while America's first vegan butcher, the Herbivorous Butcher, opened in Minneapolis in 2016. Since 2017, more than 12,500 chain restaurant locations have begun offering Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods products including Carl's Jr. outlets offering Beyond Burgers and Burger King outlets serving Impossible Whoppers. Plant-based meat sales in the U.S grew 37% between 2017 and 2019.

In 2011, Europe's first vegan supermarkets appeared in Germany: Veganz in Berlin and Vegilicious in Dortmund. In 2013, the Oktoberfest in Munich (traditionally a meat-heavy event) offered vegan dishes for the first time in its 200-year history.

By 2016, 49% of Americans were drinking plant milk, and 91% still drank dairy milk. In the United Kingdom, the plant milk market increased by 155 percent in two years, from 36 million litres (63 million imperial pints) in 2011 to 92 million (162 million imperial pints) in 2013. There was a 185% increase in new vegan products between 2012 and 2016 in the UK. In 2017, the United States School Nutrition Association found 14% of school districts across the country were serving vegan school meals compared to 11.5% of schools offering vegan lunch in 2016, reflecting a change happening in many parts of the world, including Brazil and England.

In total, , the largest share of vegan consumers globally currently reside in Asia Pacific with nine percent of people following a vegan diet. In 2017, veganism rose in popularity in Hong Kong and China, particularly among millennials. China's vegan market was estimated to rise by more than 17% between 2015 and 2020, which is expected to be "the fastest growth rate internationally in that period". This exceeds the projected growth in the second and third fastest-growing vegan markets internationally in the same period, the United Arab Emirates (10.6%) and Australia (9.6%) respectively.

In 2018, the book ''The End of Animal Farming'' by Jacy Reese Anthis argued that veganism will completely replace animal-based food by 2100. The book was featured in ''The Guardian'', ''The New Republic'', and ''Forbes'', among other newspapers and magazines.

The growth of schools serving vegan school meals has increased in recent years with the lunches added by Los Angeles, California in 2018, Portland, Maine in 2019, and New York City in 2022.

In January 2021, 582,538 people from 209 countries and territories signed up for Veganuary, breaking the previous year's record of 400,000. That same month, ONA in France became the first vegan restaurant in the country to receive a Michelin star. Throughout the year, a further 79 plant-based restaurants around the world received Michelin stars. At the end of the year, a poll conducted by ''The Guardian'' showed that a new high of 36% of the British public were interested in veganism.

Prevalence by country

*: Australians topped Google's worldwide searches for the word "vegan" between mid-2015 and mid-2016. A Euromonitor International study concluded the market for packaged vegan food in Australia would rise 9.6% per year between 2015 and 2020, making Australia the third-fastest growing vegan market behind China and the United Arab Emirates.
*: '' Kurier'' estimated that 0.5 percent of Austrians practised veganism, and in the capital, Vienna, 0.7 percent.
*: A 2016 iVOX online study found that out of 1000 Dutch-speaking residents of Flanders and Brussels of 18 years and over, 0.3 percent were vegan.
*: According to research by IBOPE Inteligência published in April 2018, 14% of Brazilians, or about 30 million people, considered themselves vegetarians, 7 million of them vegans.
*: In 2018, one survey estimated that 2.1 percent of adult Canadians considered themselves as vegans.
*: A government-commissioned survey indicates that , 2% of German residents follow a vegan diet, with higher incidence rates among the younger, the less educated (people who ended their formal education with Hauptschule graduation), and residents of former West Germany.
*: In the 2005–06 National Health Survey, 1.6% of the surveyed population reported never consuming animal products. Veganism was most common in the states of Gujarat (4.9%) and Maharashtra (4.0%).
*: Five percent (approx. 300,000) in Israel said they were vegan in 2014, making it the highest per capita vegan population in the world.
A 2015 survey by Globes and Israel's Channel 2 News similarly found 5% of Israelis were vegan. Veganism increased among Israeli Arabs. The Israeli army made special provision for vegan soldiers in 2015, which included providing non-leather boots and wool-free berets. Veganism also simplifies adherence to the Judaic prohibition on combining meat and milk in meals.
*: Between 0.6 and 3 percent of Italians were reported to be vegan .
*: In 2018, the Dutch Society for Veganism () estimated there were more than 100,000 Dutch vegans (0.59 percent), based on their membership growth. In July 2020 the NVV estimated the number of vegans in the Netherlands at 150,000. That is approximately 0.9% of the Dutch population.Hoeveel veganisten zijn er (''in Dutch'')
''Nederlandse Vereniging voor Veganisme''
*: Followers of the Romanian Orthodox Church keep fast during several periods throughout the ecclesiastical calendar amounting to a majority of the year. In the Romanian Orthodox tradition, devotees abstain from eating any animal products during these times. As a result, vegan foods are abundant in stores and restaurants; however, Romanians may not be familiar with a vegan diet as a full-time lifestyle choice.
*: Four percent said they were vegan in a 2014 Demoskop poll.
*: Market research company DemoSCOPE estimated in 2017 that three percent of the population was vegan.
*: A 2016 Ipsos MORI study commissioned by the Vegan Society, surveying almost 10,000 people aged 15 or over across England, Scotland, and Wales, found that 1.05 percent were vegan; the Vegan Society estimates that 542,000 in the UK follow a vegan diet. According to a 2018 survey by Comparethemarket.com, the number of people who identify as vegans in the United Kingdom has risen to over 3.5 million, which is approximately seven percent of the population, and environmental concerns were a major factor in this development. However, doubt was cast on this inflated figure by the UK-based Vegan Society, who perform their own regular survey: the Vegan Society themselves found in 2018 that there were 600,000 vegans in Great Britain (1.16%), which was seen as a dramatic increase on previous figures. YouGov reported 3% vegans in 2021.
*: Estimates of vegans in the U.S. in past varied from 2% (Gallup, 2012) to 0.5% ( Faunalytics, 2014). According to the latter, 70% of those who adopted a vegan diet abandoned it."Study of Current and Former Vegetarians and Vegans"
Faunalytics, December 2014, 4
"How Many Former Vegetarians and Vegans Are There?"
Faunalytics, 2 December 2014. However, Top Trends in Prepared Foods 2017, a report by GlobalData, estimated that "6% of US consumers now claim to be vegan, up from just 1% in 2014." In 2020, YouGov published results of 2019 research which showed only 2.26% reported being vegan. Nearly 59% of the vegan respondents were female. According to Gallup, black Americans are three times as likely to be vegan and vegetarian as whites as of July 2018 (9% compared to 3%).
The city with the most vegan restaurants per resident in 2021 according to data collected from HappyCow was Chiang Mai (Thailand), followed by Ubud (Bali, Indonesia), Phuket (Thailand), Tel Aviv (Israel), and Lisbon (Portugal).

Animal products

General

While vegans broadly abstain from animal products, there are many ways in which animal products are used, and different individuals and organizations that identify with the practice of veganism may use some limited animal products based on philosophy, means or other concerns.
Philosopher Gary Steiner argues that it is not possible to be entirely vegan, because animal use and products are "deeply and imperceptibly woven into the fabric of human society".

''Animal Ingredients A to Z'' (2004) and ''Veganissimo A to Z'' (2013) list which ingredients might be animal-derived. The British Vegan Society's sunflower logo and PETA's bunny logo mean the product is certified vegan, which includes no animal testing. The Leaping Bunny logo signals no animal testing, but it might not be vegan. The Vegan Society criteria for vegan certification are that the product contain no animal products, and that neither the finished item nor its ingredients have been tested on animals by, or on behalf of, the manufacturer or by anyone over whom the manufacturer has control. Its website contains a list of certified products, as does Australia's Choose Cruelty Free (CCF). The British Vegan Society will certify a product only if it is free of animal involvement as far as possible and practical, including animal testing, but "recognises that it is not always possible to make a choice that avoids the use of animals", an issue that was highlighted in 2016 when it became known that the UK's newly introduced £5 note contained tallow.

Meat, eggs and dairy

Like vegetarians, vegans do not eat meat (including beef, pork, poultry, fowl, game, animal seafood). The main difference between a vegan and vegetarian diet is that vegans exclude dairy products and eggs. Ethical vegans avoid them on the premise that their production causes animal suffering and premature death.

In egg production, most male chicks are culled because they do not lay eggs. Egg laying hens also suffer from keel bone fractures due to being bred to produce disproportionately large eggs, with the largest study of its kind showing that 85% of Danish egg laying hens suffer from keel bone fractures.

To obtain milk from dairy cattle, cows are made pregnant to induce lactation; they are kept lactating for three to seven years, then slaughtered. Female calves can be separated from their mothers within 24 hours of birth, and fed milk replacer to retain the cow's milk for human consumption. Most male calves are slaughtered at birth, sent for veal production, or reared for beef.

Clothing

Many clothing products may be made of animal products such as silk, wool (including lambswool, shearling, cashmere, angora, mohair, and a number of other fine wools), fur, feathers, pearls, animal-derived dyes, leather, snakeskin, or other kinds of skin or animal product. While dietary vegans might use animal products in clothing, toiletries, and similar, ethical veganism extends not only to matters of food but also to the wearing or use of animal products, and rejects the commodification of animals altogether. Most leather clothing is made from cow skins. Some vegans regard the purchase of leather, particularly from cows, as financial support for the meat industry. Vegans may wear clothing items and accessories made of non-animal-derived materials such as hemp, linen, cotton, canvas, polyester, artificial leather (pleather), rubber, and vinyl. Leather alternatives can come from materials such as cork, piña (from pineapples), cactus, and mushroom leather. Some vegan clothes, in particular leather alternatives, are made of petroleum-based products, which has triggered criticism because of the environmental damage involved in their production.

Toiletries

Vegans replace personal care products and household cleaners containing animal products with products that are vegan. Animal ingredients are ubiquitous because they are relatively inexpensive. After animals are slaughtered for meat, the leftovers are put through a rendering process and some of that material, particularly the fat, is used in toiletries.

Common animal-derived ingredients include: tallow in soap; collagen-derived glycerine, which used as a lubricant and humectant in many haircare products, moisturizers, shaving foams, soaps and toothpastes; lanolin from sheep's wool is often found in lip balm and moisturizers; stearic acid is a common ingredient in face creams, shaving foam and shampoos, (as with glycerine, it can be plant-based, but is usually animal-derived); Lactic acid, an alpha-hydroxy acid derived from animal milk, is used in moisturizers; allantoin— from the comfrey plant or cows' urine —is found in shampoos, moisturizers and toothpaste;''Animal Ingredients A to Z'', E. G. Smith Collective, 2004, 3rd edition; Lars Thomsen and Reuben Proctor, ''Veganissimo A to Z'', The Experiment, 2013 (first published in Germany, 1996). and carmine from scale insects, such as the female cochineal, is used in food and cosmetics to produce red and pink shades;

Beauty Without Cruelty, founded as a charity in 1959, was one of the earliest manufacturers and certifiers of animal-free personal care products.

Insect products

Vegan groups disagree about insect products. Neither the Vegan Society nor the American Vegan Society considers honey, silk, and other insect products as suitable for vegans. Some vegans believe that exploiting the labor of bees and harvesting their energy source is immoral, and that commercial beekeeping operations can harm and even kill bees. Insect products can be defined much more widely, as commercial bees are used to pollinate about 100 different food crops.

Pet food

Due to the environmental impact of meat-based pet food and the ethical problems it poses for vegans, some vegans extend their philosophy to include the diets of pets. This is particularly true for domesticated cats and dogs, for which vegan pet food is both available and nutritionally complete, such as Vegepet. This practice has been met with caution and criticism, especially regarding vegan cat diets because felids are obligate carnivores. Nutritionally complete vegan pet diets are comparable to meat-based ones for cats and dogs. A 2015 study found that 6 out of 24 commercial vegan pet food brands do not meet the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) labeling regulations for amino acid adequacy.

Other products and farming practices

A concern is the case of medications, which are routinely tested on animals to ensure they are effective and safe, and may also contain animal ingredients, such as lactose, gelatine, or stearates. There may be no alternatives to prescribed medication or these alternatives may be unsuitable, less effective, or have more adverse side effects. Experimentation with laboratory animals is also used for evaluating the safety of vaccines, food additives, cosmetics, household products, workplace chemicals, and many other substances. Vegans may avoid certain vaccines, such as the flu vaccine, which is commonly produced in chicken eggs. An effective alternative, Flublok, is widely available in the United States.

Farming of fruits and vegetables may include fertilizing the soil with animal manure even on organic farms, possibly causing a concern to vegans for ethical or environmental reasons. "Vegan" (or "animal-free") farming uses plant compost only.

Vegan diets, substitutions, and meat analogues

Vegan diets are based on grains and other seeds, legumes (particularly beans), fruits, vegetables, edible mushrooms, and nuts.

Meat substitutes

Vegan meat alternatives are commonly sold in the form of vegetarian sausage, mince, and veggie burgers. They are often made from soybeans, seitan (wheat gluten), beans, lentils, rice, mushrooms or vegetables. Meat substitutes have been made in China since at least the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 common era), including mock duck made from seitan. They are much newer to Western countries. Some famous Western producers of vegan meat alternatives include Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. However, in the late 2010s many meat producers and supermarkets also started making their own brands of vegan meat substitutes.

Plant milk and dairy product alternatives

Plant milks—such as soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, grain milks ( oat milk, flax milk and rice milk), hemp milk, and coconut milk—are used in place of cows' or goats' milk. Soy milk provides around 7 g (oz) of protein per cup (240 mL or 8 fl oz), compared with 8 g (2/7oz) of protein per cup of cow's milk. Almond milk is lower in dietary energy, carbohydrates, and protein.Monica Reinagel