r/Veganism

Fellow solarpunks, I’m not here to speak from a moral high ground. I was a meat eater for most of my life, and I’m not trying to force my values on anyone. This infographic isn’t really about my values – it’s about values most of us already share. I just think it’s important to reflect on whether our choices align with them.

Let's be honest to each other and and keep it civil ✌️

For more info on each point and links to sources, see this article

The Distortion of Veganism —
Veganism was defined by Leslie Cross in 1951 as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals." The founders never redefined it. Everything that followed was distortion.

1953 — John Heron joins the Vegan Society. His first publication proposes a "three-fold approach" diluting veganism into health, spirituality, and animal concern equally.

1957 — Heron becomes president, calls a Special Members Meeting, and the definition disappears from the Constitution.

1960s — Jack Sanderson, editor of The Vegan and BBC face of the Society, recentres veganism from the animal to the practitioner — lifestyle, health, environmental stewardship. The victim disappears.

1971 — Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet reframes plant-based eating as resource efficiency. Feeding the world, not freeing animals.

1975 — Peter Singer's Animal Liberation replaces exploitation with suffering as the moral threshold. Use becomes acceptable if painless. Abolitionism quietly swapped for utilitarian calculus.

1979 / 1988 — A new group introduces a redefinition with three fatal insertions: "as far as is possible and practicable" (the escape clause), "cruelty to" alongside exploitation (welfarist dilution), and "benefit of humans, animals and the environment" (the triple bottom line).

1984 — Kathleen Jannaway founds the Movement for Compassionate Living. Compassion replaces emancipation.

1990s — Industry welfarism. "Humane" labels, certification schemes, market segments.

2010 — "Plant-based" corporate rebrand surgically removes ethical content.

2017 — Tobias Leenaert's How to Create a Vegan World makes incrementalism official. Exploitation reframed as a dial to turn down, not a wrong to end.

The animals cannot resist, testify, escape, or organise. They cannot read the redefinitions. They experience only the material consequence — while the movement above them argues terminology and congratulates itself on half-measures.
The animals were the only reason the word existed. The founders never redefined it. You are here to fix it.