Vegan vs Vegetarian?

[nauthiz]

Hey, missed this forum the first time around, but I hope it's not too late to join the critical mass!

Figured I'd throw a few more details onto the pile:

First off, there's a bit of a range of what people consider permissible as far as animal product use among vegans, though most everyone agrees it's impossible to avoid all use in the real world. Car tires are usually made with dairy-derived ingredients and tend to be used as the classic example of how striving for 100% Pure Vegan Purity™ is the path of madness. Slightly (but not much) more controversially, my cats still eat meat and I have no interest in trying to switch them to a vegan diet.

I'm actually pretty far out on the lax end. I tend to break a lot of rules outside of the house. I'm not really interested in forcing my friends to buy vegan margarine when I'm eating at their house; a little butter isn't going to kill me. I tend to have a don't ask don't tell policy about ingredients at restaurants, too.


As far as reasons, mine haven't really changed between my being vegan and my being vegetarian: killing unnecessarily remains the real moral sticking point. The big change was just learning more about the realities of commercial livestock agriculture, particularly the realization that actively culling the herd is an essential part of the whole process.

Further out on the spectrum, others hold that any domestication whatsoever is inhumane and should be abolished. I believe PETA goes so far as to say that domestic species such as dogs that are no longer properly adapted to live in the wild should be prevented from reproducing until they go extinct.


Oh, I almost forgot:

I also eat a bit of dairy and take fish oil supplements, though I am going to switch to hemp oil once my current bottle runs out.

In case you're interested, there's a brand of algae-derived omega-3 supplement called V-Pure. It's a bit more comparable to fish oil in that it also contains EPA, which is lacking in hemp and flax.

[Ceny Sweet]

Vegetarian is a blanket term used to describe a person who does not consume meat, poultry, fish, or seafood.
And
Vegan is the strictest sub-category of vegetarians. Vegans do not consume any animal products or by-products. Some go as far as not even consuming honey and yeast. Others do not wear any clothing made from animal products.