What Does Vegan Mean?
Wondering what vegan is? A vegan is a person who practises compassion for animals and follows a cruelty-free lifestyle. Vegans acknowledge that animals are someone, not something, and make kind decisions every day to help end speciesism.
Being vegan means avoiding animal suffering wherever possible by not buying or using products that come from animals and not contributing to any other form of cruelty.
What Does Being Vegan Involve?
Vegans choose kindness over cruelty every day, which means they eat plant-based foods rather than animal-derived products (such as meat, eggs, dairy, or honey), wear animal-free clothes instead of someone’s skin (like leather or fur), purchase cruelty-free cosmetics instead of products that were tested on animals (for example, shampoo), and don’t support the use of animals for entertainment (like in hunting, horse racing, and more).
What Do Vegans Eat?
Vegans can enjoy just about every dish a meat-eater does. Instead of eating animal flesh, vegans cook with beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, and other plant proteins. These can be added to spaghetti, soups, salads, lasagna, stir-fries, chilli, and more. You name it – there’s a vegan version of it! For more inspiration, check out our favourite vegan recipes:
Where Do Vegans Get Their Nutrients From?
We can get all the nutrients we need from a vegan diet rich in whole foods, including fruits, vegetables, pulses, grains, nuts, soya products, and seeds. Several studies have reported that people who eat vegan tend to consume more fibre, antioxidants, potassium, magnesium, folate, and vitamins A, C, and E than meat-eaters.
Is Vegan Different From Vegetarian?
Yes. Vegans don’t consume anything that comes from an animal – including their flesh, eggs, or mammary secretions – while vegetarians contribute to cruelty to animals by paying for their milk or eggs. Cows raised to produce milk are exhausted by the strain of continual pregnancy, which often leaves them lame. When they’re worn out and can no longer produce such high volumes of milk, they’re sent to the abattoir and killed. Egg-laying hens are treated as machines. Confined to cramped, filthy cages, they’re forced to lay eggs every day until they, too, are slaughtered. Eating animals’ eggs or milk, even if not their flesh, causes them extreme suffering and a violent death.
We encourage every vegetarian to take a stand against all forms of animal exploitation and stop consuming cows’ bodily fluids or eggs stolen from hens.
Why Would Someone Go Vegan?
It’s simple – to create a world that doesn’t harm animals. On farms where animals are killed for food or their fur and in laboratories, animals are denied fresh air and sunshine. They’re mutilated without painkillers and forcibly separated from their families and friends. By going vegan, you’ll no longer support industries that use, abuse, and slaughter animals. And by always eating vegan, you’ll spare about 200 animals a year a life of pain and a terrifying death.
Is Going Vegan Easy?
Yes! Each year, we see new vegan food products, cruelty-free make-up, vegan leather, and more. Take a look at PETA’s guides below to get going:
New Vegan Food
M&S Café
