What is a vegan?
A vegan is someone who doesn't eat, wear or use any animal products. Some common animal products that vegans avoid are: meat (yes this includes fish), milk, cheese, yoghurt and all other dairy products, eggs, (yes even free-range) honey, wool, leather, silk, fur, animal by products and products that contain them, such as gelatine, casein, cochineal (E120) etc. Contary to belief, veganism is not simply a diet - it is a philosophy. A philosophy of avoiding unecessary harm to creatures that have just as much right to walk the earth as us humans. Vegans go by this rule: If it's not necessary for survival of humans to use animal products, then it's wrong to use them just because we can, or can make money from them.

Blimey, that's alot of stuff!! What do vegans eat?!!
It might sound like a lot of stuff, but it's not. Vegans eat anything that DOES NOT contain meat, dairy, eggs or honey. That leaves an awful lot of food to still be consumed!

Aren't all vegans commie hippies, with no sense of humour?
What?! There is no typical vegan. Vegans come from all walks of life. They can be black, white, yellow, brown, christian, jew, hindu, buddhist, fat, thin, tall, short, conservative, liberal, socialist...You get the picture. As for the sense of humour part, what about Sean Hughes the irish comedian? He's a vegan.

So why be vegan? I can understand the not eating meat part of it - but isn't not wanting to consume products like milk and eggs a little, y'know, extreme???!!
Not extreme, just thorough. Milk is an incredibly cruelly produced product. The basics are this: In order for a cow to produce milk, she has to be (firstly) pregnant and then (eventually) give birth to a calf. Modern societies' demand for the unhealthy consumption of cows milk is at the sufferance and detriment of the modern dairy cow. Often kept in appalling factory farmed conditions, she is constantly kept pregnant, so she keeps giving birth, and thus keeps producing milk. This constant cycle inevitably leads to a painful condition of her udders, known as mastitis. Mastitis very often leads to poor milk yield, were she is deemed useless for milk production and therefore slaughtered for meat. Cows normally live for an average of 25 years, but the modern dairy cow only lives between 3 to 5 years, because of this process.
Also to top things off, when her calf is born, the bond between them is severed (which causes great distress to both cow and calf) because the milk is then collected for human consumption. What happens to the calf? Either reared to be another dairy cow (if it is female) or meat (often veal), or sometimes just destroyed.

What about eggs?
Similar principle in the way that the female chicks may be reared as egg laying hens (often kept in cruel battery cages), but the male counterparts are of no use for this practice. Many of them are slaughtered (gassing, electrocution, scolding). This is even involved in free-range operations. A few male chicks will be reared for meat.

Are there any other reasons to be vegan?
Besides the animal cruelty issue, there are many others reasons as to why someone may become a vegan. A person might be vegan because of the environmental implications of raising livestock for meat, or it may be to try and help those in poorer or developing countries to have more food on their plates. Many people in poorer regions of the world grow crops that are then shipped over to more developed countries, which is then fed to that country's livestock instead of feeding themselves.

For more information on veganism please visit The Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation website.

Thank you for your attention.

PinkLogik