Americans know that going vegetarian is not a new concept. But it's also true that some people in India have been eating vegan for thousands of years. The
Although there are few historical records of multiple vegan cultures, many societies chose to go plant-based for religious reasons or because it is a part of their lifestyle.
Veganism is an extreme form of vegetarianism, and though the term was coined in 1944, the concept of flesh-avoidance can be traced back to ancient Indian and eastern Mediterranean societies. Vegetarianism is first mentioned by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras of Samos around 500 BCE.
The Vegan Society is the oldest vegan organisation in the world and was founded in 1944. At the establishment of the Society, founder Donald Watson and his wife coined the term 'vegan' to describe the lifestyle of what were then called the non-dairy vegetarians.
In Leviticus 11, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron and sets out which animals can be eaten and which cannot: “You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud.
Before the age of intensive farming and soil deficiency, humans would have been able to get their B12 by accidental ingestion of soil and manure in the same way as wild animals.
Today, it's generally the case that vegetarianism is considered a personal choice in Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism: most eat meat, and others are vegetarian, pescatarian, or vegan. Vegetarianism is more common in Mahayana schools, and particularly in the Chinese, Koreaean, and Vietnamese traditions, and in the West.
United Kingdom. Compared to all the countries in the world, the UK has the most vegans.
A vegan diet does not automatically mean that you will age faster or slower than anyone else. A balanced plant-based diet is however protective against premature ageing. Plant foods have a beneficial influence on the main processes that promote ageing; oxidation, inflammation and glycation.
The Vikings needed all the energy that they could get in the form of fat – especially in winter. Meat, fish, vegetables, cereals and milk products were all an important part of their diet. Sweet food was consumed in the form of berries, fruit and honey.
Meat-eating may have evolved alongside a host of other behaviors that unleashed the power of our larger brains and set us down the path to complex language and societies. “Maybe meat made us human not just because we were eating it, but because of the social stuff we were doing around it,” says Merritt.
This could explain why fruits and vegetables are not only good for us but are vital to our survival. Indeed, we're one of the few species so adapted to a plant-based diet that we could actually die from not eating fruits and vegetables, from the vitamin C-deficiency disease, scurvy.
Hindu and Buddhism
Both of these traditions emphasize the importance of nonviolence and compassion towards all living beings, and this commitment to ethical conduct has led many followers to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. In Hinduism, the concept of ahimsa, or nonviolence, is a central tenet of the faith.
Plant-based eating is deeply rooted in three of the prominent religions practiced in India – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. All these religions believe in the concept of Ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence towards all living things.
Preventing the exploitation of animals is not the only reason for becoming vegan, but for many it remains the key factor in their decision to go vegan and stay vegan. Having emotional attachments with animals may form part of that reason, while many believe that all sentient creatures have a right to life and freedom.
Based on early data from the National Nutrition Survey and other studies we estimate that about 2% of Australians are vegan. This is approximately 500,000 people.
Veganism is a lifestyle which avoids meat, fish and other animal by-products such as dairy, and is gaining popularity as each year goes by. In January 2023 there was a record-breaking sign up rate for Veganuary with one person signing up every 2.4 seconds on 1st January.
In Sydney, there are heaps of vegan restaurants at every budget that cater to whatever you're craving — vegan pizza, burgers, pies, gelato and a variety of cuisines including Japanese, Italian, Palestinian, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Mediterranean and Mexican.
In 1999, it was published that the Dalai Lama would only be vegetarian every other day and partakes of meat regularly. When he is in Dharamsala, he is vegetarian, but not necessarily when he is outside Dharamsala.
On the one hand, the vinaya (the rules of monks) explicitly allows monks to eat meat. On the other hand, Tibetan Buddhism idealizes the practice of compassion, and expects practitioners to focus their efforts on relieving the suffering of all sentient beings—a category that explicitly includes animals.
It is very important that all vegans ensure they have an adequate intake of B12, from fortified foods or supplements. This will benefit our health and help to attract others to veganism through our example.
In the human genome, a mutation at the coding region of a gene known as L-gulonolactone oxidase (GULO) renders this pathway dysfunctional. Thus, humans are unable to synthesize vitamin C on their own.
However, Amanda Henry at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, thinks that early human diets may have tipped towards being plant-rich. “We need plant-derived nutrients to survive – vitamin C and fibre, for example,” she says. “Hominins were probably predominantly vegetarians.”