The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

There seems to be a hell of a lot of confusion among animal advocates about what it means to promote and support the abolition of the exploitation of animals. The abolitionist approach to animal rights, as developed by Prof. Gary L. Francione, makes it quite clear that regulating the use of animals in no ways leads to the abolition of their use. Furthermore, regulating their use ultimately does more harm than good, by reinforcing the belief held by industries and most of the general public that nonhuman animals are ours to use in the first place--that they're our property, as well as by making people feel better about continuing to consume them.

This slide show presentation, taken from the The Abolitionist Approach website clarifies what indeed is meant by "an abolitionist approach to animal rights":

Theory of Animal Rights from Gary L. Francione on Vimeo.

Plant-based Eggs and Confrontational Conversation Bombs

The Baltimore Jewish Times ran an article today about preparing Thanksgiving dinner for a group that includes omnivores as well as vegetarians. Hilary Belz (described as a former vegan) was interviewed for supposed tips on how to accommodate. The piece was weirdness incarnate on many levels. For instance, the founder of EarthSave, Baltimore is quoted as saying that some vegetarians "will put a piece of turkey (on their plate) so as not to make waves in the family" at Thanksgiving. Where the article mentioned vegans, however, is where it got my attention: "Vegans don’t eat any animal products but, in addition, some won’t eat eggs and/or honey either."

So, um, do eggs and honey grow on trees?

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This student commentary in The McGill Tribune was a nice change from most of the muck that comes up in in online media concerning veganism. I can completely relate (as I'm sure that many other vegans can) to the experience of having non-vegans feeling compelled to share with you stories of the most delectable (to them) dead animals they've enjoyed in the past, whether to tempt or taunt you. That being said, I can't help but think about possible opportunities for vegan education that could arise if more vegans were comfortable defusing sometimes apparently (and sometimes obviously) confrontational conversation bombs. Any tips or tricks anyone would like to share in comments are most welcome!

Oh, What to Eat?

Vegan Examiner Adam Kochanowicz's recent post ("How to eat vegan: practical ideas") reminded me this morning that it's been a while since I've poked around online to see what some of my favourite vegan food bloggers have been tossing together in their kitchens. I've said it before that it was 1) the availability of vegan recipe sites and cooking threads in vegan online communities, as well as 2) the assortment of decent vegan cookbooks I accumulated that both taught me how to really cook for the first time, as well as facilitated a healthy transition to a plant-based diet. These days, those who are adopting the vegan lifestyle also have an incredible number of vegan food blogs to peruse for everything from cooking tips to recipe suggestions (or even plain old tempting photos of vegan dishes).

As Kochanowicz points out in his article: "It's not just the presence of non-vegan food but the absence of vegan food which creates a barrier for you to immerse yourself in a vegan way of living." I agree with this and also think that an absence of meal preparation ideas can be detrimental for vegans--particularly those who've never really spent much time cooking for themselves. When you just don't know what to make or how to make something, it's all too easy to reach for junky alternatives. Not being a food blogger myself, I'm grateful that I can pick and choose from a wide variety of offerings from others online and highlight them here from time to time. I also hope to begin a regular (and possibly monthly) series of guest cookbook reviews within the next few weeks, thanks to some fellow vegans who've offered to pitch in occasional posts. In the interim:

Claire over at Chez Cayenne shared a recipe for Tempura Nori this past weekend. I could definitely see these becoming quite an addictive snack.

Gaia at Live It Up Vegan! posted a recipe for James Barber's Tofu on Pita. I remember watching Barber's old cooking show The Urban Peasant in my pre-vegan days, too. It was a CBC staple.

Kitchen Dancing's Sinead salvaged some leftover Halloween pumpkins to make Scavenged Pumpkin Buns, using whole grain spelt flour and the kinds of spices that leave a kitchen smelling that almost comforting sort of way it always should when the weather starts to turn cold -- of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg. (You should check out Sinead's other web project--her Ask Science Dude website and podcast.) Speaking of pumpkins...

Mihl at Seitan is My Motor posted a recipe a few days ago for Curried Pumpkin Soup with White Wine and Seitan, with a link to one for another blogger's Pumpkin Chili.

Finally, if you want an eyeful of what gorgeous and delicious vegan food looks like, check out Cooking from 1000 Vegan Recipes. Better yet, pick up a copy of Robin Robertson's book 1000 Vegan Recipes and cook along with them. So far, the six bloggers have 79 recipes down and 921 to go.

Mumblings and Musings About Earnestness in the Animal Movement

I like communication. No, really. I like to bounce ideas off of people and also appreciate it when someone else takes the time to contextualize his or her opinions or conclusions for me, whether by filling in blanks with information previously unknown to me, or by walking me through the process of how he or she came to connect certain dots. I listen as well as I can, and being human, I'm as guilty as the next body of being preoccupied with personal matters or of wielding my grains of salt unapologetically. Whether or not I have a pretty good hunch that I'll disagree with what's presented, I have--at the very least--a genuine interest in listening and in trying to understand where the other person is coming from and how he or she got to that point. Every once in a while, I get to note where he or she may have missed a dot; sometimes not. At the very least, I walk away from the experience with something to consider, whether or not my own opinions regarding the subject at hand have budged a hair's breadth.

I rarely plug my ears unless it becomes clear to me that someone is just arguing for the sake of arguing and that his or her opinion or view isn't grounded in anything other than a need to just be plain old contrary. Going out of your way to give people the benefit of the doubt leaves you running into a lot of people like this, but it also leaves you better able at assessing when to walk away from a discussion that's really just someone's indulging in an opportunity to snipe or browbeat. I also walk away when it becomes apparent that someone is merely engaging in so much rote recitation--the passing on of a convenient "this is how it is and I don't have to justify a thing to you" sort of statement that might as well be a "no comment" as far as its usefulness and sincerity are concerned. I see less of that with individuals and more of it with enormous and well-funded welfarist orgs that actually keep people on the payroll to come up with variations on empty and dismissive statements (or to bombard people with simplistic propaganda). For instance, I sometimes wonder how many spay/neuter surgeries could be performed with the money HSUS spends on Twitter PR alone any given month, but I digress...

Call me naive, but I guess that on some level, I'd like to think that at least some people are also willing to listen, and by this I don't mean just staying mum while contemplating the next thing they'll say, themselves, while you're yammering: I mean an earnest sort of open-minded listening that--at the very least--leaves them with a better idea of how I came to connect my own dots. Only when two participants in a discussion are willing to listen will anything fruitful come of the discussion for both those participants. I see people in the animal movement who could save a lot of time and energy in learning to listen.

By this, I don't necessarily mean learning to let themselves be talked out of their convictions and am certainly not saying that everyone should hold hands and pretend to share the same convictions. What I think would help tremendously, however, would be to spend time discussing how we came to our conclusions rather than just repeating those conclusions over and over again to each other--and to all around us--just to try to drown each other out. We don't have to agree; we also don't have to walk away from disagreement. I'd like to think that most who are seriously committed to helping nonhuman animals are willing engage in critical thinking and possess a certain amount of intellectual honesty. Maybe that's just my still being very much immersed in learning theory and learning the history and politics of the movement, myself. Maybe I merely belie my nasty naive streak in expressing hope for dialogue so that we can--at the very least, and even as we disagree and debate--maintain some sense of civility and stay focused on the issue at hand rather than get lost in the politics and posturing.

Omnivorism as the New Vegetarianism

I guess that there's only so far down a slippery slope someone can push an issue or an idea. Once you get to that point, it's sometimes easiest to cry uncle and go on your way and effect change where things haven't been left a heaping mess. This morning, Prof. Gary L. Francione tweeted a story from the BBC's online News Magazine ("The Rise of the Non-Veggie Vegetarian") -- the sort of article that leaves you walking away with sore eyes (i.e. after you've rolled them so damn much). The article focuses, for the most part, on what one friend often calls 'pesky-tarians'--that strange breed of purportedly ethical eater that insists on self-labeling as 'vegetarian'.

The article points out that Britain's Vegetarian Society, "the custodian of British vegetarianism since 1847", defines a vegetarian as someone who "does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacean, or slaughter byproducts" and then goes on to explain the justifications those who eat fish give for doing so. In some cases, eating fish is defended for health reasons (and the article counters this by clarifying that "some nutritional benefits of eating oily fish can be gained" from eating substances like nuts and seeds). In other cases, those who cling to the vegetarian label, yet choose to eat fish, do so because they attribute less ethical weight or worth to fish, even though according to Revd Prof Andrew Linzey, director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics:

"There is ample evidence in peer-reviewed scientific journals that mammals experience not just pain, but also mental suffering including fear, anticipation, foreboding, anxiety, stress, terror and trauma."

"The case for fish isn't so strong, but scientific evidence at least shows that they experience pain and fear. Anyone who wants to avoid causing pain should give up eating fish."

Of course, many will also point out or acknowledge that the "cuteness factor" has a lot to do with attitudes towards fish. Neither furry nor cuddly, they don't evoke the same reactions as wide-eyed calves or of fuzzy lambs teetering on shaky legs.

While the article does provide quotes and explanations of why, by definition, eating animals is not vegetarian, and although it clarifies how health and ethical arguments touted by some as justifying the eating of fish are more or less bunk, it continues to use the term "fish-eating vegetarians" to describe those who eat fish. Then it slips into an exploration of the words that have come and gone to describe these non-vegetarians who seek to associate themselves with vegetarianism. The word 'pescetarian', one that's been used to define omnivores who eschew all flesh other than that of fish, is described as being somewhat out of fashion; the newer term 'flexitarian' (which, let's face it, really just means 'omnivore') is brought up as the up-and-coming label to use for non-vegetarians who want to be identified with vegetarianism. The article goes on to describe 'meat avoiders' and 'meat reducers' and asserts that "one of the reasons it's so hard to assess the level of vegetarianism is because of the multiple definitions of the term."

The truth is that strong arguments have been made that the term 'vegetarian' as it is now commonly understood (i.e. as describing one who refrains from eating animal flesh, while still eating and / or otherwise using animal products) does not reflect a lifestyle that differs in any significant moral way from omnivorism. So one could ask if it's even worth the bother to concern oneself over whether we now have so-called "fish-eating vegetarians". Is it really even all that relevant, since there's no moral distinction to be made between the consumption of animal flesh or of animal excretions? It seems to me that the issue at hand, with regards to terminology, should be to keep what's clear and consistent from being conflated with this whole heap of confusion from ongoing attempts to co-opt the term 'vegetarian'.

Perhaps it's time for vegans to stop concerning ourselves with the variations involved in the dietary choices of those who are on the path to veganism or who've stalled along the way to reach a plateau they feel is "good enough". Instead of arguing over whether or not we should commend people for shuffling out this or that product and worrying over the watering down of the term 'vegetarian', our focus--particularly for vegan abolitionists--should remain to deliver the clear and consistent message that all animal exploitation needs to be abolished and that the only truly ethical lifestyle choice one can make when it comes to our consideration of nonhuman animals is to go vegan and to remove oneself altogether from the cycle of slavery and slaughter of nonhumans. Think about it.

Part I - Gary Francione Interview

This is the first part of Adam Kochanowitz's interview with Prof. Gary L. Francione, filmed recently at Rutgers University.

Something to Ponder Before Uttering a Single Word

"Liars when they speak the truth are not believed."

--Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), from Diogenes Laertius

Bits and Pieces

Seattle's Jones Soda, best known for manufacturing a Thanksgiving-themed turkey-flavoured soda in recent past, has decided to carry on their tradition this year--with a vegan twist. Check your store shelves soon for Jones' vegan-friendly Tofurkey & Gravy soda. (I'll weigh in with a 'blech', although if the kind folks at Jones want to send me a sample, I'll be glad to post a review.)

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Denver food critic Jason Sheehan weighed in this week with his assessment of ethical eating (and particularly on "that whole NOT EATING MEAT thing, which is just right the fuck out"):

As for me, I'll be down the street drinking beer and eating tacos, because for all this talk about animal rights and ecological consequences, there's still a part of me -- a big part of me -- that has all the food-morality of a blood-mad shark, that refuses to entertain notions of animal ethics when the dinner rush is coming in, that just looks at a cow and thinks, "Hmm, dinner..."

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A story that's been making the rounds since an article first appeared about it on the BBC's website is that Windsor Castle will be holding its first ever vegan banquet tomorrow. Prince Philip is co-hosting a multi-faith conference and to keep matters simple in terms of various religions dietary restrictions, a decision was made to put on a completely plant-based feast. You can see the menu for yourself here. It sounds absolutely delicious.

Veganism in Online Media

Tongue-in-cheek advice columnist Graham Norton of the UK's Telegraph addressed veganism briefly in his "Agony Aunt" feature yesterday (Norton basically encourages readers to send in creative letters that present problems for him to solve). A reader wrote in complaining of her 13-year-old granddaughter's having become a vegan and wondering if she should take a stand against the granddaughter over the issue of Christmas dinner.

It goes against the grain of everything our family stands for. We're (dare I say it) classic hunting, fishing, shooting types.

I met my husband on a grouse moor in Perthshire 45 years ago and have been plucking game birds ever since. I've spoken to friends and it seems that veganism is all the rage these days among the young. I can't understand it at all.

His response is sort of all over the place, chiding the letter-writer for having worked herself "into a frenzy beyond reason" and suggesting that she merely get the granddaughter to bring her own food, but then referring to vegan food as "kitchen waste on a plate", suggesting as a positive thing that the granddaughter may be too "lazy" to bring her own food and may end up abandoning her "faddish diet" to indulge in the feast after all. He finishes off writing:

It is ironic that people with dietary requirements (what we used to call fussy eaters) think it makes them in some way interesting when in fact it renders them as dull as what they eat. I know there are serious issues about hormones in meat and overfishing but is eating a free-range organic turkey so very wrong? It is Jesus's birthday after all.

I have as much of a sense of humour as the next person and am used to seeing people poke fun at things they don't understand. I wonder if the general public would find it half as funny if that sort of letter and response were written with roles reversed -- a vegan grandmother dealing with an omni granddaughter. I suspect that it would only work if the poke was yet again taken at the vegan.

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Ari Solomon caught my attention back in September with a piece he wrote for Huffington Post ("Who You Calllin' Vegangelical?") that addressed eye-roll inducing accusations that veganism is extremist and cultish. As he (so aptly) put it,"[i]nstead of vegangelical, the word [used to describe it] should be veganlogical. A week later, he wrote a piece ("Down With the Truth") discussing the torturous process of plucking birds to fill coats and comforters. His piece the following week ("The Feminist's Dilemma") was an insightful examination of feminism and the dairy industry and his most recent piece ("Animals Are Stupid") is one of my favourites. It addresses the significance that we attribute to intelligence when determining the value of nonhumans' lives -- particularly how we impose our own limited understanding of 'intelligence' on them to judge them. I'm looking forward to further articles by Solomon and definitely recommend keeping an eye on what he's up to at Huffington Post for the next while. You can also find him on Twitter (@VeganAri) to stay up to date on his latest work.

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In a stellar example of experiment-induced failure, Chris Bickel of the The Daily Collegian ended his month's flirtation with vegetarianism with a victory dance and a complete lack of understanding of what it means to not eat animal flesh. In his series instalment last week, Bickel complained that people associate vegetarianism with veganism, which he portrayed as being extremely limited in options. In this week's installment, he provides a shining example of why a foray into vegetarianism is in no way a step on the path towards veganism. He also provides a good example of how vegetarianism is really just no more than a shuffling around of the animals products someone following an omnivorous diet would eat, minus a bit of (or all) flesh:

I've shocked myself realizing how easy being a vegetarian has been, with all the health benefits tagged onto the lifestyle as well. But there is one stipulation to my new outlook. I'm not going to keep it as strict as I have this month. If I have to identify myself with a specific type of vegetarian, it'd [sic] label myself as a pescetarian, a vegetarian who still eats fish -- starting after a celebratory burger on Nov. 1.

To be fair to Bickel, he does make it clear that ethics are off his radar and that he's chosen to sometimes eschew eating animal flesh solely for the health and weight loss benefits:

I just want to make it clear that I'm doing this strictly for the dietary benefits, not the ethical reasons at the heart of some vegetarians' choices. And admittedly, because I'm not keeping strict regulation on my diet now, I can foresee a taste of meat on special occasions. (I mean, Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same with out some turkey with my grandma's delicious gravy.)

It's just a shame that in his article, in which he professes to have learned a lot about negative connotations and prejudices that his only passing references to veganism and following a diet completely free of animals had to be--well--negative and sort of prejudiced.

Wayne Pacelle, Get That Elephant Out of Your Living Room, Will You?

It seems that Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of HSUS, has been busy traveling coast to coast, spending some of HSUS' millions to field pre-submitted questions from HSUS supporters. According to his blog post on October 22, many people have been asking what they can "do to help The HSUS and animal protection". Pacelle's enthusiasm was definitely infectious at the beginning of his blog post; I have to admit that I got a little excited, myself! I thought, "50 whole options! Surely one of them must be..." and then found myself shaking my head a little sadly as I made my way through the items.

Pacelle asserts that the "movement" can only succeed if millions "take these positive actions" and adds that "we can all pitch in to raise funds to support the vital work of The HSUS and allow it to grow and be a more powerful and effective force" (i.e. please send bigger donation checks). So what are the positive actions? Pacelle presents them under different categorical headings:

In Your Community:

• Encourage your local media to run information and PSAs from HSUS and distribute HSUS leaflets at events.

Get Training -- Get Activated:

• Take advantage of HSUS' various humane education programs to learn to spread the HSUS message, attend HSUS conferences and awards ceremonies, volunteer at HSUS events, take a course through HSUS' Humane Society University.

Volunteer To Help Animals:

• With HSUS' Wildlife Land Trust and the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association Field Services program. It's also mentioned that you can volunteer at your local shelter, although it sticks out a little as a non-HSUS option.

Political Activities:

• Lobby, lobby, lobby for HSUS campaigns and initiatives.

Work with Local Schools:

• Get kids involved in HSUS initiatives and help get HSUS into your local schools.

Give Us Your Moolah:

• Support HSUS corporate sponsors. Buy things through HSUS.

Speaking of Moolah:

• Give HSUS more of your own money, organize HSUS fundraisers to raise additional money for HSUS, and finally, host a social event and invite an HSUS representative to come talk to your friends and family about why they should be giving money to HSUS.

How About What Wayne Pacelle Thinks You Should Do on a Personal Level:

• Sign up for HSUS alerts and promote them through your blog / website / social networking and support their highly-publicized and celebrity-endorsed single issue campaigns (e.g. the illogical "Boycott purchasing / eating one kind of Canadian animal until the Canadian government stops killing another kind of Canadian animal" campaign).

Four of the other suggestions Pacelle makes are sound enough: Adopt or foster from your local shelter, keep your cats indoors, learn to co-exist with wildlife without resorting to killing said wildlife and establish a "pet care trust" for animals in your care lest anything happen to you.

The remaining suggestions about what you can do on a personal level to "help The HSUS and animal protection" were just more of the same old stuff I've come to expect from this welfarist group. Pacelle basically lists off a bunch of half-hearted things that are more about making yourself feel better than they are about taking the interests of animals seriously. He does so while walking around the big ol' elephant in his living room (or swank HSUS office, whichever the case may be). That elephant is veganism.

In a list of 50, there is no mention made of simply not using or exploiting animals as a viable option to "help" them. Instead of suggesting that you purchase animal-free cosmetics, he says to ensure that the cosmetics you use haven't been "tested" on animals. Instead of suggesting that you frequent vegan restaurants, he suggests that you try to talk restaurants into carrying more "cage-free" eggs. Instead of suggesting you go vegan, he suggests you reduce your meat consumption and avoid factory-farmed products. He does mention replacing "meat and other animal-based food with vegetarian food", which is confusing. By "animal-based food", does he mean things that contain animal flesh and that these should be replaced with eggs or dairy? I mean, if by "animal-based food" he meant eggs and dairy, then he should have said that they should be replaced with VEGAN food instead of side-stepping the issue and treating 'vegan' as if it's a dirty word.

What's HSUS going to do about that elephant in your living room, Wayne? 'Cause surely, ignoring him isn't humane. Isn't it time for an HSUS "Go Vegan!" campaign?

Kierkegaard On Our Relationships with Others

"Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes--but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others."
-- Søren Kierkegaard

Veganism and Moral Confusion in Mainstream Media This Week

In an interview in Springfield, Missouri's News-Leader.com today, Registered Dietician Adam Pruett, describes veganism as a class of vegetarianism and when asked how children fare on vegetarian or vegan diets, he states that

[t]ypically, children following a vegan diet if they are under 5 years of age can obtain enough nutrition to maintain growth, but it will be slower and in the low-normal category.

I'd like to find some more information on this since the anecdotal evidence I've received over the years from vegan parents generally shows that there isn't much difference, or, that the overemphasis on fitting kids into very rigid growth ranges to assess how they're doing has become less of a focus over recent years. Since he cites no sources, I'll have to guess that his own evidence is anecdotal or a guesstimate and since the sample of vegan kids in that age range is probably small (particularly in Missouri) that he may very well just be perpetuating a myth about veganism more than anything. Furthermore, even if the statement were true, I'm not even sure it's relevant; it may amount to some scaremongering, though. In the interim, if someone can find some stats on this, feel free to share them in the comments.

ETA: After a brief exchange on Twitter, Virginia Messina, MPH, RD, had this to say about the article ("Vegan Issues in the News: Meeting Nutrient Needs and Growth of Vegan Kids").

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The New York Times had an article in its "Fashion & Style" section on Friday about the rising trend of DIY butchering classes. According to the article:

DIY butchering [...] allows self-conscious carnivores — who in the past were candidates for vegetarianism — to justify their flesh-laden dinners. By learning to slaughter and butcher, they say, they can honor their pigs and eat them, too.

Also, according to PETA's 2004 Proggy Award winner, Temple Grandin,

[p]eople who slaughter their own animals can spare the animals the horrors of the factory killing floor, where animals often meet their end in a state of panic.

So, then, the best way to deal with an urge to dis-involve oneself from animal exploitation and the cruelty inherent in it is to slaughter an animal yourself? And by getting your own hands bloody, you're not only saving the animal from a frightening and grizzly slaughterhouse death, but are purportedly "honoring" this animal whose life you've taken to prove that you can "face the ugly realities of eating meat"? This is nonsensical and disturbing, at the very least.

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Speaking of PETA...

We've become used to single-issue campaigns by animal welfare groups such as PETA targeting designers who incorporate fur into their fashion shows or fashion lines, this will surely be getting a bit of attention from animal people (and even squeamish ordinary folks) on the interwebs this week. The only thing that sets this apart from other forms of animal exploitation is that the juxtaposition is a little out of the ordinary.

We're used to seeing people wearing leather, wool, feathers and fur; we're used to seeing raw animal flesh on little styrofoam trays or in big frozen chunks at the supermarket. The general population doesn't react to this. Let the two overlap and there'll surely be a fair amount of indignation (or even outrage) voiced concerning this over coming days, by vegans and (somewhat ironically) non-vegans, alike.

On the Abolitionist Approach

"Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animal are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy. It’s better for your health. It’s better for the planet. But, most importantly, it is the morally right thing to do.

You can become an abolitionist today. Right now. Right this second. You do not need a big organization or expensive campaign. You do not need to sit naked in a cage. You do not need any leaders to tell you what to do. You just need to say no to violence and let that refusal to cooperate with oppression start with what you put in and on your body."

-- Prof. Gary L. Francione

Read the rest of it here ("Some Thoughts on the Abolitionist Approach") in the latest blog update on Prof. Francione's Abolitionist Approach website. You can also read it on the Opposting Views website and leave comments.

Vegan Book Club

This is just a quick update to point out that a vegan book club has been set up at the Goodreads website by a fellow-vegan called Andrew (aka @dripsandcastle on Twitter). You can find the book club here. The group is currently discussing what sort of format we'd like to have, and members are in the process of making book suggestions. The plan is to discuss books on both veganism and animal rights. Membership is currently open to anyone with a serious interest in either topic.

You can also follow the group on Twitter or on Facebook. Join soon, since the book suggestion process should wrap up by Sunday, October 25 and things will be starting shortly thereafter.

Getting it Wrong in Australia

The Whittlesea Leader had an article this morning ("Bundoora Vegan Hits the Mark") about an upcoming World Vegan Day event in Melbourne and interviewed one of its organizers, Mark Reece. One particular snippet with Reece reminded me of why it is that I get a little apprehensive when the significance of the dietary aspect of veganism (such as in this article) is stressed, more so than on all of the possible ways in which vegans refuse to exploit nonhuman animals (e.g. not wearing clothing made of animal body parts, avoiding personal hygiene products that contain animal products, etc.). In the article, Reece explained veganism by stating that it is "a plant-based diet excluding animal products, with some vegans also choosing not to wear animal products such as leather and wool".

To a vegan, there is no difference between either eating part of a nonhuman animal or wearing part of a nonhuman animal. In both cases, the animal has been treated like a thing and exploited. In both cases, the nonhuman animal has been enslaved, made to suffer and slaughtered.