Vegetarian is not Vegan

I recently saw a video of an animal activist who is also a vegan influencer. In one of his lectures, a girl pointed out that vegan food is expensive, and not everyone can afford it or comes from a high-income background. His typical response was to list dishes like uttapam, poha, idli, sambar, dosa, jackfruit, and even pani puri as examples of vegan food — claiming the list is endless.

But what’s the reality?

The word vegan was introduced in November 1944 by Donald Watson, co-founder of the Vegan Society in the UK. He formed it by taking the first and last letters of “vegetarian” — “veg” + “an” — to signify the beginning and end of vegetarianism, meaning a diet and lifestyle excluding all animal products, not just meat.

If the word vegan emerged out of vegetarian, how can all those dishes be called vegan? It’s illogical and misleading. By definition, most of what he mentioned is vegetarian, not vegan. There’s already a perfectly good term for that — vegetarian — without replacing it with a modern label to claim moral superiority.

Personally, I don’t eat meat and also avoid dairy products, yet I still call myself a vegetarian. Not out of pride, but because it’s simple and accurate. Let’s not complicate it by calling it veganism and trying to impose it on everyone. The world already has enough problems — we don’t need to add another by turning veganism into a crusade.

Like all other “isms,” veganism can also become a problem.