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On Friday, I wrote about food labels, specifically the definition of vegan. As I was writing responses to the comments we received, one of them, a response to Elaine Vignault, grew so long it became a post of it's own. I had planned on writing about the Veggie Pride Parade, but this took precedence. Coincidentally, Elaine wrote about that tonight so you can read about it over at her blog. Click here if you'd like to see the comment that inspired this post, scroll down a bit, it's #11.

Hi Elaine,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful commentary. You presented the issue of strict labeling very well. However, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. While I respect your conviction, it feels to me like you're trying to make "vegan" exclusive.

For my purposes, vegan is about food -- whether it's an ethical decision or otherwise, it is about what you don't consume. Therefore, the ethical part of it doesn't have to come in to play in the definition.

If there has to be a strata of definitions, then I would think "vegan" would be the general category (not eating animal products) and there would be modifiers around that: "strict" to mean avoids all products derived from animals/insects; "ethical" to mean animal rights oriented; "dietary" to mean health oriented; etc. But they're all still vegan. The modifiers could clarifiy the degree to which you practice your veganism. Kind of like Reformed, Orthodox, or Conservative Judaism.

I eat honey. I don't eat animal products. I am a vegan. I do my best to avoid by-products, but I drive a car, I feed my cats "regular" cat food, I use crayons with my nieces and nephews, the walls that surround me are made of sheetrock. I am a vegan. (All of these contain animal by-products.)

I do agree that it might be unfair to the "strict" vegans if it becomes commonplace to include honey as a vegan ingredient. However, there are many of us vegans (people who were vegan long before I was) who think honey is an acceptable ingredient. If I understand you correctly, we're "strict vegetarians" and therefore should be looking for "vegetarian" products. But often those contain dairy and eggs. I don't eat those, I'm a vegan. I'm noticing that more often, food manufacturer's are including a list of potentially objectionable items (wheat, soy, nuts) after their main ingredient list, and those key ingredients are often in bold text. Perhaps honey can be included in this list. Since there are vegans who consume honey, this makes more sense to me than saying the foods we're eating are vegetarian when we don't consume non-vegan food items (dairy, eggs).

I hope this didn't come across as being antagonistic. I like to think I'm tolerant and accepting of others' viewpoints. I have a bit of an issue with labels, though. I think they're more divisive than helpful. I understand the need to categorize foods in some way, however, I feel that all of these sub-labels are confusing, and simply set us up to be "wrong" in the way we choose to practice being vegan.

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Last night I wrote a post explaining why we (the collective we) should cut down on our meat consumption. Now as vegans, Jane and I have done that to the extreme. However, we have omnivorous friends and family members who have chosen not to go down the vegan path with us, some of them may even be you (our readers). As I've written before, I believe diet is a very personal choice and you are entitled to make whatever decision you feel benefits you the most. The only thing I ask, is that you truly consider all the facts surrounding what you choose to put in your mouth.

We've received a few emails suggesting that we should take a more militant stance. Someone actually went so far as to say that we are not true vegan advocates as we aren't demanding that people become vegan. Instead, we've "gently" asked people to consider cutting down their consumption of meat. Well, here's something to consider: If every omnivore would simply eat meatless one day every week that would result in an immediate 14.3% decrease in the consumption of meat. That's a pretty significantly impact.

There is a small, but vocal, minority of vegans out there who think that if you eschew animal products for any reason other than animal welfare, then you are not a vegan. Or that if you're not being vegan to the extreme (this includes scrutinizing the ingredients and processing of every food item you're going to ingest) then you may as well eat meat. We emphatically disagree. Every little bit helps, and if that means embracing the omnivores who choose to "eat vegan" one or two days a week, I say welcome to the fold! Yes, you can be vegan one day per week. And I have to ask our less flexible members of the vegan community, what exactly is the goal here? Because it seems to me, if you are coming at veganism from an animal rights or environmental perspective, an immediate 14.3% reduction is something to happily embrace.

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Savia contacted us this morning and suggested a modification to our petition.

Oprah’s not the kind of person who is going to ask her viewers to be vegan. However, it is possible she would do a show about the horrors of the way animals that are raised and slaughtered for our food are treated. I wish you had focused on that instead. Because if you highlighted the abuses and encouraged her to do a show on that, then the natural implication is that people watching that show will come to their own conclusions on becoming vegetarian or seeking out more humaine food options.

I think this strategy would have reached more people and would have had a better chance of success (i.e. Oprah doing a show on livestock abuse/conditions).

And we agree. Since we've only had a few signatories so far, we went ahead with it. We changed the end request from asking Oprah to suggest that her audience consider becoming vegan to specifically asking her to do a story on what goes on in the factory farming industries. We feel that while the wording was changed here, we do not believe we have significantly altered the intent of this petition to Oprah.

Please note -- in the interest of fairness to those who have signed this petition we will not be making any further changes.

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To Our Readers:

Jane and I have spent a significant portion of the last two weeks putting together a petition to Oprah Winfrey. On April 4th, Oprah did a show in memory of her companion dog, Sophie, who passed away on March 10th. The show was inspired by a billboard she saw on her way in to work, asking her to investigate puppy mills. During this show, Oprah exposed some of the horrors inherent in the nature of this business. However, she made, what we consider to be, a blunder when she defended the breeders by saying that they thought of these dogs as livestock. The implication here, which was hopefully unintended, is that livestock can be abysmally treated by their owners.

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential people in this country, if not the world. Her reach is far. If enough of us get together and sign a petition, perhaps we can get her to present to her audience the inhumane nature of the treatment of livestock.

We need your help. We're asking you to please sign our petition, and to pass this along to everyone you know. We can work together to change the world!

Thank you -- Lane & Jane Wright