this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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Veganism
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Discussions and content about veganism (a moral philosophy opposed to animal cruelty and exploitation) and its practical application.
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The widely-understood definition of veganism is "not consuming animal products", not the definition in that blog. The blog is correct but it's sort of missing that nuance; many people (vegans and non-vegans) don't think that trying to buy less animal products is the same as being fully vegan. At best, I'd imagine people would consider that "going vegan".
Yes, as I said the article is correct based on the definition it is using, but that's not what people associate with being vegan. The highlighted part "as far as is possible and practicable" lends itself to a much more subjective judgment on veganism which could allow someone to be vegetarian (as in, consume animal products but not flesh) while fitting the definition of vegan if they had enough mitigating factors (e.g. lots of dietary restrictions preventing them from consuming most vegan alternatives). You don't see someone drinking (cow) milk and think "that person is vegan".
The article actually covers that immediately below the definition they give. Per the article, "trying to buy less animal products" is vegan as long as they are actually buying only the animal products they can't get alternatives for (see: living in remote area).
It's a blog, it's all casual. I was trying to point out that the definition they use, regardless of where it's from, is not the definition that most people use. Basically gatekeeping, but happening with vegans and non-vegans, if you assume the provided definition is the right one. I was directly criticising the thesis. I suspect any search engine will give you at least a couple other definitions of "vegan" without the pragmatic allowance (I checked quickly with Ecosia, first result is Wikipedia... fourth? result is vegansociety).
I suspect the reason it's downvoted is mostly because veganism has a bad reputation (I'd like to think it's getting better). I won't pretend to know anything about that, at best I'm plant-based but I'm not going to call myself vegan because my motivation for that is not primarily for animal rights. People don't like having their ways challenged; not much we can do about that without larger societal changes.