Last Updated: August 24, 2018

The best way to explain the vegan concept is to quickly define what vegan means, and then look at how and why the word came into existence.

A vegetarian diet is commonly understood to forbid meat and fish, but to allow both eggs and dairy. The word vegan takes this concept to the next level, cutting out every item of animal origin. Vegan refers to anything thats free of animal products: no meat, milk, eggs, wool,leather, honey and so forth. Your sandwich, your shampoo, andyour car seats are examples of itemsthat couldbe vegan.

Veganism carries at least three potential advantages:

Can you become a vegan through diet alone? Absolutely, since, as we will see in the next section, vegan was originally defined purely in dietary terms.

A handful of vegans(sometimes abrasively) insistthat veganism is not merely a diet, but extends into every corner of your lifestyle. In other words, you dont get to join theveganclub until you go beyond food to purge your life of leather, wool, and animal-derived cosmetics. Oftentimes, these vegans are doing the animals a grave disservice by definingthe vegan concept in the most rigid andexclusionaryway possible. These are people would love torevoke your vegan membership card if they find out you havent yet taken your 10-year-old leather winter boots to the thrift store.

The entire question of who gets to call themselves a vegan is annoying and not worth much attention. Rather than think ofveganism as an identity, its wisest to use it as a concept that can inspire you to remove animal products from your life, wherever you can easily do it. And its almost always easy.Oftentimes, its not readily apparent whether a given food or cosmetics ingredient comes from animals, so you can use our animal ingredientslist to familiarize yourself with the most common animal-derived substances.

No matter the degree to which you ultimately embrace the vegan concept, it makes sense tobeginyour transition by emphasizing dietary choices. After all, unless you buy a new fur coat every winter, the overwhelming majority of animal useassociated with your life almost certainly arises from yourfood choices.

To learn more about vegan living, check thesecompelling advantages of a vegan diet, as well as our our information onmaking an easy transition. You can learn everything you need to quickly and easily go veganby reading just one or two bookscheck out But I Could Never Go Vegan!orThe Ultimate Vegan Guide.

Donald Watson coined the termvegan in 1944 in Great Britain. Heres Watson from that year, in the first issue of The Vegan News, proposing that his readers either embrace the word, or come up with a better one, as the basis for a new social movement:

We should all consider carefully what our Group, and our magazine, and ourselves, shall be called. Non-dairy has become established as a generally understood colloquialism, but like non-lacto it is too negative. Moreover it does not imply that we are opposed to the use of eggs as food. We need a name that suggests what we do eat, and if possible one that conveys the idea that even with all animal foods taboo, Nature still offers us a bewildering assortment from which to choose. Vegetarian and Fruitarian are already associated with societies that allow the fruits (!) of cows and fowls, therefore it seems we must make a new and appropriate word. As this first issue of our periodical had to be named, I have used the title The Vegan News. Should we adopt this, our diet will soon become known as a VEGAN diet, and we should aspire to the rank of VEGANS. Members suggestions will be welcomed. The virtue of having a short title is best known to those of us who, as secretaries of vegetarian societies have to type or write the word vegetarian thousands of times a year!

Watsons article was immensely important, but he kept it short, since he only sought to cover what vegan means, and why the word deserved to be coined.

The questions of why and how to go vegan require much more space to properly answer, and over the years these answers have grown fuller and more compelling, as the wisdom of the vegan concept has grown more evident. These topics are covered at length in our Why Choose Vegan? and How to Go Vegan pages.

Finally, you may wish to explore the history of plant-based eating and veganism. If you want to discoverhow veganism went from an obscure World War II-era concept to one of the most influential ideas surrounding diet and food politics, check out A Vegan History: 1944-2010.

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What Does Vegan Mean? - Vegan.com