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Vgans are ppl who dont eat anything that come from animals The Vegan page should have a nutrition section or a link to one. Vegan diets lack essential proteins unless planned somewhat carefully. For example, corn and beans when eaten together combine to form a protein similar to meat protein. When eaten separately, that combination doesn't occur and the result is malnourishment unless you get the protein some other way. People who stay vegan for a long time have to know about things like this. I decided it was too much bother and chose not to become flat-out vegan partly for that reason. Could someone more knowledgeable than I am about this issue please add some material about it. --phr
Is macrobiotics more strict than vegan? I thought that macrobiotics ate fish. -- mincus
From Vegan:
"There is a bit of variety in the vegan community; Europeans and Americans not only pronounce it differently..."
So? How *do* they pronounce it?
Regarding the creation of a Vegetarianism page which consists solely of a link to Vegan: I would prefer that such 'empty' stub pages not be created until there is some real content in the article. See Wikipedia commentary/Kill the Stub Pages for some different opinions on this issue.
Anyway, I'll have a first draft of a Vegetarianism article written up by this evening (Melbourne time), but feel free to jump in ahead of me. -- Claudine
As long time American vegan the statement "European vegans also generally won't eat honey, while American ones generally will" strikes me as false. The majority of people who claim to be vegans that I have met, in the US, do not consume honey nor would they consider it to be vegan.
It's a gray area in the US, at least amongst the vegans I know. Hardcore vegans will *never* eat honey. Most vegans I know try not to eat honey, but won't turn down food that is sweetened with some honey, especially sweets and breads (a lot of the "better" breads in my grocery store contain honey, for example). I agree that the wording of that phrase is terrible, because it hints that American Vegans don't consider honey to be an issue.
Finally, there are people who call themselves breatharians, which while not scientifically proven, on paper is a form of veganism. I removed this on the grounds that the article on Jasmuheen, apparently a primary advocate of breatharianism, suggests that she sometimes eats cheesecake...something not reknowned for being vegan. However, if anyone feels strongly that the 'paper definition' of breatharianism is vegan then please return the statement...but, by this token, breatharians are a sub-set of omnivores too! Mazzy
I rewrote this entry pretty substantially
I'm all for 'balance' but much of
seems to be this person's personal prejudices against vegans & vegetarians, with 'evidence' of the 'harm' that 'extreme' vegetarian diets cause to children. Any bad diet, vegan or vegetarian or omnivorous can cause harm to children. Conversely, any 'good' diet, vegan, veggie or omnivorous, will ensure that childrens nutritional and health needs are met quercus robur 09:29 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)
I've restored the word 'strive' to this articel as it's agreed by most vegans I've met that it's virtually impossible to elimonate absolutely ALL animal products from the diet or lifestyle in today's world, eg, most fruit is grown on trees that have been grafted, often using beeswax to join the graft to the rootstock, most vegetable crops will have been grown on land that has been fertilised with animal manure that is a by-product of the farming industry, much commercial sugar has been refined using bone charcoal in it's production and so on... Thus most vegans will accept that they will never totally free themselves from all animal products, but do strive towards this as a goal. quercus robur 20:06 May 9, 2003 (UTC)
How vegan is using second hand leather shoes and clothes? Not at all, or..?
I wonder about the validity of the CNN poll quoted in this article: perhaps it rules out people who are vegan, but would not call themselves vegetarian? TonyClarke 13:02, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I truck some of the source about percentage of vegan. One of it say "We will again survey the U.S. adult population in a few years.". As normal for most survey, children are excluded. I left u.k. which claim in the page that it is 0.4 percent of u.k. population being vegan because it is what it say. however, i suspect they make the same error. FWBOarticle 12:26, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I could said that veganism is in and of itself imoral, as plants are not considered able to "feel" by vegans dispite the lack of traits that make animals mentaly,or emotionaly distinctive from plants.Thus veganism is just as " Kingdomist" as vegans consider non-veganism specist.
Some people consider the usage "vegan food" to be synonymous with "vegetarian food", however a necessary distinction due to the strange but popular notion that dairy and eggs (and sometimes even fish or fowl) to be "vegetarian foods".
Hi Mshonle,
I would appreciate this being (partially) reverted, as I can argue the term "vegan product" is unnecessary, as it should be synonomous with "vegetarian product". However, many corporations are involved in deceptive practices and label foods "100% Vegetarian!" or "Suitable for Vegetarians" which contain animal products. This is should be addressed in the article.
The word "vegetarian" (person) is a synonym for herbivore, meaning, eating only plants. Now I realize that many people who call themselves vegetarian consume dairy and eggs. This does not make dairy and eggs "vegetarian".
A vegetarian diet is "Consisting primarily or wholly of vegetables and vegetable products". (refer) Eggs and dairy ARE NOT VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. There is nothing at all "vegetarian" about a cheese omlet, for example.
I would consent to removal of "strange" if this controversy was covered.
What is a sublingual vitamin? Rmhermen 16:16, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
It's one that's placed under the tongue and allowed to absorb rather than being swallowed. Polymath69 18:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, a 'vegan' diet is the norm in most parts of the world, partly for economic reasons, but a clear outcome is the absence of the diseases of the developed world such as cancer, heart and other obesity-related illnesses.
(1) You're saying that cancer and heart disease are absent in vegan societies? I'm sure that's not true. (2) Is obesity less common in parts of the world because of veganism or because of a lack of abundance of available food? (3) What exactly does "the norm in most parts of the world" mean? I can believe that most of the world follows a mostly vegan diet (whether from ideology or necessity), but I doubt that most of the world follows a purely vegan diet.
I think this sentence needs some NPOV-ing.
These facts are quoted by those who feel that 'veganism' is a modern localised and reactionary movement, rather than a movement which advocates a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle.
Uh, this is backwards isn't it? These facts would be quoted by people who think that veganism is a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle, no?
Axlrosen 15:39, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi OK hands up, I'll look at what I wrote again, with your valued comments in mind.
TonyClarke 23:09, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi,
Well as regards point one, googling produced some statistics on two countries chosen at random, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, info from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, admittedly there is not good nutrition in these countries, to put it mildly:
"Cereals and green vegetbles form the main part of the Zimbabwean diet...table shows 2 1/2 per cent on average of daily energy supply obtained from animal sources. (1997 ) info from http://www.fao.org/es/esn/nutrition/zim-e.stm Pakistan: the consumption of meat and fish is very low, providing 2% of daily energy Cereals are the main source of dietary energy(62%)"
`I suspect more than 2% of our supermarkets are given over to animal based foods?
Point two, I'll have another look at the flow.
TonyClarke 18:32, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi The figures I looked at did not seem so high, and seemed to include fish, dairy etc. Statistics can be deceiving. I've reworded it to refer to vegetarian or vegan, and made some other changes to try to make clear what I meant. I changed the financial reason for widespread veganism, it suggested the amusing picture of people waiting thousands of years for affordable hamburgers to come along (!), hope you don't mind. TonyClarke 23:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Secretlondon: you've moved the "References" section from nutrition to the end of the document. Those references apply specifically to nutrition and not to veganism in general - should they not therefore stay in the nutrition section? If not, we should probably add a note like "see references below" in that section, and change the heading "References" to a == instead of a === KarlNaylor 09:06, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I have deleted POV which say that you may not need to take B12 supplement. I have come across this comment.
Though there is nothing wrong with stating POV as long as attribution is made, I think in this case, listing this POV may be morally irresponsible. We might as well state that "some people think smoking harm fetus while other think not." FWBOarticle 03:49, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
User:Mshonle, User:Mkweise, "most" what? Hyacinth 03:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Mshonle, you removed this on the grounds that 'veganism is not specifically criticized by fruitarians'. I wasn't intending to imply that it was; I added this as an argument used by omnivores and lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and thought I should also point out the link to fruitarianism. This is based on the edits by User:205.188.116.79 that you previously removed as vandalism. Maybe this issue could be better integrated with the existing reference to f'ism, but since the main point is to show that veganism has been criticized as prejudicial or as a kind of half measure, it seemed better under ==Backlash==. Does anyone have any ideas how this can be better integrated? -- Karl Naylor 12:42, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"Some would say that veganism itself is prejudiced, hypocritical, and nonsensical for the following reasons:"
"However, the latter criticism does not take into account the point (above) that veganism means making whatever effort one feels is reasonable to avoid causing harm to animals—in most societies today, avoiding all harm even to the most apparently sentient animals is practically impossible. Many vegans feel that causing their biological functions to cease in order to avoid killing bacteria is not reasonable."
I removed the above. "Prejudice" against plants and bacteria would not be speciesism, as neither are species. "Prejudice" against bacteria would be " domainism", and "prejudice" against plants would be kingdomism. I'm not aware of serious sources which make these criticisms (or their accurate versions). Hyacinth 19:22, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
In the Criticism section it says, "Others argue that, given that animals are killed in vegetable production or any other economic activities, the question over how much of indirect killing is acceptable is ultimately a matter of personal preference and lifestyle choice." But I'm wondering, other than bees, how are animals killed in vegetable production? Milk 20:33, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Try going to a farm during harvesting season. Ask if you can ride along with harvester. Field animal get flushed through the machine and they will go through agonising death if they fail to die instantly. Also, here is a joke based on it. http://maddox.xmission.com/grill.html FWBOarticle 04:00, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Could somebody please edit or delete the above mentioned sentence! The moral fabric of a society has little to do with the psychological illnesses of some mass murderers (which make up for not even a fraction of one percent of the total population). The above mentioned sentence thus leads to false conclusions (namely that there were scientific proof that vegans are morally superior, which is by no means the case). As a side note: Adolf Hitler, in his final years was an ethic vegetarian, yet he was responsible for approx. 50.000.000 deaths. We shouldn't be lead down the slippery slope of equating one form of diet with madness, yet this is exactly what the above mentioned sentence implies. It is a biased statement that holds no informationals value. A better version / deletion would be much appreciated. User:84.135.154.52 00:44, 1 Oct 2004
"Hitler was an ethical vegetarian" is false. Hitler was a vegetarian due to intestinal stress. To his last days, he took delight in hunting doves and other fowl.
Recently there has been a bit of deleting and reverting on the trans fats section. What does everyone think, should we leave it in, revise it, or delete it? I think it should be left in, but perhaps make it more clear that this is a nutritional issue not just for vegans but for anyone who eats processed food. Rosemary Amey 20:04, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
Here is my base on deleting/rewriting the Trans Fat section.
So I think this section should either be deleted or re-wrote to expand it and include some of the points I made. Milk 27 May 2004
I know lots of vegans who love french fries and other vegan junk foods, so I think this should be left in but reworded so that it doesn't look like this is a special vegan issue, since most non-vegans probably consume way more trans fats. (By the way, you can quickly add your name and the date and time to your comment by typing four tildes (~) together.) Rosemary Amey 17:52, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it should be re-written then. I will go ahead and then you can see if it's ok. Milk 15:58, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
There is nothing particularly alternative about veganism. Veganism is supported by mainstream medical science and these days most opposition to the vegan diet comes from alternative practitioners (such as the blood type diet, Atkins, etc). I do not like seeing veganism associated with "alternative" medicine. Many vegans (myself included, obviously) are skeptical about alternative medicine. I would like to remove that text box at the bottowm, but what do others think? Rosemary Amey 16:10, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agree. While veganism is considered an "alternative diet or lifestyle" it should not be associated with "alternative medicine". Milk 01:39, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I have corrected minor factual error about Buddhism and vegan. Chinese buddhist practice vegetarianism but not veganism. The rest of buddhist schools don't. Jain monks practice much stricter form of veganism. Also, in developing countries, they didn't eat much meat or daily product simply because they were poor and lack of protein intake were genuine and serious health problem. That obviously change once these people become wealthy enough to be able to pay for imported food and supplement.
yes, all over the world "developing" countries are becoming Westernized and adopting the western traditions of heavy meat and dairy intake, and so they are also developing our common health problems. Japan is a prime example of this. More and more fast food restaurants are opening up, and now many Japanese children are becoming overweight. Milk 20:36, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think that increase in intake of suger, cereal, meat and eggs ought to be described as sign of increased affuluence and labelling it as "Westernization" is a POV given that these type of foods are common in most culture. On the other hand, popularisation of dairy product is certainly part of "Westernization" as many culture did not always consume milk of other mammals. Plus the extent in which dairy product contribute to the problem of obesity is bit debatable IMO. FWBOarticle
More information on this can be found in the book "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins, and his more recent book "The Food Revolution". He describes how countries with the highest intake of meat and diary have the highest rates of osteoperosis, heart disease, etc. But many factors could go into that as well. More info on the link between meat/diary and obesity/health problems can be found at: www.goveg.com, www.milksucks.com, www.pcrm.org Milk 00:42, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Whoever wrote the above, please take more time in contributing thoughts by spelling correctly and writing coherently. Milk 20:31, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
ah, sorry. I was told that engrish is about the point where people can understand what i'm trying to say but with some difficulty. I will TRY. (^_^). FWBOarticle 19:23, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree with User:ContiE that products using human hair are still vegan, but I'm wondering what User:Heegoop has to say on the matter. Heegoop, are you a vegan who avoids human hair, or do you know vegans who do? And if so, why? Rosemary Amey 18:28, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
(copied from user talk:rosemaryamey)
Human hair from salons is not vegan because human hair is techinally an animal product. Vegans do use the human hair they grow but not other human's hair. You see humans are actually animals because they are in the kingdom Animalia. Vegans also avoid other human products such as keratin. Get the picture, vegans do not use human products. Now I am not vegan but I thought about being vegan. - Heegoop, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, this issue is very weird and getting too technical. Yes humans are technically animals but thats taken it to the extreme. I have never heard any vegan mention human products as part of their veganism. Use of human hair is not very common anyways. Wigs are mostly made with horse hair, right? I also have a problem with mentioning human mother's milk. The way it's written seems as if adult vegans drink milk from lactating women, which is wrong. It should be written in way to describe the "milk" vegans avoid as not including human milk, only cow-milk, goat-milk, etc. Milk 00:33, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
We seem to be forgetting the motivation that more accurately characterizes veganism than any dietary prohibition. There are at least two important differenes:
This is simply another "What if...?" question. "What if you were trapped on a lifeboat, just you and a chicken, would you eat the chicken?" Hyacinth 03:50, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
TTBOMK, human hair is vegan, as long as consent is given or implied. -- Viriditas | Talk 13:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I used to like this page, it was succinct and to the point- now it is a complete mess, badly written with mashed up grammar and worse than useless beyond the first couple of paragraphs IMHO. The 'backlash' section is particularly bad, by no stretch of the imagination NPOV. The whole page needs a total rewrite, leaving in the useful, factual stuff but stripping out all the opinionated POV, preferably chucking 'backlash' in the dustbin. I'm no the one to do it, nt enough time plus I'm biased (vegan for 20 years) so anyone sensible fancy having a crack??? quercus robur 19:03, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
FWBOarticle 19:40, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Since when is there only one ethical principle behind veganism? Some people have a vegan diet just because they think it is healthier to eat no animal products. It should be made clear that these arguments only deal with the ethic principle of harming no animal at all. Most vegans do know that they can't stop all animal suffering with their diet, they do what they can to minimize it tho.
I don't get it. Do you mean that the children may eat meat in the future and therefore increase animal suffering..? If yes, that is a rather ridiculous argument IMO.
-- Conti| ✉ 21:08, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I removed the last paragraph, because I think it is extremy exaggerated. You can't seriously tell someone that he's wrong because he's doing it not consequently enough, where the most consequently action would be the death of mankind... -- Conti| ✉ 23:33, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Even this allowance of practicality can be argued against. Here is the economic multiplier argument as opoosed to population multiplier argument. If you buy something/anything, you are indirectly paying someone's wage, which they will use to buy something including meat which in turn let someone else to buy meat and the process of multiplier will continute infinitely. Hence it follow that you should not buy anything unless it is practical necessity for you. Moreover, this could further point to this revelation. The idea that diet consisting meat harm more animal than vegan/vegetarian is true only if one limit the scope of connection to "production" process. Once the scope is widen to economic connection (and there is no reason why it shouldn't) then because mathematically time line is set to infinity, then the difference in death toll will disappear. Then whether one eat meat or not only has "symbolic" significance, a token gesture to the idea of respect to whelfare of animal. Practically it is irrelevant. Now you can counter this argument a bit. You could assert that for each step of connection, the karma/guilt can be discounted, the rate of discount being arbitaraly decided. In this case, it is indeed possible to assert that vegan has less karma/guilt. But notice that discount rate is totally subjective. It is possible to set discount rate to 100% totally absolving people who eat meat by buying from the third party. And there is no way to critise that the rate of 100% as inappropriate no more than to critise that rate of 0% or 70% as inappropriate. My god, my head hurt now. :D FWBOarticle 02:26, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I reverted FWBOarticle's last edit because I think the argumentation he uses is simply ridiculous. Stating that the vegan lifestyle is not "real" or whatever simply because you can't save every single soul in the universe is simply illogical. Please stop adding such kinds of argumentation to the article. -- Conti| ✉ 18:51, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
First of all, I assume that 130.88.243.185 is FWBOarticle not logged in. I reverted again because the edit the anon (FWBOarticle) made is essentially expanding the first paragraph of the "Moral/ethical" section into two big paragraphs, just with alot more POV/silliness in it:
Sure we can state "if you breathe, some bacterias die!" as an argument on the article (which is technically true), but we can also show this argument in a more serious way, and I think the paragraph is very fine the way it is at the moment. Therefore I think that I do not "censor" anything here, and there is nothing to "counter" any arguments, I just think they are prestented in a very weird way, and that the current paragraph does this in a way better way. -- Conti| ✉ 16:57, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
For the past couple of days, this article has been vandalized by an anonymous user who is removing external links and spamming his own links. I think protection is warranted, so I've protected it due to vandalism. Rhobite 19:53, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
I haven't really worked on this article, but I noticed some concern about the quality of the article starting to slip and that the article is getting long. It seems like the sections on vegan nutrition and critisms probably justify their own articles. Moving that content out would also shorten this article significantly and make it easier to edit it well. -- Ahc 04:42, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
As a noun, a vegan is a person who follows a vegan lifestyle (i.e. avoiding animal products). Some vegans see this usage as offensive, and prefer to be referred to using the adjective form.
For determining use on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Identity:
Okay, what is up with all of these external links? How does this page get away with having so many links? (See vegetarianism for comparison.) Are all of these links good references? Is there any way someone could maybe weed out some of the less useful links so as to make the list a little more manageable? Please remember that an overabundance of links makes each individual link seem less important -- better to have a few high quality links than a list of every possible reference on the web. I would prefer someone who's actually into veganism to go in and cut down this list on the basis of quality; but if no one gets around to it soon, I'll cut it down myself on the basis of google ranking. I'm thinking twenty links or so at the most, so someone get to it. - Eric Herboso 04:38, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Literally minutes before it was recombined with the Vegan page, I had updated the criticisms section. Now I'm not so sure I did the right thing. Does it subvert the purpose of criticism to insert counterpoints, like I've done, or should I have put the counter-points into the discussion section so that the criticisms could be removed entirely? I suspect that critics could start an editing battle. Which might be the history of that section to begin with. So, should I revert and start a discussion or just let the edit alone and wait for revisions? TheChin! 20:12, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia:Criticism at Wikipedia talk:Criticism. Thanks. Hyacinth 23:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
IMHO the spectacular number of external links is in direct contradiction to our main doctrine of writing an encyclopedia. This is not all a web directory. Are there any volunteers to do a critical sighting? -- Pjacobi 20:40, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned with the coverage of Vitamin B-12, especially in regards to expectant mothers and very young children. Perhaps someone should look into this further? -- 130.194.13.103 11:31, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've tried to amend the section in the light of 130.194's comments, which seem valid to me. It is easy to gloss over the difficulties when personally you have overcome them, but to become vegan without proper advice or precautions could be highly dangerous, which was the point being made. I hope the article, or the section , is more balanced now? If not, please edit and we'll be tolerant:)
This article lists latex as being non-vegan (specifically in condoms). Is there some sort of source on this? The wikipedia article on latex has no information about this, and a quick google search also came up with nothing too credible.
Check out the article on Condomi condoms. Most mainstream condoms are produced using casein. - Milk 08:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I started an article on Vegan food at restaurants last night, and linked it to this article. It was by no means done. Why was it removed? -- Doc Holliday 13:33, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
1. Is vegetable sushi really an example of "imaginative" vegan cooking? I was pretty sure that sushi is sometimes vegetable based anyway (of course sometimes fish too), and that the whole "sushi equals raw fish" thing was a myth. Maybe I'm wrong tho.
2. Does anyone else think there are too many links in the "See also" section? Many of the radical activist links could be removed; there should be a few to the main ALF/AR pages from here, but most of the links seem like they should be on the "See also" section of those two pages. E.g., GANDALF trial seems like it could easily go to the ALF page. Zach (t) 22:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
No one has disagreed, so I just removed the following "See also" links. Zach ([://www.wikiveg.org/s wv]) (t) 15:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group -- just the ALF link is enough
Vegetarianism -- several links in the article
SHAC -- links to
animal testing and
Animal Liberation Front are enough
GANDALF trial -- plenty of links from ALF/AR pages
Barry Horne -- ditto
Linda McCartney -- vegetarian
Christian Vegetarian Society -- vegetarian
I've made the last paragraph invisible — the one beginning: "Sometimes vegans can be perceived as believing themselves to be morally superior to non-vegans ..." — because it amounted to a personal essay, but the previous paragraphs are also problematic. For example, is it true that some vegans, qua vegans, either have no sex, or have decided not to reproduce? This whole section needs to be firmed up with sources, rather than some critics say X, but some supporters say Y. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:13, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
It's not just a question of sources; it wasn't encyclopedic in the way it was written, and nor is the rest of the criticism section. First sentence: "Sometimes vegans can be perceived as believing themselves to be morally superior to non-vegans; this is sometimes genuinely the case, and often not." Sometimes? Perceived by whom? What does 'genuinely the case' refer to, and what does 'genuinely' add to 'the case'? In what sense is it only sometimes the case, but often not the case? And who's claiming this?
And "Some of the most violent incidents in the history of social protest have in fact been instigated by those seeking to disseminate ostensibly vegan principles." That's a bizarre claim, which needs to be attributed to a credible source; and it couldn't be attributed, because it's demonstrably false. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:10, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
"There is a long history of pro-animal (and thus vegan) groups supporting violence." - intertesting progression... and assumption. The ALF's own guidelines states that members do not have to be vegan, or even vegetarian to be members. Also, many pro-animal activists, such as Linda McCartney, are vegetarian, not vegan.
"PETA gave $70000 to Rodney Coronado, an arsonist who attacked a university research lab." - should more acurately read PETA paid the legal fees of Rodney (or Rod) Coronado, convicted arsonist who in 1992 set fire to and/or damaged two Michigan State university research labs, specializing in animal toxicology and fur farming research. If paying his legal fees was a criminal act, as implied by AlbertCahalan, then why haven't PETA been shutdown and convicted of providing material support for terrorism? Simon - 12:15, 15 Aug 2005
Whoa there. I don't think we can say that vegans are inherently violent, pacifist or arrogant. Speaking as a vegan I can attest that becoming a vegan takes a certain amount of open-mindedness but I wouldn't say that every vegan is open minded. I don't think most vegans are in general any more arrogant in their moral positions than anyone else with a strong belief, rational or not. I don't see anything a section of the christianity article that says how stubborn and arrogant christians are, but I've met a lot of stubborn christians. I agree with talking about how SOME groups that advocate veganism ALSO advocate violence but keep anecdotes and generalizations out. Wesman83
I'd like to find a factory-farming photograph to illustrate the page with, to show why vegans become vegans. Before I put one up, will anyone object to this as POV? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:55, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
***To those of you who think such photos depict a small handful of "illegal" farms-- take it from someone with a degree in animal science (the science of animal production for food and fiber), these practices are TYPICAL and LEGAL. There are very few protections in place for the treatment of farm animals. In fact, I can tell you from personal experience with LEGITIMATE large, well-known farms that such pictures only scratch the surface of the horrors that actually occur, on a daily basis, on these farms. It is par for the course--not an anomoly.
...But then I sold my Chevy Vega and bought a Honda Civic.
There will be a slight pause for the laughter to subside. :) Wahkeenah 30 June 2005 21:11 (UTC)
I came here looking for some information about health consequences of this life style and found nothing of value. This article is filled with faulty argumentation. The band wagon fallacy seems especially popular...or so say many. Clearly a lack of meat consumption dulls the mind. After all, Einstein was a veggie and a dumb ass. Maybe I could add that informal observation after Dr. Astrand's.
"Dr. Per-Olaf Astrand conducted an informal study of diet and endurance using nine highly trained athletes, changing their diet every three days" Informal as they were all equipped with party hats? Changing the diets every three days? Should that translate to me tripling my stamina if I change to a vegan diet for three days?
"The health consequence of consuming the white blood cells of other species suffering breast infections is not known, but many argue that it cannot be a positive one."
"Many people contend that these substances are dangerous, but their effect on human health has not been investigated, and no-one reliably knows what the long-term effects of consuming these artificial substances are."
"Vegans enjoy almost as wide a range of foods as animal product–eaters do" If that is true then the range of products that can be derived from animal sources must be small or substitutes can be created artificially in which case I like to draw attention to the previous paragraph.
-- TheBigD 8 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)
For such vehement protest to goodness, what does that make you?
I'd like to add a (referenced, of course) paragraph about the connection between veganism and eating disorders such as anorexia and orthorexia nervosa, especially among young women. Any objections? 68.21.180.106 15:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
RESPONSE: Veganism does not CAUSE eating disorders. Some people use veganism to try to mask the fact that they already have an eating disorder. Please understand the difference between correlation and causation. Unsigned comment from 65.24.246.99 3:43 pm C August 23, 2005
I was not suggesting that a vegan diet causes eating disorders. I know from personal experience as well as medical literature ( do a search on Medline) that anorexia sufferers often use a vegan diet to support and justify low caloric intake. Anorexia and politically/socially motivated diets are also correlated with an obsession about the correctness of one's diet [5], known as orthorexia. This information needs to be addressed in order to fully inform a reader about the costs and benefits of a vegan lifestyle. I am not saying that a nutritionally adequate vegan diet is impossible. Indeed, I think that more information should be added about balancing a vegan diet. Skinwalker 21:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
This article is heavily biased in favor of a vegan lifestyle. It does not adequately present the nutritional dangers of veganism, including the promotion of eating disorders among young women. The article uses outdated and misrepresented scientific articles to promote it's point of view, especially in the vegan vs. omnivore diet section.
(Is there a specific study backing eating disorders to veganism or are you just pulling that from your ass?)
Additionally, the criticism section is plagued with quotes such as:
"Many vegans find themselves struggling with anger at being misrepresented, or with having to be consistently nice to people who are rude, or even aggressively hostile to them; it can be hard to maintain a compassionate outlook under such circumstances..."
Quotes such as this indicate a clear "call-and-response"-sort of bickering, which does nothing to enlighten (and probably repels) a disinterested reader. I will submit several incremental updates to this article, and I of course invite criticism and (logical!) revision of the points I make. 68.21.1.203 06:24, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Lest I be accused of sockpuppetry, I have edited this page under 128.138.44.xxx and 68.21.xxx.xxx addresses, and have created an account now. I appended the NPOV tag several weeks ago, and I don't think the page is ready to have it removed, though Qirex's edits have helped. Nutritional disorders that are unique to vegitarianism and veganism certainly do exist, and are a problem particularly in the developing world. Specifically, unbalanced vegan diets can lead to vitamin D and B12 deficiencies, among others. The lack of vitamin B12 is especially pernicious to infants, who suffer long-term neurological damage if they do not obtain enough B12 from breastmilk if the mother is adhering to a strict vegan diet. There are few if any vegetable sources for B12, and supplements are of course animal-derived. Yeast-based sources are usually inadequate unless consumed in large and impractical amounts. Can anyone comment on bacterially derived B12 supplements?
To begin moving towards a consensus, I suggest we strengthen the sections regarding the balancing of a vegan diet to give more specific recommendations on nutritional adequacy, and to discuss possible dangers of nutritional adequacy. Someone more knowledgeable than I should write the adequacy section. I will write the section on dangers. As discussed above, I intend to submit a section on the correlation between vegan diets and eating disorders. Also, there are many baseless and unreferenced statements on the health benefits of a vegan diet, and they often confuse vegan and vegitarian diets. Finally, there are two sections that I will delete outright: quotations and cycling stamina. The quotations section is tantamount to propaganda, and does not illuminate a disinterested reader. The quotes should be, if at all, on the quoted person's wiki. The cycling stamina study simply shows that carbohydrates are better utilized for rapid energy production than fats and proteins, is quite outdated, and does not follow the subjets for any length of time that is long enough to establish dietary efficacy.
I hope we can avoid any histrionics from either side. I'll admit, this talk page has some fairly obnoxious entries from meat-eaters, which really don't help. My goal is to provide an NPOV entry that honestly addresses both the pros and cons of a vegan lifestyle, and the page is far from that at the moment. Skinwalker 22:18, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
That leaves a vegan free to kill animals as long as he doesn't use it afterwards. So as long as all you are doing is satisfying your blood lust you're in the clear?
Wouldn't "satisfying your bloodlust" be using the animal? -- Equal 19:26, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm a proud omnivoire, with some vegan friends and family, and I'd say that as of right now this article is pretty damn NPOV and also very good. Kudos to those responsible. ZacharyS 16:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I find that omnivore is used almost regularly without realising its meaning. omnivore, herbivore or carnivore refers to the species' ability or inability to eat a specific food. it does not talk about one particular or a bunch of animals (be it humans or dogs) deviating from the pattern. if a pet dog does eat rice it does not make the whole species of dogs as herbivorous. and if a cow is somehow made to eat flesh the bovine family does not become carnivore or omnivore. similarly even if a majority of humans do eat vegetables/meat alone they don't become herbivores/carnivores respectively. the human species still remains omnivore irrespective of personal preferences. i find the use of omnivore to refer to non-vegetarians totally wrong here and in other articles. A better term would be "non-vegetarian". Idleguy 04:13, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
...or "normal people"
As much as I admire your courage to deviate from the opinions of the majority I find your propensity to see the worst in peoples' actions depressing. "Normal" just means not deviating very much from the average. There is no value judgement in that. So you go on deviating from the norm with a clear conscience and I will too.
I removed this humbug: "The high levels of cholesterol found in dairy and egg products are now accepted by the majority of the medical community to be dangerous. Cholesterol is only found in animal products; a vegan diet has zero cholesterol. Less traditional, low fat milks, which are becoming more and more popular, do not contain very much cholesterol, but there are very few cheeses which can make the same claim." From Low density lipoprotein article: "It is not the cholesterol that is bad; it is instead how and where it is being transported, and in what amounts over time." If you are gong to write something sensible about this subject, start with saturated fats instead. - Hapsiainen 09:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I nixed the following paragraph from the article. To me, it reads like a personal essay, merely replacing "I" with "some vegans" to make it seem a bit more encyclopedic.
Of course, label reading and looking up ingredients becomes habitual, and many vegans express their pleasure at understanding just what is going into or onto their bodies and come to regard the idea of not doing so as rather horrifying. It is often referred to as an empowering experience. Many vegans find the experience broadens their understanding of how the food, cosmetics, and clothing industries work and leads them into environmental and human rights activism. It is often the case that outside observers have difficulty in understanding that vegans do not feel deprived, that they are not practising a form of aeseticism, and that they find pleasure in their veganism. Non-vegans often express the idea that vegans are "disciplined" in their choices, but vegans tend to feel that they have simply adopted new habits. Because many people believe vegans to be practising a form of self-denial, and because self-denial is often seen as morally superior, many others assume that vegans feel morally superior to them. When vegans do not actually feel this way, the misunderstanding often causes difficulties in social interaction, and many vegans feel that it is best not to talk about their veganism for fear that those around them will feel implicitly criticised.
It was also smack in the middle of a "common criticisms" section, making it seem even more personal and defensive. I can see how some elements could be useful elsewhere in the article, but I'm not entirely certain. - Plastic Editor
...so I made more cuts. I mean, there were sections in there consisting only of opinion and preference. Others railed on about things that meat and dairy have been "linked to" - obviously, specific studies have "linked" many, many things together, but they aren't rock-solid encylopedia fodder. Not saying they were wrong, but the scientific jury is still out on a lot of this stuff. Just because it might fit your cause, don't go believing EVERYTHING that suggests your diet is the way, the truth and the light.
Then there was just dumb stuff like this:
Vegans enjoy almost as wide a range of foods as animal product–eaters do, since almost any dish containing animal products can be adapted by substituting vegan ingredients.
Well, if you substitute, say, Ener-G Egg-Replacer for eggs in some cookies, yeah - essentially the same thing. For many others, however, you're altering a meal beyond recognition. Even subbing tempeh for bacon in a BLT, you've created an entirely new dish. In fact, non-vegetarians can consume not only the meat dish, but the vegan alternative, so a non-vegetarian's options have actually increased w/ the vegans. Result - it evens out.
So again, as a former teenage vegan animal rights activist, I know the desire to spread your gospel as much as possible. But recognize that we're making an encyclopedia here. There are some things that you believe to be very, very significant, but they don't belong in an encyclopedia because it's not the job of Wikipedia to change somebody's diet. This article is merely to inform somebody what veganism is, and give a vague idea of what motivates people to take it up. An *overview*, not an alternative to The Vegan Sourcebook.
'Sentient' means very different things to animal rights folks than to other folks. I'm off to school, but later today will add some context explaining this dichotomy...unless someone beats me to it (feel free). R 17:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I've done another copy edit as there were a few spelling mistakes, inlined external links, and a very long TOC, so I combined some sections, and also deleted some original research. Plastic Editor has objected on my talk page to the removal of this:
The most prominant [sic] opposition to veganism on ethical grounds states the long human history of consuming animal products; many believe that certain body types have evolved consuming meat and dairy, and thus absorb certain nutrients best via these sources. The requirement for B-12, a vitamin humans can only derive from meat or dairy, is seen as evidence of this. Thus, the use of animals for certain purposes in a balanced diet is "only natural", a notion hotly contested by many vegans and vegetarians.
It needs a source and preferably a medical one, as it's a medical claim. The "certain body types" thing sounds odd, and it's not an objection on ethical grounds; and the "only natural" quote needs a citation. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Skinwalker removed this, and it's been removed before, but shouldn't have been, in my view, because it has a properly cited, credible reference. Skinwalker, you referred me to the NPOV section of the talk page, but I can't see anything there about this study. What problem do you see with it? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
You know, there should be a page on Wikipedia that shows the benefits of eating meats. You know, there is a lot of POV in this article, as stated above. It makes me sick. In this article, there is only a list of the benefits of a vegan intake, and it says nothing about the benefits of an omnivorous intake. People want to know the benefits of eating meat, not just the benefits of eating vegetables. If Wikipedia is supposed to be an NPOV web page, then it should show both sides of this issue, not just the vegan's POV. Scorpionman 18:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Meat has plenty to do with veganism! Veganists abstain from all meats! They think that it's unhealthy. That may be true for most commercial meats, as they are usually chalked full of pesticides, herbicides and substances harmful if ingested, but that doesn't count for ALL meats. We don't need a whole page dedicated to the benefits of eating meat, but they should be listed on this article. Scorpionman 16:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
If you want to understand the benefits of eating meat you should visit the websites of the American Dietetic Association, the World Health Organization, or the American Cancer Society. Poisonoman 1:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Overall this page is radically better than it was a few days ago, when it had been vandalized with stupid grammatical errors. I don't think there's much harm in a page on veganism primarily representing the vegan POV - that, primarily, needs to be understood in order to understand the practice/philosophy itself. Criticisms are OK to be separate as long as they're legit and not vandalized. 18:00 PDT 27 Oct 2005
Bottom line, murder is murder, regardless of species. What was done in the past to survive is completely inconsequential today. We are an advanced society that is in no way forced to eat murdered animals to survive. I'm not starving, and I know no one who is. If I were on the brink of death and my only food source was meat, I would eat it gladly and give thanks, but that is not the case, therefore I abstain. If we do not require meat to survive, and to eat meat is to pay others to commit murder for us, then it is wrong. Period. To pointlessly muder animals, simply because we can, is neither moral nor healthy.
Animals aren't people so it doesn't count. Also, the talk page is for discussing changes to the article, not pontificating on how superior your diet is to everyone else's.
"neither moral nor healthy" - how is that even remotely immportant as long as it is tasty?
"neither moral nor ethical" - how is it even remotely important as long as rape feels good to the perpetrator?-- Equal 19:28, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
That has absolutely nothing to do with how good something tastes. Rape and taste of food are two totally different things! Also, I find the top comment completely predjudiced. Animals may be alive, but they can't talk and they don't have feelings! Killing animals for food is not "pointless". When you kill an animal and just let the carcass lie there without using it at all, that's pointless. I don't really approve of killing animals for sport, but even then it's not murder! There are certain things you can get from meat that you can't get from plants alone! Besides, if you think that killing animals is murder, than isn't it murder when they kill humans? Scorpionman 16:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
^ You are ignorant. There's absolutely nothing special about meat whatsoever that you can't get from plants; food wise. And even for non-food items, there are plenty of substitutes (think you're right? try me!).
If veganism is so unhealthy, then how come vegans/vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters, have fourth the rate of cancer, and ninth the rate of heart disease? Bottom line is, it IS healthier; and very much so.
Your profile claims you're a "Christian". Do you think Jesus, if he were alive today, would advocate factory farming, the number one pollutant of our Earth? Do you think your God would advocate the needless slaughter of millions of animals every year? VEGETARIANISM WAS GOD'S ORIGINAL PLAN. READ THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE. "The lion laid down with the lamb..."
And lastly, who do you think you are, presuming animals don't have feelings? Obviously, you have never really owned or spent enough time with an animal, or you would know better. I think my cat and dog have more feelings (and intelligence!) than some people. And if you have perhaps owned an animal, and maybe even loved one as a pet, how can you say that it is ok to slaughter one animal and not the other? Pigs are the fourth smartest animal out there, besides humans, primates, and dolphins. Those people who claim it's ok to kill 'dumb' animals should learn that fact.
Bottom line is, I'm NOT trying to insult you, just trying to give you some insight. I think it is common for most people to be ignorant about veganism/vegetarianism (most are; maybe even me to a little extent... I learn new facts about it all the time...). Just don't let myths confuse you.
I saw a post on somebody's page today about veganism, and figured I'd put in my two cents worth and weigh in: First, the problem with vitamin B-12 deficiencies is due to the fact that we over-work the soil, instead of giving it time to rest. Both humans and land need time to rebuild, and this principle (letting the land rest once every seven years and then some) was once mentioned in the Bible, but that is informational (not preaching down your throat) information. If we let the land rest up well, then the fruits and veggies would have sufficient B-12 when grown on that land. That being said, The four traditional reasons to become vegan are:
For more information, you might see my research on the subject:
-- GordonWatts 13:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I object to that. Animals are not our brothers, they are our subordinates. We must care for them, but not treat them as equals. Second, I disagree with the statement that a vegan diet tastes better. I think it tastes like crap. Third, it is not healthier. It may provide more fiber, but you still need meat. Also, there is some bias that cheese and butter are highly unhealthy. That's BS! Your body needs the so-called "cancer-causing cholesterol raising" cow fats! You should do some more research! Scorpionman 17:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
--Michichael--
I know a vegan, she's very healthy, but quite frankly from what I see it's all economics. Feel free to be a vegan, but don't expect half of the stores that sell "vegan" foodstuffs, are actually vegan. The vegan lifestyle is considerably more expensive. Also note the plant growing seasons etc. Human's can only consume a comparitivly limited range of non-animal foodstuffs, as compared to the animals that CAN eat them. If the entire population where to switch vegan, even better if 1/4 of america's population were vegan, there would not be enough food to go around. Fact of the matter is, that we evolved as hunters and gatherers because we don't migrate with the growing seasons. Our society is at the point where we can support a limited amount of veganism (no more than maybe 5% of the populace) without inducing starvation unto them. However econimically speaking, the animals that can eat the plants are a more effecient route towards feeding our bodies needs. The methods are brutal, I agree, and should be changed. But I personally don't see the overall benifity of veganism. It's only a personal benifit, the fact that it's in protest to the conditions animals are in really shouldn't even BE in this article, as it is really irrelevant. A multibillion dollar industry doesn't care about a few hundred thousand nonconsumers, it's just another point of view...
I agree that this article is bias, the point of view statements should either be removed or balanced with an opposing viewpoint...
-Michichael Folf-Sunè
What are you talking about? Our bodies aren't even built for meat. And if veganism/vegetarianism is so unhealthy, why do the facts speak otherwise?!
We don't get cancer nearly as often;
We only have ninth the rate of heart disease;
and we live longer!!
MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO SOME RESEARCH?
How is flamers treated on wikipedia?
in the future, please use the talk page to discuss the article. if you're just looking for a venue to give your opinion i would suggest you look into blogspot or some similar service. frymaster 03:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Could we have some sources for this section, please, as it looks a little like original research? SlimVirgin (talk) 14:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Another difficulty for the vegan is that almost all drugs are the result of animal testing. Further, since some vegans reside in countries where the supply of non-animal gelatin capsules is almost non-existent they often have to intake capsules containing animal byproducts. Many vegans throughout the world use many animal products with or without their knowledge. Examples are Catgut which is still used in sutures as well as in other materials. Veganism is often seen as a cumbersome, impractical and financially costly lifestyle.
"Another argument is that almost all drugs sold today were the result of animal testing." Another argument against what? Also, I removed capsule point as vegans don't eat capsules made of gelatine.
Heads up: I don't know about Cat Gut (meow...), but as a struggling vegan myself, yes, I certify that I absolutely HATE gelatin caps, and I fixed the damage, but I explained it in plain English -and cited my sources. With all due respect to the Idle Guy, whose conclusion was right -you missed both points, and I certainly give proper respect to Viriditas and SlimVirgin, even though their conclusions were wrong. (As a side note, I think you are a vegan, no, SlimVirgin? If so, then why did you not catch this error that gelatin indeed is yucky!! And Viriditas, you too are bright and intelligent; Plus, as one who lives in that liberal and vegetable-loving Hawaii, you should be in the environment which has expertise in these matters. Did I pull a Forest Gump and miss something?)-- GordonWatts 06:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Would a vegan eat a salad made by a chimpanzee? (One that wasn't getting paid to do it or forced to do it) How about a steak from a human who had killed himself and willed his body to a restaurant? Pedant 23:42, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Could editors adding material please watch the quality of the writing? An intro should give a succinct overview of the subject, not just be two sentences. Also, when you add something, please check the overall flow and that the material you've added doesn't exist already elsewhere. After banging on at great length about animal suffering, animal rights and how vegans care about these, halfway through the article, I found this: "Vegans cite a variety of reasons for adopting their diet. A desire to reduce animal suffering is another possible motivation." Also, please source material, and cite it correctly. Don't add name of book, author, ISBN number etc in brackets after a sentence: that material goes at the end in the references section. After the sentence, just write (Smith 2005) and page number if you want to. Readers can then look at the references section to find out what Smith 2005 refers to. Though having said that, it's always better to add too much citation material than too little, and anything is better than nothing. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 09:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Just now, I see an anon from an AOL IP address, User:172.212.104.94, editing here. I was about to revert and suggest that this is a criticism section and that you don't need "pros" in the "con" section, and also suggest use of a spell-checker.
I thought that reverts took precedence, but apparently not: I got an edit conflict.
However, before I could suggest these changes, the anon changed the heading to "spurious" criticism, and fixed at least one spelling error. I would suggest no one revert but, instead, go through carefully and maybe separate the criticism from the "spurious" new additions and make a "rebuttal" section or something. Some of the edits seem true, but it looks like Rhobite reverted to Jengod's last version here before I could either revert (my original attempt, which had edit conflict) or maybe leave it alone and suggest a closer look (this attempt).
Good luck folks!-- GordonWatts 22:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Further Comment:
I can't work on this right now but I added a POV tag due to someone who repeatedly adds sentences like these:
Very annoying when people continue to use words like "sadly" in a supposedly neutral article. For this and other reasons I've added the POV tag. Rhobite 20:32, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
This is just annoying. Anon continues to rename the criticism section, complain about "ethnocentrism", and that "Commercial exploiters of animals have established propaganda programs to encourage the incorrect belief that animal products are necessary and it is not easy or safe to be a vegan." Also claims that vegans have health-care "choices" as opposed to the difficulties they actually have. Rhobite 03:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
There's a load of tosh going on in here. Gandhi never promoted veganism. Infact he even promoted the use of table eggs and his quotes on eating sterile eggs are well known to open minded people in India.
Gandhi wrote in a 1948 leaflet, "Nowadays sterile eggs are also produced. The hen is not allowed to see the cock and yet it lays eggs. A sterile egg never develops into a chick. Therefore, he who can take milk should have no objection to taking sterile eggs."
This issue surfaced recently in India where Gandhi was used as the brand ambassador for eggs by NECC. The news report [9] would tell you that they did their research carefully as this quote has been known to fairly educated people who have read Mahatma's teachings.
Even Buddha is known to have eaten meat though he didn't actively promote its use.
Idleguy
04:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Whats the general vegan line on eating road kill? (My personal opinion is that eating roadkill is quite an ethical choice but I'd be interested in hearing other peoples views). I've eaten road kill pheasant and rabbit before. - FrancisTyers 19:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I was on vandal patrol and happened upon this article. I'm not immersed in the topic, but a quick reading of the article shows a number of places where the pro-vegan point-of-view is being reported in a way that implies wrong-doing on the part of non-vegans, but the point of view of non-vegans defending themselves is missing. That's a bit of a wordy explanation. Here are the examples I found in the article. FuelWagon 21:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
People become vegans for a number of reasons, primarily out of concern for animal rights,...
[A] philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...
some vegans refrain from supporting industries that use animals, such as circuses featuring animals, and zoos.
Vegans generally oppose what they see as the violence and cruelty involved in the meat, [6] and non-vegan cosmetics, clothing, and other industries.
vegans may be motivated by the alleged high environmental costs of producing animal products. Often cited are the pollution of local environments by animal waste, as well as the resources used to care for livestock. [13] A commonly cited (and contested) statistic is that it takes 14 times more land area to support a meat eater than a vegetarian. This is due in part to the fact that caring for livestock requires resources to produce many inedible products (e.g., bone), although a conscientious non-vegan can sometimes find uses for these by-products. In fact, only about 10% of the energy used in livestock is available for human consumption
The word starts and ends with the first three and last two letters of vegetarian, representing that veganism begins with vegetarianism, then takes it to its logical conclusion.
All we need to solve this is a quotation or citation - I've seen this exact phrase before in a book talking about vegan history, and it's an appropriate addtion to an encyclopedia entry...just needs a citation. (19:55 PDT 27 Oct 2005)
The lifestyle choices can be somewhat inconvenient as well. Avoiding clothing and shoes containing wool or leather, most brands of latex condoms (as latex is often produced with the milk protein casein), hygienic products such as soap, to name a few, requires serious research. Many vegans would argue that "convenience" is not a good basis for a lifestyle.
I did some googling and found a few examples of possible sources for the non-vegan point of view for this article. FuelWagon 03:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
FARM SECURITY AND RURAL INVESTMENT ACT OF 2002 [11]
The Justice Department Report on Animal Terrorism 1993 [12]
Animal "Snuff films" have been faked [13] The 2001 entry mentions some interesting behaviour by a vegan student.
Non-vegans support "animal welfare" as opposed to "animal rights" [14]. (also includes some interesting quotes by PETA, with sources)
Johns Hopkins enters suit over lab animal regulations [15]
Federal report highlights animal rights terrorism 1989 [16]
National Cattleman's Beef Association [17]
What is the relevance of this to an article about Veganism? "Some non-vegans support the notion of "animal welfare" as opposed to the "animal rights" proposed by vegans." [18] Some non-vegans support animals rights too, but what's the point of mentioning it? Also, this looks like some kind of personal website, which we're not allowed to use as a source. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
The article says:
A kilo... gram of rice takes 5,000 liters of water? I checked the URL, and unfortunately it is equally lacking in units. Does this mean kilo-ton, perhaps? The word "kilo" simply means "thousand", but unfortunately, the sentence doesn't say a thousand of what of rice, grams, tonnes, whatever. Can someone clarify this in the article? FuelWagon 01:01, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Could we have a citation, please, for the Stepaniak claim? -- Those who avoid eating animal products, but who otherwise use products containing animal derivatives, describe themselves as "dietary vegans". Vegan author Joanne Stepaniak argues that this term is inappropriate, because, she argues, veganism is about avoiding all animal abuses, not just food-related ones. For this reason, she says, a term such as "total vegetarian," or "strict vegetarian," would be more appropriate for those who avoid eating meat and dairy products, but continue to buy leather shoes.
would someone like to cull them?
I would, and did, and did before, its a flourishing section.
TonyClarke 23:40, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I've read the comments, and gone over the article in detail. I've tried to eliminate POV issues where I see them, does anybody see any remaining? If not, we can remove the disputed tag, it doesn't do Wikipedia any good to have these hanging around too long. Please comment!
TonyClarke 23:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Someone added this to the intro: " The National Cattleman's Beef Association defines "animal welfare" as taking reasonable care of all animals, and good animal husbandry practices.(it may be idleguy, idleguy shows edits on the environmental vegetarianism page and there are two "animal husbandry" references) The NCBA also defines "animal rights" as the position that animals as having legal and moral rights similar to humans. The NCBA supports the position of animal welfare." [21]
I've deleted it because the writing is odd, because it's irrelevant to the article, and particularly the intro, and because the NCBA (and national as in which nation?) is a bizarre source to use for definitions of animal welfare and animal rights. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Probably the poster was trying to point out that there other, equally valid, conceptions of animal welfare, apart from the vegan rights approach? Perhaps we need to put in a more effective and apt reference to this elsewhere in the article to preserve NPOV?
TonyClarke 22:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I think we have moved on from the many POV issues which were posted here several weks ago. At present, it is not perfect, but we seem to be co-operatively moving forward. Are there any objections to removing the disputed neutrality tag? If anyone has any significant doubts about POV issues, please state them and let's get them resolved. Otherwise I vote we remove the neutrality tag in several days time.
TonyClarke 21:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
SlimVirgin claims that "this article is about veganism, not any other group" [22], which apparently allows her to delete the point of view of any source that is different from the pro-vegan point of view. I'm not sure how SlimVirgin defines how an article would satisfy the requirement to be "neutral" if it can only report the point of view of one group, and exclude the poitn of view of any group that has a different view. FuelWagon 03:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the above: SlimVirgin has a point that it's a bit obtrusive, and it looks odd, to put the alternative view of a specific organisation in the introduction. However, I agree that the non-vegan approach to animal welfare is appropriate to put in somewhere, in a less high profile place, and less specific or inflammatory than using word such as Beef? I'll try to put in something along these lines, comments welcome. We don't want a war between two well-meaning posters to hold up the removal of that neutrality disputed tag.
TonyClarke 12:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
the increased demand for soybeans has very little to do with veganism. most of the soy grown goes to feeding animals. Quote from the article from the WWF that's linked to in the article: "The growing demand for animal feed – and finally for meat – drives the production of soybean."
Anybody else agree with me that this should just read 'Criticism'? Modular. (Talk.) 12:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Never mind, it's been changed. Modular. (Talk.) 12:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I think it's time we remember what objectivity means, before anyone fights any further.
Objectivity
(M-W.Com)
So let's think about how the idea of objectivity would apply to this article:
It doesn't matter whether you can boast about going to more college classes (independent of evidence), and it doesn't matter if you personally think (or "know" as the case may be with you pompous monkeys out there) that veganism is healthy or unhealthy. Too bad, your view has no effect here. Ergo: You can't say things like "veganism has been proven to have had many health benefits, and lots of people have yet to realize it which is problem considering blah blah blah blah" if it isn't absolutely proven, acknowledged, and accepted from all educated points of view. All you can say is something along the lines of: "The supposed effects of a vegan diet on one's health are controversial." And if you decide to go deeper into the argument and present one side, you must also present the other side. These articles are to simply provide an understanding of the subject and about the issues surrounding it, not to indoctrinate users into one view or another based on your idea of what's fact.
However, that said, at this point, I see little if any subjectivity in this article, this may be the result of recent changes, but this article, as of now, seems to be simply stating the facts about what vegans are and why they follow veganism, along with the different facets of the practice. I see little that glorifies the vegan lifestyle, and little that regards it as hippie-bullshit. This is good. I find nothing wrong with this article, the only thing which it might need is some restructuring to be a little more categorized, and include a little more on history, but I'm really too tired to do anything about that right now.
All I can say is, that this article right now seems well-written and in 'fine' to 'good' shape (on the 'horrible', 'poor', 'fine', 'good', and 'excellent' shape).
Monk of the highest order 00:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
You guys are arguing about "facts", when facts is only half of NPOV. NPOV requires that both sides of any story be reported. And while it is undisputed fact that some vegans became vegans because of their support for "animal rights", that introduces a topic of animal rights that indicates a hole, a lack of information, about the non-vegan point of view. If vegans became vegans because they support "animal rights", that implies that not supporting "animal rights" is insufficient, wrong, or otherwise not cool. People don't do things because they think they're doing the wrong thing. They do things because they think they're doing the right thing. By reporting the fact that vegans became vegans because they support animal rights, leaves a hole that allows non-vegans to explain their poitn of view.
Alice could accuse Bob of murder in a court of law. That could be an undisputed fact. But that fact brings with it the hole, the lack of information, as to Bob's side of the story. Did he plead guilty or claim he was innocent? Alice's accusation is a fact, the way vegans became vegans because of animal rights is a fact. BOth are facts, and both imply some wrong doing on teh part of the other side of the story, and both create a "hole" of missing information as to what the other side's point of view is.
So, you can either add the non-vegan point of views regarding "animal welfare", "health", and "environment", or you can delete the vegan point of view about "animal rights", health and the environment from the introduction to keep it neutral and balanced. but introducing one sides point of view, without reporting teh other side, at least in brief, makes the intro biased. FuelWagon 05:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
from WP:NPOV
"the core of the NPOV policy is to let competing approaches of the same topic exist on the same page"
"not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct"
Once "animal rights" are introduced, once accusations of animal "exploitation" and "cruelty" are made, the topic expands to include "care of animals". It is no longer simply an article about eating vegatables and avoiding use of animal products. As soon as veganism insinuates that non-vegans commit "exploitation" and "cruelty" against animals, the article insinuates that the vegan "side" is the correct side. If no other POV is presented, this directly violates NPOV policy. Once the article introduces the topic of "animal care", NPOV requires that "competing approaches of the same topic" be reported on the same page. Once the topic of "animal care" is breeched, once accusations of "exploitation" and "cruelty" are leveled, the only way to maintain neutrality is to bring in competing approaches on the topic fo "animal care". And the biggest competition to "animal rights" is the point of view of "animal welfare". There is no way "animal rights" can be discussed, there is no way that accusations of "cruelty" and "exploitation" can be leveled, and maintain any sort of neutral article unless competing points of view are brought into the article. FuelWagon 17:21, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I think FuelWagon has a valid point of view. I think (we) vegans can have a tendency to unconscious self -righteousness. I admire FuelWagon for sticking to his/her position in the face of enormous pressure. But I think Fuelwagon's position was recognised when the motivation for veganism was moved from the intro to the motivation section, and a NPOV was clearly spelt out there, Was Fuel Wagon unhappy with this? If not, why re-insert direct information from the Beef industry? To persist in insisting on POV issues afer major concessions is farcical, imho. TonyClarke 20:50, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
So tell me, Viriditas, do I have to find a source who specifically disputes the definition of Veganism by the British Veganism Society in order to report that non-vegans dispute the BVS implication that non-vegans support cruelty to animals and exploitaiton of animals? That is an interesting interpretation of original research. Are you telling me that non-vegans support the idea of cruelty to animals and exploitation of animals? FuelWagon 15:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
No, that doesn't work, either. The BVS definition means that non-vegan behaviour is cruel and exploitive. Vegans are vegans because they believe to be non-vegan is to exploit animals and be cruel to them. The wording of the BVS definition can be read no other way. Find me a pure vegan, a notable source, who fits that BVS definition of veganism, and who comes out and specificaly states that to eat meat or wear leather is not cruel or exploitive treatment. Without that source, the "perhaps mistaken" has no notable source to support it, and the "implication" of the definition stands as it reads. FuelWagon 22:47, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
[23] The definittion implies guilt on the part of non-vegans, in the form of accusations "exploitation" and "cruelty to animals". balance requires that the dispute report opposing views. The beef association directly disputes the notion that their practices of "animal welfare" support "exploitation" of and "cruelty" to animals. This is not original research. The Beef Association does not have to dispute the British Vegan Society definition, they simply have to dispute the implication that to eat beef is to exploit or be cruel to animals, and they clearly dispute that view. FuelWagon 16:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
As a physicist I was a bit bothered by the sentence discussing efficiency of raising livestock in terms of the first law of thermodynamics. I don't object to the sentiment expressed (about useable output from farming livestock). I think saying that no energy is truly lost, so it can all be capitalized on with a little smarts isn't quite relevent in this case. The complexity of energy lost and reused in such a large biological study is difficult to assess in terms of thermodynamics, and utilizing all the energy or a large percentage is beyond our abilities (for either livestock or plant farming). We can't even get all the energy back from a "simple" system like fuel powered engines. Just a wording change, no content change. Good page for such a political topic! Superclear 22:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I really think groups should be allowed to define themselves without necessarily needing to include an alternate point of view. But we really need to remember that implications of morality whether here or on any page, should be prefaced by a belief clause. The line edited by Canaen (not picking on you either :-) to read "Vegans generally oppose the violence and cruelty involved in the meat ..." is POV. All we need to do is to change to "... oppose what they see as ... " then everyone can be satisfied (yeah, right) since it is fact independent of who thinks what about animal welfare. Agreed? For any morality judgement (e.g. Societies consider murder of innocent people wrong/taboo/ ..., NOT Murder of innocent people is wrong. I hope I've made a decent point. I will change the statement if there is no objection. Superclear 23:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello! For a new line...
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Vgans are ppl who dont eat anything that come from animals The Vegan page should have a nutrition section or a link to one. Vegan diets lack essential proteins unless planned somewhat carefully. For example, corn and beans when eaten together combine to form a protein similar to meat protein. When eaten separately, that combination doesn't occur and the result is malnourishment unless you get the protein some other way. People who stay vegan for a long time have to know about things like this. I decided it was too much bother and chose not to become flat-out vegan partly for that reason. Could someone more knowledgeable than I am about this issue please add some material about it. --phr
Is macrobiotics more strict than vegan? I thought that macrobiotics ate fish. -- mincus
From Vegan:
"There is a bit of variety in the vegan community; Europeans and Americans not only pronounce it differently..."
So? How *do* they pronounce it?
Regarding the creation of a Vegetarianism page which consists solely of a link to Vegan: I would prefer that such 'empty' stub pages not be created until there is some real content in the article. See Wikipedia commentary/Kill the Stub Pages for some different opinions on this issue.
Anyway, I'll have a first draft of a Vegetarianism article written up by this evening (Melbourne time), but feel free to jump in ahead of me. -- Claudine
As long time American vegan the statement "European vegans also generally won't eat honey, while American ones generally will" strikes me as false. The majority of people who claim to be vegans that I have met, in the US, do not consume honey nor would they consider it to be vegan.
It's a gray area in the US, at least amongst the vegans I know. Hardcore vegans will *never* eat honey. Most vegans I know try not to eat honey, but won't turn down food that is sweetened with some honey, especially sweets and breads (a lot of the "better" breads in my grocery store contain honey, for example). I agree that the wording of that phrase is terrible, because it hints that American Vegans don't consider honey to be an issue.
Finally, there are people who call themselves breatharians, which while not scientifically proven, on paper is a form of veganism. I removed this on the grounds that the article on Jasmuheen, apparently a primary advocate of breatharianism, suggests that she sometimes eats cheesecake...something not reknowned for being vegan. However, if anyone feels strongly that the 'paper definition' of breatharianism is vegan then please return the statement...but, by this token, breatharians are a sub-set of omnivores too! Mazzy
I rewrote this entry pretty substantially
I'm all for 'balance' but much of
seems to be this person's personal prejudices against vegans & vegetarians, with 'evidence' of the 'harm' that 'extreme' vegetarian diets cause to children. Any bad diet, vegan or vegetarian or omnivorous can cause harm to children. Conversely, any 'good' diet, vegan, veggie or omnivorous, will ensure that childrens nutritional and health needs are met quercus robur 09:29 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)
I've restored the word 'strive' to this articel as it's agreed by most vegans I've met that it's virtually impossible to elimonate absolutely ALL animal products from the diet or lifestyle in today's world, eg, most fruit is grown on trees that have been grafted, often using beeswax to join the graft to the rootstock, most vegetable crops will have been grown on land that has been fertilised with animal manure that is a by-product of the farming industry, much commercial sugar has been refined using bone charcoal in it's production and so on... Thus most vegans will accept that they will never totally free themselves from all animal products, but do strive towards this as a goal. quercus robur 20:06 May 9, 2003 (UTC)
How vegan is using second hand leather shoes and clothes? Not at all, or..?
I wonder about the validity of the CNN poll quoted in this article: perhaps it rules out people who are vegan, but would not call themselves vegetarian? TonyClarke 13:02, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I truck some of the source about percentage of vegan. One of it say "We will again survey the U.S. adult population in a few years.". As normal for most survey, children are excluded. I left u.k. which claim in the page that it is 0.4 percent of u.k. population being vegan because it is what it say. however, i suspect they make the same error. FWBOarticle 12:26, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I could said that veganism is in and of itself imoral, as plants are not considered able to "feel" by vegans dispite the lack of traits that make animals mentaly,or emotionaly distinctive from plants.Thus veganism is just as " Kingdomist" as vegans consider non-veganism specist.
Some people consider the usage "vegan food" to be synonymous with "vegetarian food", however a necessary distinction due to the strange but popular notion that dairy and eggs (and sometimes even fish or fowl) to be "vegetarian foods".
Hi Mshonle,
I would appreciate this being (partially) reverted, as I can argue the term "vegan product" is unnecessary, as it should be synonomous with "vegetarian product". However, many corporations are involved in deceptive practices and label foods "100% Vegetarian!" or "Suitable for Vegetarians" which contain animal products. This is should be addressed in the article.
The word "vegetarian" (person) is a synonym for herbivore, meaning, eating only plants. Now I realize that many people who call themselves vegetarian consume dairy and eggs. This does not make dairy and eggs "vegetarian".
A vegetarian diet is "Consisting primarily or wholly of vegetables and vegetable products". (refer) Eggs and dairy ARE NOT VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. There is nothing at all "vegetarian" about a cheese omlet, for example.
I would consent to removal of "strange" if this controversy was covered.
What is a sublingual vitamin? Rmhermen 16:16, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)
It's one that's placed under the tongue and allowed to absorb rather than being swallowed. Polymath69 18:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, a 'vegan' diet is the norm in most parts of the world, partly for economic reasons, but a clear outcome is the absence of the diseases of the developed world such as cancer, heart and other obesity-related illnesses.
(1) You're saying that cancer and heart disease are absent in vegan societies? I'm sure that's not true. (2) Is obesity less common in parts of the world because of veganism or because of a lack of abundance of available food? (3) What exactly does "the norm in most parts of the world" mean? I can believe that most of the world follows a mostly vegan diet (whether from ideology or necessity), but I doubt that most of the world follows a purely vegan diet.
I think this sentence needs some NPOV-ing.
These facts are quoted by those who feel that 'veganism' is a modern localised and reactionary movement, rather than a movement which advocates a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle.
Uh, this is backwards isn't it? These facts would be quoted by people who think that veganism is a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle, no?
Axlrosen 15:39, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi OK hands up, I'll look at what I wrote again, with your valued comments in mind.
TonyClarke 23:09, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi,
Well as regards point one, googling produced some statistics on two countries chosen at random, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, info from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, admittedly there is not good nutrition in these countries, to put it mildly:
"Cereals and green vegetbles form the main part of the Zimbabwean diet...table shows 2 1/2 per cent on average of daily energy supply obtained from animal sources. (1997 ) info from http://www.fao.org/es/esn/nutrition/zim-e.stm Pakistan: the consumption of meat and fish is very low, providing 2% of daily energy Cereals are the main source of dietary energy(62%)"
`I suspect more than 2% of our supermarkets are given over to animal based foods?
Point two, I'll have another look at the flow.
TonyClarke 18:32, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi The figures I looked at did not seem so high, and seemed to include fish, dairy etc. Statistics can be deceiving. I've reworded it to refer to vegetarian or vegan, and made some other changes to try to make clear what I meant. I changed the financial reason for widespread veganism, it suggested the amusing picture of people waiting thousands of years for affordable hamburgers to come along (!), hope you don't mind. TonyClarke 23:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Secretlondon: you've moved the "References" section from nutrition to the end of the document. Those references apply specifically to nutrition and not to veganism in general - should they not therefore stay in the nutrition section? If not, we should probably add a note like "see references below" in that section, and change the heading "References" to a == instead of a === KarlNaylor 09:06, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I have deleted POV which say that you may not need to take B12 supplement. I have come across this comment.
Though there is nothing wrong with stating POV as long as attribution is made, I think in this case, listing this POV may be morally irresponsible. We might as well state that "some people think smoking harm fetus while other think not." FWBOarticle 03:49, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
User:Mshonle, User:Mkweise, "most" what? Hyacinth 03:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Mshonle, you removed this on the grounds that 'veganism is not specifically criticized by fruitarians'. I wasn't intending to imply that it was; I added this as an argument used by omnivores and lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and thought I should also point out the link to fruitarianism. This is based on the edits by User:205.188.116.79 that you previously removed as vandalism. Maybe this issue could be better integrated with the existing reference to f'ism, but since the main point is to show that veganism has been criticized as prejudicial or as a kind of half measure, it seemed better under ==Backlash==. Does anyone have any ideas how this can be better integrated? -- Karl Naylor 12:42, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"Some would say that veganism itself is prejudiced, hypocritical, and nonsensical for the following reasons:"
"However, the latter criticism does not take into account the point (above) that veganism means making whatever effort one feels is reasonable to avoid causing harm to animals—in most societies today, avoiding all harm even to the most apparently sentient animals is practically impossible. Many vegans feel that causing their biological functions to cease in order to avoid killing bacteria is not reasonable."
I removed the above. "Prejudice" against plants and bacteria would not be speciesism, as neither are species. "Prejudice" against bacteria would be " domainism", and "prejudice" against plants would be kingdomism. I'm not aware of serious sources which make these criticisms (or their accurate versions). Hyacinth 19:22, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
In the Criticism section it says, "Others argue that, given that animals are killed in vegetable production or any other economic activities, the question over how much of indirect killing is acceptable is ultimately a matter of personal preference and lifestyle choice." But I'm wondering, other than bees, how are animals killed in vegetable production? Milk 20:33, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Try going to a farm during harvesting season. Ask if you can ride along with harvester. Field animal get flushed through the machine and they will go through agonising death if they fail to die instantly. Also, here is a joke based on it. http://maddox.xmission.com/grill.html FWBOarticle 04:00, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Could somebody please edit or delete the above mentioned sentence! The moral fabric of a society has little to do with the psychological illnesses of some mass murderers (which make up for not even a fraction of one percent of the total population). The above mentioned sentence thus leads to false conclusions (namely that there were scientific proof that vegans are morally superior, which is by no means the case). As a side note: Adolf Hitler, in his final years was an ethic vegetarian, yet he was responsible for approx. 50.000.000 deaths. We shouldn't be lead down the slippery slope of equating one form of diet with madness, yet this is exactly what the above mentioned sentence implies. It is a biased statement that holds no informationals value. A better version / deletion would be much appreciated. User:84.135.154.52 00:44, 1 Oct 2004
"Hitler was an ethical vegetarian" is false. Hitler was a vegetarian due to intestinal stress. To his last days, he took delight in hunting doves and other fowl.
Recently there has been a bit of deleting and reverting on the trans fats section. What does everyone think, should we leave it in, revise it, or delete it? I think it should be left in, but perhaps make it more clear that this is a nutritional issue not just for vegans but for anyone who eats processed food. Rosemary Amey 20:04, 25 May 2004 (UTC)
Here is my base on deleting/rewriting the Trans Fat section.
So I think this section should either be deleted or re-wrote to expand it and include some of the points I made. Milk 27 May 2004
I know lots of vegans who love french fries and other vegan junk foods, so I think this should be left in but reworded so that it doesn't look like this is a special vegan issue, since most non-vegans probably consume way more trans fats. (By the way, you can quickly add your name and the date and time to your comment by typing four tildes (~) together.) Rosemary Amey 17:52, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it should be re-written then. I will go ahead and then you can see if it's ok. Milk 15:58, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
There is nothing particularly alternative about veganism. Veganism is supported by mainstream medical science and these days most opposition to the vegan diet comes from alternative practitioners (such as the blood type diet, Atkins, etc). I do not like seeing veganism associated with "alternative" medicine. Many vegans (myself included, obviously) are skeptical about alternative medicine. I would like to remove that text box at the bottowm, but what do others think? Rosemary Amey 16:10, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agree. While veganism is considered an "alternative diet or lifestyle" it should not be associated with "alternative medicine". Milk 01:39, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I have corrected minor factual error about Buddhism and vegan. Chinese buddhist practice vegetarianism but not veganism. The rest of buddhist schools don't. Jain monks practice much stricter form of veganism. Also, in developing countries, they didn't eat much meat or daily product simply because they were poor and lack of protein intake were genuine and serious health problem. That obviously change once these people become wealthy enough to be able to pay for imported food and supplement.
yes, all over the world "developing" countries are becoming Westernized and adopting the western traditions of heavy meat and dairy intake, and so they are also developing our common health problems. Japan is a prime example of this. More and more fast food restaurants are opening up, and now many Japanese children are becoming overweight. Milk 20:36, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I think that increase in intake of suger, cereal, meat and eggs ought to be described as sign of increased affuluence and labelling it as "Westernization" is a POV given that these type of foods are common in most culture. On the other hand, popularisation of dairy product is certainly part of "Westernization" as many culture did not always consume milk of other mammals. Plus the extent in which dairy product contribute to the problem of obesity is bit debatable IMO. FWBOarticle
More information on this can be found in the book "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins, and his more recent book "The Food Revolution". He describes how countries with the highest intake of meat and diary have the highest rates of osteoperosis, heart disease, etc. But many factors could go into that as well. More info on the link between meat/diary and obesity/health problems can be found at: www.goveg.com, www.milksucks.com, www.pcrm.org Milk 00:42, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Whoever wrote the above, please take more time in contributing thoughts by spelling correctly and writing coherently. Milk 20:31, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
ah, sorry. I was told that engrish is about the point where people can understand what i'm trying to say but with some difficulty. I will TRY. (^_^). FWBOarticle 19:23, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree with User:ContiE that products using human hair are still vegan, but I'm wondering what User:Heegoop has to say on the matter. Heegoop, are you a vegan who avoids human hair, or do you know vegans who do? And if so, why? Rosemary Amey 18:28, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
(copied from user talk:rosemaryamey)
Human hair from salons is not vegan because human hair is techinally an animal product. Vegans do use the human hair they grow but not other human's hair. You see humans are actually animals because they are in the kingdom Animalia. Vegans also avoid other human products such as keratin. Get the picture, vegans do not use human products. Now I am not vegan but I thought about being vegan. - Heegoop, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, this issue is very weird and getting too technical. Yes humans are technically animals but thats taken it to the extreme. I have never heard any vegan mention human products as part of their veganism. Use of human hair is not very common anyways. Wigs are mostly made with horse hair, right? I also have a problem with mentioning human mother's milk. The way it's written seems as if adult vegans drink milk from lactating women, which is wrong. It should be written in way to describe the "milk" vegans avoid as not including human milk, only cow-milk, goat-milk, etc. Milk 00:33, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
We seem to be forgetting the motivation that more accurately characterizes veganism than any dietary prohibition. There are at least two important differenes:
This is simply another "What if...?" question. "What if you were trapped on a lifeboat, just you and a chicken, would you eat the chicken?" Hyacinth 03:50, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
TTBOMK, human hair is vegan, as long as consent is given or implied. -- Viriditas | Talk 13:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I used to like this page, it was succinct and to the point- now it is a complete mess, badly written with mashed up grammar and worse than useless beyond the first couple of paragraphs IMHO. The 'backlash' section is particularly bad, by no stretch of the imagination NPOV. The whole page needs a total rewrite, leaving in the useful, factual stuff but stripping out all the opinionated POV, preferably chucking 'backlash' in the dustbin. I'm no the one to do it, nt enough time plus I'm biased (vegan for 20 years) so anyone sensible fancy having a crack??? quercus robur 19:03, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
FWBOarticle 19:40, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Since when is there only one ethical principle behind veganism? Some people have a vegan diet just because they think it is healthier to eat no animal products. It should be made clear that these arguments only deal with the ethic principle of harming no animal at all. Most vegans do know that they can't stop all animal suffering with their diet, they do what they can to minimize it tho.
I don't get it. Do you mean that the children may eat meat in the future and therefore increase animal suffering..? If yes, that is a rather ridiculous argument IMO.
-- Conti| ✉ 21:08, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I removed the last paragraph, because I think it is extremy exaggerated. You can't seriously tell someone that he's wrong because he's doing it not consequently enough, where the most consequently action would be the death of mankind... -- Conti| ✉ 23:33, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Even this allowance of practicality can be argued against. Here is the economic multiplier argument as opoosed to population multiplier argument. If you buy something/anything, you are indirectly paying someone's wage, which they will use to buy something including meat which in turn let someone else to buy meat and the process of multiplier will continute infinitely. Hence it follow that you should not buy anything unless it is practical necessity for you. Moreover, this could further point to this revelation. The idea that diet consisting meat harm more animal than vegan/vegetarian is true only if one limit the scope of connection to "production" process. Once the scope is widen to economic connection (and there is no reason why it shouldn't) then because mathematically time line is set to infinity, then the difference in death toll will disappear. Then whether one eat meat or not only has "symbolic" significance, a token gesture to the idea of respect to whelfare of animal. Practically it is irrelevant. Now you can counter this argument a bit. You could assert that for each step of connection, the karma/guilt can be discounted, the rate of discount being arbitaraly decided. In this case, it is indeed possible to assert that vegan has less karma/guilt. But notice that discount rate is totally subjective. It is possible to set discount rate to 100% totally absolving people who eat meat by buying from the third party. And there is no way to critise that the rate of 100% as inappropriate no more than to critise that rate of 0% or 70% as inappropriate. My god, my head hurt now. :D FWBOarticle 02:26, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I reverted FWBOarticle's last edit because I think the argumentation he uses is simply ridiculous. Stating that the vegan lifestyle is not "real" or whatever simply because you can't save every single soul in the universe is simply illogical. Please stop adding such kinds of argumentation to the article. -- Conti| ✉ 18:51, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
First of all, I assume that 130.88.243.185 is FWBOarticle not logged in. I reverted again because the edit the anon (FWBOarticle) made is essentially expanding the first paragraph of the "Moral/ethical" section into two big paragraphs, just with alot more POV/silliness in it:
Sure we can state "if you breathe, some bacterias die!" as an argument on the article (which is technically true), but we can also show this argument in a more serious way, and I think the paragraph is very fine the way it is at the moment. Therefore I think that I do not "censor" anything here, and there is nothing to "counter" any arguments, I just think they are prestented in a very weird way, and that the current paragraph does this in a way better way. -- Conti| ✉ 16:57, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
For the past couple of days, this article has been vandalized by an anonymous user who is removing external links and spamming his own links. I think protection is warranted, so I've protected it due to vandalism. Rhobite 19:53, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
I haven't really worked on this article, but I noticed some concern about the quality of the article starting to slip and that the article is getting long. It seems like the sections on vegan nutrition and critisms probably justify their own articles. Moving that content out would also shorten this article significantly and make it easier to edit it well. -- Ahc 04:42, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
As a noun, a vegan is a person who follows a vegan lifestyle (i.e. avoiding animal products). Some vegans see this usage as offensive, and prefer to be referred to using the adjective form.
For determining use on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Identity:
Okay, what is up with all of these external links? How does this page get away with having so many links? (See vegetarianism for comparison.) Are all of these links good references? Is there any way someone could maybe weed out some of the less useful links so as to make the list a little more manageable? Please remember that an overabundance of links makes each individual link seem less important -- better to have a few high quality links than a list of every possible reference on the web. I would prefer someone who's actually into veganism to go in and cut down this list on the basis of quality; but if no one gets around to it soon, I'll cut it down myself on the basis of google ranking. I'm thinking twenty links or so at the most, so someone get to it. - Eric Herboso 04:38, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Literally minutes before it was recombined with the Vegan page, I had updated the criticisms section. Now I'm not so sure I did the right thing. Does it subvert the purpose of criticism to insert counterpoints, like I've done, or should I have put the counter-points into the discussion section so that the criticisms could be removed entirely? I suspect that critics could start an editing battle. Which might be the history of that section to begin with. So, should I revert and start a discussion or just let the edit alone and wait for revisions? TheChin! 20:12, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia:Criticism at Wikipedia talk:Criticism. Thanks. Hyacinth 23:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
IMHO the spectacular number of external links is in direct contradiction to our main doctrine of writing an encyclopedia. This is not all a web directory. Are there any volunteers to do a critical sighting? -- Pjacobi 20:40, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned with the coverage of Vitamin B-12, especially in regards to expectant mothers and very young children. Perhaps someone should look into this further? -- 130.194.13.103 11:31, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've tried to amend the section in the light of 130.194's comments, which seem valid to me. It is easy to gloss over the difficulties when personally you have overcome them, but to become vegan without proper advice or precautions could be highly dangerous, which was the point being made. I hope the article, or the section , is more balanced now? If not, please edit and we'll be tolerant:)
This article lists latex as being non-vegan (specifically in condoms). Is there some sort of source on this? The wikipedia article on latex has no information about this, and a quick google search also came up with nothing too credible.
Check out the article on Condomi condoms. Most mainstream condoms are produced using casein. - Milk 08:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
I started an article on Vegan food at restaurants last night, and linked it to this article. It was by no means done. Why was it removed? -- Doc Holliday 13:33, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
1. Is vegetable sushi really an example of "imaginative" vegan cooking? I was pretty sure that sushi is sometimes vegetable based anyway (of course sometimes fish too), and that the whole "sushi equals raw fish" thing was a myth. Maybe I'm wrong tho.
2. Does anyone else think there are too many links in the "See also" section? Many of the radical activist links could be removed; there should be a few to the main ALF/AR pages from here, but most of the links seem like they should be on the "See also" section of those two pages. E.g., GANDALF trial seems like it could easily go to the ALF page. Zach (t) 22:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
No one has disagreed, so I just removed the following "See also" links. Zach ([://www.wikiveg.org/s wv]) (t) 15:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group -- just the ALF link is enough
Vegetarianism -- several links in the article
SHAC -- links to
animal testing and
Animal Liberation Front are enough
GANDALF trial -- plenty of links from ALF/AR pages
Barry Horne -- ditto
Linda McCartney -- vegetarian
Christian Vegetarian Society -- vegetarian
I've made the last paragraph invisible — the one beginning: "Sometimes vegans can be perceived as believing themselves to be morally superior to non-vegans ..." — because it amounted to a personal essay, but the previous paragraphs are also problematic. For example, is it true that some vegans, qua vegans, either have no sex, or have decided not to reproduce? This whole section needs to be firmed up with sources, rather than some critics say X, but some supporters say Y. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:13, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
It's not just a question of sources; it wasn't encyclopedic in the way it was written, and nor is the rest of the criticism section. First sentence: "Sometimes vegans can be perceived as believing themselves to be morally superior to non-vegans; this is sometimes genuinely the case, and often not." Sometimes? Perceived by whom? What does 'genuinely the case' refer to, and what does 'genuinely' add to 'the case'? In what sense is it only sometimes the case, but often not the case? And who's claiming this?
And "Some of the most violent incidents in the history of social protest have in fact been instigated by those seeking to disseminate ostensibly vegan principles." That's a bizarre claim, which needs to be attributed to a credible source; and it couldn't be attributed, because it's demonstrably false. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:10, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
"There is a long history of pro-animal (and thus vegan) groups supporting violence." - intertesting progression... and assumption. The ALF's own guidelines states that members do not have to be vegan, or even vegetarian to be members. Also, many pro-animal activists, such as Linda McCartney, are vegetarian, not vegan.
"PETA gave $70000 to Rodney Coronado, an arsonist who attacked a university research lab." - should more acurately read PETA paid the legal fees of Rodney (or Rod) Coronado, convicted arsonist who in 1992 set fire to and/or damaged two Michigan State university research labs, specializing in animal toxicology and fur farming research. If paying his legal fees was a criminal act, as implied by AlbertCahalan, then why haven't PETA been shutdown and convicted of providing material support for terrorism? Simon - 12:15, 15 Aug 2005
Whoa there. I don't think we can say that vegans are inherently violent, pacifist or arrogant. Speaking as a vegan I can attest that becoming a vegan takes a certain amount of open-mindedness but I wouldn't say that every vegan is open minded. I don't think most vegans are in general any more arrogant in their moral positions than anyone else with a strong belief, rational or not. I don't see anything a section of the christianity article that says how stubborn and arrogant christians are, but I've met a lot of stubborn christians. I agree with talking about how SOME groups that advocate veganism ALSO advocate violence but keep anecdotes and generalizations out. Wesman83
I'd like to find a factory-farming photograph to illustrate the page with, to show why vegans become vegans. Before I put one up, will anyone object to this as POV? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:55, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
***To those of you who think such photos depict a small handful of "illegal" farms-- take it from someone with a degree in animal science (the science of animal production for food and fiber), these practices are TYPICAL and LEGAL. There are very few protections in place for the treatment of farm animals. In fact, I can tell you from personal experience with LEGITIMATE large, well-known farms that such pictures only scratch the surface of the horrors that actually occur, on a daily basis, on these farms. It is par for the course--not an anomoly.
...But then I sold my Chevy Vega and bought a Honda Civic.
There will be a slight pause for the laughter to subside. :) Wahkeenah 30 June 2005 21:11 (UTC)
I came here looking for some information about health consequences of this life style and found nothing of value. This article is filled with faulty argumentation. The band wagon fallacy seems especially popular...or so say many. Clearly a lack of meat consumption dulls the mind. After all, Einstein was a veggie and a dumb ass. Maybe I could add that informal observation after Dr. Astrand's.
"Dr. Per-Olaf Astrand conducted an informal study of diet and endurance using nine highly trained athletes, changing their diet every three days" Informal as they were all equipped with party hats? Changing the diets every three days? Should that translate to me tripling my stamina if I change to a vegan diet for three days?
"The health consequence of consuming the white blood cells of other species suffering breast infections is not known, but many argue that it cannot be a positive one."
"Many people contend that these substances are dangerous, but their effect on human health has not been investigated, and no-one reliably knows what the long-term effects of consuming these artificial substances are."
"Vegans enjoy almost as wide a range of foods as animal product–eaters do" If that is true then the range of products that can be derived from animal sources must be small or substitutes can be created artificially in which case I like to draw attention to the previous paragraph.
-- TheBigD 8 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)
For such vehement protest to goodness, what does that make you?
I'd like to add a (referenced, of course) paragraph about the connection between veganism and eating disorders such as anorexia and orthorexia nervosa, especially among young women. Any objections? 68.21.180.106 15:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
RESPONSE: Veganism does not CAUSE eating disorders. Some people use veganism to try to mask the fact that they already have an eating disorder. Please understand the difference between correlation and causation. Unsigned comment from 65.24.246.99 3:43 pm C August 23, 2005
I was not suggesting that a vegan diet causes eating disorders. I know from personal experience as well as medical literature ( do a search on Medline) that anorexia sufferers often use a vegan diet to support and justify low caloric intake. Anorexia and politically/socially motivated diets are also correlated with an obsession about the correctness of one's diet [5], known as orthorexia. This information needs to be addressed in order to fully inform a reader about the costs and benefits of a vegan lifestyle. I am not saying that a nutritionally adequate vegan diet is impossible. Indeed, I think that more information should be added about balancing a vegan diet. Skinwalker 21:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
This article is heavily biased in favor of a vegan lifestyle. It does not adequately present the nutritional dangers of veganism, including the promotion of eating disorders among young women. The article uses outdated and misrepresented scientific articles to promote it's point of view, especially in the vegan vs. omnivore diet section.
(Is there a specific study backing eating disorders to veganism or are you just pulling that from your ass?)
Additionally, the criticism section is plagued with quotes such as:
"Many vegans find themselves struggling with anger at being misrepresented, or with having to be consistently nice to people who are rude, or even aggressively hostile to them; it can be hard to maintain a compassionate outlook under such circumstances..."
Quotes such as this indicate a clear "call-and-response"-sort of bickering, which does nothing to enlighten (and probably repels) a disinterested reader. I will submit several incremental updates to this article, and I of course invite criticism and (logical!) revision of the points I make. 68.21.1.203 06:24, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Lest I be accused of sockpuppetry, I have edited this page under 128.138.44.xxx and 68.21.xxx.xxx addresses, and have created an account now. I appended the NPOV tag several weeks ago, and I don't think the page is ready to have it removed, though Qirex's edits have helped. Nutritional disorders that are unique to vegitarianism and veganism certainly do exist, and are a problem particularly in the developing world. Specifically, unbalanced vegan diets can lead to vitamin D and B12 deficiencies, among others. The lack of vitamin B12 is especially pernicious to infants, who suffer long-term neurological damage if they do not obtain enough B12 from breastmilk if the mother is adhering to a strict vegan diet. There are few if any vegetable sources for B12, and supplements are of course animal-derived. Yeast-based sources are usually inadequate unless consumed in large and impractical amounts. Can anyone comment on bacterially derived B12 supplements?
To begin moving towards a consensus, I suggest we strengthen the sections regarding the balancing of a vegan diet to give more specific recommendations on nutritional adequacy, and to discuss possible dangers of nutritional adequacy. Someone more knowledgeable than I should write the adequacy section. I will write the section on dangers. As discussed above, I intend to submit a section on the correlation between vegan diets and eating disorders. Also, there are many baseless and unreferenced statements on the health benefits of a vegan diet, and they often confuse vegan and vegitarian diets. Finally, there are two sections that I will delete outright: quotations and cycling stamina. The quotations section is tantamount to propaganda, and does not illuminate a disinterested reader. The quotes should be, if at all, on the quoted person's wiki. The cycling stamina study simply shows that carbohydrates are better utilized for rapid energy production than fats and proteins, is quite outdated, and does not follow the subjets for any length of time that is long enough to establish dietary efficacy.
I hope we can avoid any histrionics from either side. I'll admit, this talk page has some fairly obnoxious entries from meat-eaters, which really don't help. My goal is to provide an NPOV entry that honestly addresses both the pros and cons of a vegan lifestyle, and the page is far from that at the moment. Skinwalker 22:18, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
That leaves a vegan free to kill animals as long as he doesn't use it afterwards. So as long as all you are doing is satisfying your blood lust you're in the clear?
Wouldn't "satisfying your bloodlust" be using the animal? -- Equal 19:26, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm a proud omnivoire, with some vegan friends and family, and I'd say that as of right now this article is pretty damn NPOV and also very good. Kudos to those responsible. ZacharyS 16:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I find that omnivore is used almost regularly without realising its meaning. omnivore, herbivore or carnivore refers to the species' ability or inability to eat a specific food. it does not talk about one particular or a bunch of animals (be it humans or dogs) deviating from the pattern. if a pet dog does eat rice it does not make the whole species of dogs as herbivorous. and if a cow is somehow made to eat flesh the bovine family does not become carnivore or omnivore. similarly even if a majority of humans do eat vegetables/meat alone they don't become herbivores/carnivores respectively. the human species still remains omnivore irrespective of personal preferences. i find the use of omnivore to refer to non-vegetarians totally wrong here and in other articles. A better term would be "non-vegetarian". Idleguy 04:13, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
...or "normal people"
As much as I admire your courage to deviate from the opinions of the majority I find your propensity to see the worst in peoples' actions depressing. "Normal" just means not deviating very much from the average. There is no value judgement in that. So you go on deviating from the norm with a clear conscience and I will too.
I removed this humbug: "The high levels of cholesterol found in dairy and egg products are now accepted by the majority of the medical community to be dangerous. Cholesterol is only found in animal products; a vegan diet has zero cholesterol. Less traditional, low fat milks, which are becoming more and more popular, do not contain very much cholesterol, but there are very few cheeses which can make the same claim." From Low density lipoprotein article: "It is not the cholesterol that is bad; it is instead how and where it is being transported, and in what amounts over time." If you are gong to write something sensible about this subject, start with saturated fats instead. - Hapsiainen 09:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I nixed the following paragraph from the article. To me, it reads like a personal essay, merely replacing "I" with "some vegans" to make it seem a bit more encyclopedic.
Of course, label reading and looking up ingredients becomes habitual, and many vegans express their pleasure at understanding just what is going into or onto their bodies and come to regard the idea of not doing so as rather horrifying. It is often referred to as an empowering experience. Many vegans find the experience broadens their understanding of how the food, cosmetics, and clothing industries work and leads them into environmental and human rights activism. It is often the case that outside observers have difficulty in understanding that vegans do not feel deprived, that they are not practising a form of aeseticism, and that they find pleasure in their veganism. Non-vegans often express the idea that vegans are "disciplined" in their choices, but vegans tend to feel that they have simply adopted new habits. Because many people believe vegans to be practising a form of self-denial, and because self-denial is often seen as morally superior, many others assume that vegans feel morally superior to them. When vegans do not actually feel this way, the misunderstanding often causes difficulties in social interaction, and many vegans feel that it is best not to talk about their veganism for fear that those around them will feel implicitly criticised.
It was also smack in the middle of a "common criticisms" section, making it seem even more personal and defensive. I can see how some elements could be useful elsewhere in the article, but I'm not entirely certain. - Plastic Editor
...so I made more cuts. I mean, there were sections in there consisting only of opinion and preference. Others railed on about things that meat and dairy have been "linked to" - obviously, specific studies have "linked" many, many things together, but they aren't rock-solid encylopedia fodder. Not saying they were wrong, but the scientific jury is still out on a lot of this stuff. Just because it might fit your cause, don't go believing EVERYTHING that suggests your diet is the way, the truth and the light.
Then there was just dumb stuff like this:
Vegans enjoy almost as wide a range of foods as animal product–eaters do, since almost any dish containing animal products can be adapted by substituting vegan ingredients.
Well, if you substitute, say, Ener-G Egg-Replacer for eggs in some cookies, yeah - essentially the same thing. For many others, however, you're altering a meal beyond recognition. Even subbing tempeh for bacon in a BLT, you've created an entirely new dish. In fact, non-vegetarians can consume not only the meat dish, but the vegan alternative, so a non-vegetarian's options have actually increased w/ the vegans. Result - it evens out.
So again, as a former teenage vegan animal rights activist, I know the desire to spread your gospel as much as possible. But recognize that we're making an encyclopedia here. There are some things that you believe to be very, very significant, but they don't belong in an encyclopedia because it's not the job of Wikipedia to change somebody's diet. This article is merely to inform somebody what veganism is, and give a vague idea of what motivates people to take it up. An *overview*, not an alternative to The Vegan Sourcebook.
'Sentient' means very different things to animal rights folks than to other folks. I'm off to school, but later today will add some context explaining this dichotomy...unless someone beats me to it (feel free). R 17:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I've done another copy edit as there were a few spelling mistakes, inlined external links, and a very long TOC, so I combined some sections, and also deleted some original research. Plastic Editor has objected on my talk page to the removal of this:
The most prominant [sic] opposition to veganism on ethical grounds states the long human history of consuming animal products; many believe that certain body types have evolved consuming meat and dairy, and thus absorb certain nutrients best via these sources. The requirement for B-12, a vitamin humans can only derive from meat or dairy, is seen as evidence of this. Thus, the use of animals for certain purposes in a balanced diet is "only natural", a notion hotly contested by many vegans and vegetarians.
It needs a source and preferably a medical one, as it's a medical claim. The "certain body types" thing sounds odd, and it's not an objection on ethical grounds; and the "only natural" quote needs a citation. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Skinwalker removed this, and it's been removed before, but shouldn't have been, in my view, because it has a properly cited, credible reference. Skinwalker, you referred me to the NPOV section of the talk page, but I can't see anything there about this study. What problem do you see with it? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
You know, there should be a page on Wikipedia that shows the benefits of eating meats. You know, there is a lot of POV in this article, as stated above. It makes me sick. In this article, there is only a list of the benefits of a vegan intake, and it says nothing about the benefits of an omnivorous intake. People want to know the benefits of eating meat, not just the benefits of eating vegetables. If Wikipedia is supposed to be an NPOV web page, then it should show both sides of this issue, not just the vegan's POV. Scorpionman 18:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Meat has plenty to do with veganism! Veganists abstain from all meats! They think that it's unhealthy. That may be true for most commercial meats, as they are usually chalked full of pesticides, herbicides and substances harmful if ingested, but that doesn't count for ALL meats. We don't need a whole page dedicated to the benefits of eating meat, but they should be listed on this article. Scorpionman 16:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
If you want to understand the benefits of eating meat you should visit the websites of the American Dietetic Association, the World Health Organization, or the American Cancer Society. Poisonoman 1:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Overall this page is radically better than it was a few days ago, when it had been vandalized with stupid grammatical errors. I don't think there's much harm in a page on veganism primarily representing the vegan POV - that, primarily, needs to be understood in order to understand the practice/philosophy itself. Criticisms are OK to be separate as long as they're legit and not vandalized. 18:00 PDT 27 Oct 2005
Bottom line, murder is murder, regardless of species. What was done in the past to survive is completely inconsequential today. We are an advanced society that is in no way forced to eat murdered animals to survive. I'm not starving, and I know no one who is. If I were on the brink of death and my only food source was meat, I would eat it gladly and give thanks, but that is not the case, therefore I abstain. If we do not require meat to survive, and to eat meat is to pay others to commit murder for us, then it is wrong. Period. To pointlessly muder animals, simply because we can, is neither moral nor healthy.
Animals aren't people so it doesn't count. Also, the talk page is for discussing changes to the article, not pontificating on how superior your diet is to everyone else's.
"neither moral nor healthy" - how is that even remotely immportant as long as it is tasty?
"neither moral nor ethical" - how is it even remotely important as long as rape feels good to the perpetrator?-- Equal 19:28, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
That has absolutely nothing to do with how good something tastes. Rape and taste of food are two totally different things! Also, I find the top comment completely predjudiced. Animals may be alive, but they can't talk and they don't have feelings! Killing animals for food is not "pointless". When you kill an animal and just let the carcass lie there without using it at all, that's pointless. I don't really approve of killing animals for sport, but even then it's not murder! There are certain things you can get from meat that you can't get from plants alone! Besides, if you think that killing animals is murder, than isn't it murder when they kill humans? Scorpionman 16:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
^ You are ignorant. There's absolutely nothing special about meat whatsoever that you can't get from plants; food wise. And even for non-food items, there are plenty of substitutes (think you're right? try me!).
If veganism is so unhealthy, then how come vegans/vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters, have fourth the rate of cancer, and ninth the rate of heart disease? Bottom line is, it IS healthier; and very much so.
Your profile claims you're a "Christian". Do you think Jesus, if he were alive today, would advocate factory farming, the number one pollutant of our Earth? Do you think your God would advocate the needless slaughter of millions of animals every year? VEGETARIANISM WAS GOD'S ORIGINAL PLAN. READ THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE. "The lion laid down with the lamb..."
And lastly, who do you think you are, presuming animals don't have feelings? Obviously, you have never really owned or spent enough time with an animal, or you would know better. I think my cat and dog have more feelings (and intelligence!) than some people. And if you have perhaps owned an animal, and maybe even loved one as a pet, how can you say that it is ok to slaughter one animal and not the other? Pigs are the fourth smartest animal out there, besides humans, primates, and dolphins. Those people who claim it's ok to kill 'dumb' animals should learn that fact.
Bottom line is, I'm NOT trying to insult you, just trying to give you some insight. I think it is common for most people to be ignorant about veganism/vegetarianism (most are; maybe even me to a little extent... I learn new facts about it all the time...). Just don't let myths confuse you.
I saw a post on somebody's page today about veganism, and figured I'd put in my two cents worth and weigh in: First, the problem with vitamin B-12 deficiencies is due to the fact that we over-work the soil, instead of giving it time to rest. Both humans and land need time to rebuild, and this principle (letting the land rest once every seven years and then some) was once mentioned in the Bible, but that is informational (not preaching down your throat) information. If we let the land rest up well, then the fruits and veggies would have sufficient B-12 when grown on that land. That being said, The four traditional reasons to become vegan are:
For more information, you might see my research on the subject:
-- GordonWatts 13:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I object to that. Animals are not our brothers, they are our subordinates. We must care for them, but not treat them as equals. Second, I disagree with the statement that a vegan diet tastes better. I think it tastes like crap. Third, it is not healthier. It may provide more fiber, but you still need meat. Also, there is some bias that cheese and butter are highly unhealthy. That's BS! Your body needs the so-called "cancer-causing cholesterol raising" cow fats! You should do some more research! Scorpionman 17:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
--Michichael--
I know a vegan, she's very healthy, but quite frankly from what I see it's all economics. Feel free to be a vegan, but don't expect half of the stores that sell "vegan" foodstuffs, are actually vegan. The vegan lifestyle is considerably more expensive. Also note the plant growing seasons etc. Human's can only consume a comparitivly limited range of non-animal foodstuffs, as compared to the animals that CAN eat them. If the entire population where to switch vegan, even better if 1/4 of america's population were vegan, there would not be enough food to go around. Fact of the matter is, that we evolved as hunters and gatherers because we don't migrate with the growing seasons. Our society is at the point where we can support a limited amount of veganism (no more than maybe 5% of the populace) without inducing starvation unto them. However econimically speaking, the animals that can eat the plants are a more effecient route towards feeding our bodies needs. The methods are brutal, I agree, and should be changed. But I personally don't see the overall benifity of veganism. It's only a personal benifit, the fact that it's in protest to the conditions animals are in really shouldn't even BE in this article, as it is really irrelevant. A multibillion dollar industry doesn't care about a few hundred thousand nonconsumers, it's just another point of view...
I agree that this article is bias, the point of view statements should either be removed or balanced with an opposing viewpoint...
-Michichael Folf-Sunè
What are you talking about? Our bodies aren't even built for meat. And if veganism/vegetarianism is so unhealthy, why do the facts speak otherwise?!
We don't get cancer nearly as often;
We only have ninth the rate of heart disease;
and we live longer!!
MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO SOME RESEARCH?
How is flamers treated on wikipedia?
in the future, please use the talk page to discuss the article. if you're just looking for a venue to give your opinion i would suggest you look into blogspot or some similar service. frymaster 03:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Could we have some sources for this section, please, as it looks a little like original research? SlimVirgin (talk) 14:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Another difficulty for the vegan is that almost all drugs are the result of animal testing. Further, since some vegans reside in countries where the supply of non-animal gelatin capsules is almost non-existent they often have to intake capsules containing animal byproducts. Many vegans throughout the world use many animal products with or without their knowledge. Examples are Catgut which is still used in sutures as well as in other materials. Veganism is often seen as a cumbersome, impractical and financially costly lifestyle.
"Another argument is that almost all drugs sold today were the result of animal testing." Another argument against what? Also, I removed capsule point as vegans don't eat capsules made of gelatine.
Heads up: I don't know about Cat Gut (meow...), but as a struggling vegan myself, yes, I certify that I absolutely HATE gelatin caps, and I fixed the damage, but I explained it in plain English -and cited my sources. With all due respect to the Idle Guy, whose conclusion was right -you missed both points, and I certainly give proper respect to Viriditas and SlimVirgin, even though their conclusions were wrong. (As a side note, I think you are a vegan, no, SlimVirgin? If so, then why did you not catch this error that gelatin indeed is yucky!! And Viriditas, you too are bright and intelligent; Plus, as one who lives in that liberal and vegetable-loving Hawaii, you should be in the environment which has expertise in these matters. Did I pull a Forest Gump and miss something?)-- GordonWatts 06:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Would a vegan eat a salad made by a chimpanzee? (One that wasn't getting paid to do it or forced to do it) How about a steak from a human who had killed himself and willed his body to a restaurant? Pedant 23:42, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Could editors adding material please watch the quality of the writing? An intro should give a succinct overview of the subject, not just be two sentences. Also, when you add something, please check the overall flow and that the material you've added doesn't exist already elsewhere. After banging on at great length about animal suffering, animal rights and how vegans care about these, halfway through the article, I found this: "Vegans cite a variety of reasons for adopting their diet. A desire to reduce animal suffering is another possible motivation." Also, please source material, and cite it correctly. Don't add name of book, author, ISBN number etc in brackets after a sentence: that material goes at the end in the references section. After the sentence, just write (Smith 2005) and page number if you want to. Readers can then look at the references section to find out what Smith 2005 refers to. Though having said that, it's always better to add too much citation material than too little, and anything is better than nothing. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 09:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Just now, I see an anon from an AOL IP address, User:172.212.104.94, editing here. I was about to revert and suggest that this is a criticism section and that you don't need "pros" in the "con" section, and also suggest use of a spell-checker.
I thought that reverts took precedence, but apparently not: I got an edit conflict.
However, before I could suggest these changes, the anon changed the heading to "spurious" criticism, and fixed at least one spelling error. I would suggest no one revert but, instead, go through carefully and maybe separate the criticism from the "spurious" new additions and make a "rebuttal" section or something. Some of the edits seem true, but it looks like Rhobite reverted to Jengod's last version here before I could either revert (my original attempt, which had edit conflict) or maybe leave it alone and suggest a closer look (this attempt).
Good luck folks!-- GordonWatts 22:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Further Comment:
I can't work on this right now but I added a POV tag due to someone who repeatedly adds sentences like these:
Very annoying when people continue to use words like "sadly" in a supposedly neutral article. For this and other reasons I've added the POV tag. Rhobite 20:32, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
This is just annoying. Anon continues to rename the criticism section, complain about "ethnocentrism", and that "Commercial exploiters of animals have established propaganda programs to encourage the incorrect belief that animal products are necessary and it is not easy or safe to be a vegan." Also claims that vegans have health-care "choices" as opposed to the difficulties they actually have. Rhobite 03:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
There's a load of tosh going on in here. Gandhi never promoted veganism. Infact he even promoted the use of table eggs and his quotes on eating sterile eggs are well known to open minded people in India.
Gandhi wrote in a 1948 leaflet, "Nowadays sterile eggs are also produced. The hen is not allowed to see the cock and yet it lays eggs. A sterile egg never develops into a chick. Therefore, he who can take milk should have no objection to taking sterile eggs."
This issue surfaced recently in India where Gandhi was used as the brand ambassador for eggs by NECC. The news report [9] would tell you that they did their research carefully as this quote has been known to fairly educated people who have read Mahatma's teachings.
Even Buddha is known to have eaten meat though he didn't actively promote its use.
Idleguy
04:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Whats the general vegan line on eating road kill? (My personal opinion is that eating roadkill is quite an ethical choice but I'd be interested in hearing other peoples views). I've eaten road kill pheasant and rabbit before. - FrancisTyers 19:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I was on vandal patrol and happened upon this article. I'm not immersed in the topic, but a quick reading of the article shows a number of places where the pro-vegan point-of-view is being reported in a way that implies wrong-doing on the part of non-vegans, but the point of view of non-vegans defending themselves is missing. That's a bit of a wordy explanation. Here are the examples I found in the article. FuelWagon 21:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
People become vegans for a number of reasons, primarily out of concern for animal rights,...
[A] philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...
some vegans refrain from supporting industries that use animals, such as circuses featuring animals, and zoos.
Vegans generally oppose what they see as the violence and cruelty involved in the meat, [6] and non-vegan cosmetics, clothing, and other industries.
vegans may be motivated by the alleged high environmental costs of producing animal products. Often cited are the pollution of local environments by animal waste, as well as the resources used to care for livestock. [13] A commonly cited (and contested) statistic is that it takes 14 times more land area to support a meat eater than a vegetarian. This is due in part to the fact that caring for livestock requires resources to produce many inedible products (e.g., bone), although a conscientious non-vegan can sometimes find uses for these by-products. In fact, only about 10% of the energy used in livestock is available for human consumption
The word starts and ends with the first three and last two letters of vegetarian, representing that veganism begins with vegetarianism, then takes it to its logical conclusion.
All we need to solve this is a quotation or citation - I've seen this exact phrase before in a book talking about vegan history, and it's an appropriate addtion to an encyclopedia entry...just needs a citation. (19:55 PDT 27 Oct 2005)
The lifestyle choices can be somewhat inconvenient as well. Avoiding clothing and shoes containing wool or leather, most brands of latex condoms (as latex is often produced with the milk protein casein), hygienic products such as soap, to name a few, requires serious research. Many vegans would argue that "convenience" is not a good basis for a lifestyle.
I did some googling and found a few examples of possible sources for the non-vegan point of view for this article. FuelWagon 03:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
FARM SECURITY AND RURAL INVESTMENT ACT OF 2002 [11]
The Justice Department Report on Animal Terrorism 1993 [12]
Animal "Snuff films" have been faked [13] The 2001 entry mentions some interesting behaviour by a vegan student.
Non-vegans support "animal welfare" as opposed to "animal rights" [14]. (also includes some interesting quotes by PETA, with sources)
Johns Hopkins enters suit over lab animal regulations [15]
Federal report highlights animal rights terrorism 1989 [16]
National Cattleman's Beef Association [17]
What is the relevance of this to an article about Veganism? "Some non-vegans support the notion of "animal welfare" as opposed to the "animal rights" proposed by vegans." [18] Some non-vegans support animals rights too, but what's the point of mentioning it? Also, this looks like some kind of personal website, which we're not allowed to use as a source. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
The article says:
A kilo... gram of rice takes 5,000 liters of water? I checked the URL, and unfortunately it is equally lacking in units. Does this mean kilo-ton, perhaps? The word "kilo" simply means "thousand", but unfortunately, the sentence doesn't say a thousand of what of rice, grams, tonnes, whatever. Can someone clarify this in the article? FuelWagon 01:01, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Could we have a citation, please, for the Stepaniak claim? -- Those who avoid eating animal products, but who otherwise use products containing animal derivatives, describe themselves as "dietary vegans". Vegan author Joanne Stepaniak argues that this term is inappropriate, because, she argues, veganism is about avoiding all animal abuses, not just food-related ones. For this reason, she says, a term such as "total vegetarian," or "strict vegetarian," would be more appropriate for those who avoid eating meat and dairy products, but continue to buy leather shoes.
would someone like to cull them?
I would, and did, and did before, its a flourishing section.
TonyClarke 23:40, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I've read the comments, and gone over the article in detail. I've tried to eliminate POV issues where I see them, does anybody see any remaining? If not, we can remove the disputed tag, it doesn't do Wikipedia any good to have these hanging around too long. Please comment!
TonyClarke 23:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Someone added this to the intro: " The National Cattleman's Beef Association defines "animal welfare" as taking reasonable care of all animals, and good animal husbandry practices.(it may be idleguy, idleguy shows edits on the environmental vegetarianism page and there are two "animal husbandry" references) The NCBA also defines "animal rights" as the position that animals as having legal and moral rights similar to humans. The NCBA supports the position of animal welfare." [21]
I've deleted it because the writing is odd, because it's irrelevant to the article, and particularly the intro, and because the NCBA (and national as in which nation?) is a bizarre source to use for definitions of animal welfare and animal rights. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Probably the poster was trying to point out that there other, equally valid, conceptions of animal welfare, apart from the vegan rights approach? Perhaps we need to put in a more effective and apt reference to this elsewhere in the article to preserve NPOV?
TonyClarke 22:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I think we have moved on from the many POV issues which were posted here several weks ago. At present, it is not perfect, but we seem to be co-operatively moving forward. Are there any objections to removing the disputed neutrality tag? If anyone has any significant doubts about POV issues, please state them and let's get them resolved. Otherwise I vote we remove the neutrality tag in several days time.
TonyClarke 21:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
SlimVirgin claims that "this article is about veganism, not any other group" [22], which apparently allows her to delete the point of view of any source that is different from the pro-vegan point of view. I'm not sure how SlimVirgin defines how an article would satisfy the requirement to be "neutral" if it can only report the point of view of one group, and exclude the poitn of view of any group that has a different view. FuelWagon 03:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the above: SlimVirgin has a point that it's a bit obtrusive, and it looks odd, to put the alternative view of a specific organisation in the introduction. However, I agree that the non-vegan approach to animal welfare is appropriate to put in somewhere, in a less high profile place, and less specific or inflammatory than using word such as Beef? I'll try to put in something along these lines, comments welcome. We don't want a war between two well-meaning posters to hold up the removal of that neutrality disputed tag.
TonyClarke 12:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
the increased demand for soybeans has very little to do with veganism. most of the soy grown goes to feeding animals. Quote from the article from the WWF that's linked to in the article: "The growing demand for animal feed – and finally for meat – drives the production of soybean."
Anybody else agree with me that this should just read 'Criticism'? Modular. (Talk.) 12:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Never mind, it's been changed. Modular. (Talk.) 12:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I think it's time we remember what objectivity means, before anyone fights any further.
Objectivity
(M-W.Com)
So let's think about how the idea of objectivity would apply to this article:
It doesn't matter whether you can boast about going to more college classes (independent of evidence), and it doesn't matter if you personally think (or "know" as the case may be with you pompous monkeys out there) that veganism is healthy or unhealthy. Too bad, your view has no effect here. Ergo: You can't say things like "veganism has been proven to have had many health benefits, and lots of people have yet to realize it which is problem considering blah blah blah blah" if it isn't absolutely proven, acknowledged, and accepted from all educated points of view. All you can say is something along the lines of: "The supposed effects of a vegan diet on one's health are controversial." And if you decide to go deeper into the argument and present one side, you must also present the other side. These articles are to simply provide an understanding of the subject and about the issues surrounding it, not to indoctrinate users into one view or another based on your idea of what's fact.
However, that said, at this point, I see little if any subjectivity in this article, this may be the result of recent changes, but this article, as of now, seems to be simply stating the facts about what vegans are and why they follow veganism, along with the different facets of the practice. I see little that glorifies the vegan lifestyle, and little that regards it as hippie-bullshit. This is good. I find nothing wrong with this article, the only thing which it might need is some restructuring to be a little more categorized, and include a little more on history, but I'm really too tired to do anything about that right now.
All I can say is, that this article right now seems well-written and in 'fine' to 'good' shape (on the 'horrible', 'poor', 'fine', 'good', and 'excellent' shape).
Monk of the highest order 00:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
You guys are arguing about "facts", when facts is only half of NPOV. NPOV requires that both sides of any story be reported. And while it is undisputed fact that some vegans became vegans because of their support for "animal rights", that introduces a topic of animal rights that indicates a hole, a lack of information, about the non-vegan point of view. If vegans became vegans because they support "animal rights", that implies that not supporting "animal rights" is insufficient, wrong, or otherwise not cool. People don't do things because they think they're doing the wrong thing. They do things because they think they're doing the right thing. By reporting the fact that vegans became vegans because they support animal rights, leaves a hole that allows non-vegans to explain their poitn of view.
Alice could accuse Bob of murder in a court of law. That could be an undisputed fact. But that fact brings with it the hole, the lack of information, as to Bob's side of the story. Did he plead guilty or claim he was innocent? Alice's accusation is a fact, the way vegans became vegans because of animal rights is a fact. BOth are facts, and both imply some wrong doing on teh part of the other side of the story, and both create a "hole" of missing information as to what the other side's point of view is.
So, you can either add the non-vegan point of views regarding "animal welfare", "health", and "environment", or you can delete the vegan point of view about "animal rights", health and the environment from the introduction to keep it neutral and balanced. but introducing one sides point of view, without reporting teh other side, at least in brief, makes the intro biased. FuelWagon 05:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
from WP:NPOV
"the core of the NPOV policy is to let competing approaches of the same topic exist on the same page"
"not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct"
Once "animal rights" are introduced, once accusations of animal "exploitation" and "cruelty" are made, the topic expands to include "care of animals". It is no longer simply an article about eating vegatables and avoiding use of animal products. As soon as veganism insinuates that non-vegans commit "exploitation" and "cruelty" against animals, the article insinuates that the vegan "side" is the correct side. If no other POV is presented, this directly violates NPOV policy. Once the article introduces the topic of "animal care", NPOV requires that "competing approaches of the same topic" be reported on the same page. Once the topic of "animal care" is breeched, once accusations of "exploitation" and "cruelty" are leveled, the only way to maintain neutrality is to bring in competing approaches on the topic fo "animal care". And the biggest competition to "animal rights" is the point of view of "animal welfare". There is no way "animal rights" can be discussed, there is no way that accusations of "cruelty" and "exploitation" can be leveled, and maintain any sort of neutral article unless competing points of view are brought into the article. FuelWagon 17:21, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I think FuelWagon has a valid point of view. I think (we) vegans can have a tendency to unconscious self -righteousness. I admire FuelWagon for sticking to his/her position in the face of enormous pressure. But I think Fuelwagon's position was recognised when the motivation for veganism was moved from the intro to the motivation section, and a NPOV was clearly spelt out there, Was Fuel Wagon unhappy with this? If not, why re-insert direct information from the Beef industry? To persist in insisting on POV issues afer major concessions is farcical, imho. TonyClarke 20:50, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
So tell me, Viriditas, do I have to find a source who specifically disputes the definition of Veganism by the British Veganism Society in order to report that non-vegans dispute the BVS implication that non-vegans support cruelty to animals and exploitaiton of animals? That is an interesting interpretation of original research. Are you telling me that non-vegans support the idea of cruelty to animals and exploitation of animals? FuelWagon 15:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
No, that doesn't work, either. The BVS definition means that non-vegan behaviour is cruel and exploitive. Vegans are vegans because they believe to be non-vegan is to exploit animals and be cruel to them. The wording of the BVS definition can be read no other way. Find me a pure vegan, a notable source, who fits that BVS definition of veganism, and who comes out and specificaly states that to eat meat or wear leather is not cruel or exploitive treatment. Without that source, the "perhaps mistaken" has no notable source to support it, and the "implication" of the definition stands as it reads. FuelWagon 22:47, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
[23] The definittion implies guilt on the part of non-vegans, in the form of accusations "exploitation" and "cruelty to animals". balance requires that the dispute report opposing views. The beef association directly disputes the notion that their practices of "animal welfare" support "exploitation" of and "cruelty" to animals. This is not original research. The Beef Association does not have to dispute the British Vegan Society definition, they simply have to dispute the implication that to eat beef is to exploit or be cruel to animals, and they clearly dispute that view. FuelWagon 16:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
As a physicist I was a bit bothered by the sentence discussing efficiency of raising livestock in terms of the first law of thermodynamics. I don't object to the sentiment expressed (about useable output from farming livestock). I think saying that no energy is truly lost, so it can all be capitalized on with a little smarts isn't quite relevent in this case. The complexity of energy lost and reused in such a large biological study is difficult to assess in terms of thermodynamics, and utilizing all the energy or a large percentage is beyond our abilities (for either livestock or plant farming). We can't even get all the energy back from a "simple" system like fuel powered engines. Just a wording change, no content change. Good page for such a political topic! Superclear 22:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I really think groups should be allowed to define themselves without necessarily needing to include an alternate point of view. But we really need to remember that implications of morality whether here or on any page, should be prefaced by a belief clause. The line edited by Canaen (not picking on you either :-) to read "Vegans generally oppose the violence and cruelty involved in the meat ..." is POV. All we need to do is to change to "... oppose what they see as ... " then everyone can be satisfied (yeah, right) since it is fact independent of who thinks what about animal welfare. Agreed? For any morality judgement (e.g. Societies consider murder of innocent people wrong/taboo/ ..., NOT Murder of innocent people is wrong. I hope I've made a decent point. I will change the statement if there is no objection. Superclear 23:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello! For a new line...