Browsing Category
HEALTH
Health
OMNIVORE DILEMMA: Moralistic stereotyping of vegans
BEN DE GROEVE: Attitudes toward vegans can be markedly ambivalent. On the one hand, vegans may evoke admiration among omnivores for their moral commitment to their vegan diet and lifestyle. On the other hand, vegans may be subjected to stigmatization for appearing to display moralistic traits indicating arrogance and overcommitment. This ambivalence in stereotypical impressions has recently been termed the “vegan paradox” and is theorized to stem from the cognitive dissonance people may feel from eating meat: Omnivores may view vegans as morally committed because they embody care for…
MILESTONE: Vegans are protected by human rights, Danish court rules
VEGETARISK FORENING: On February 8th 2024, a lower court in Denmark, the court in the city of Hjorring granted the vegan movement in Denmark a milestone win. A Danish court has now ruled that vegans are protected under Article 9 of the European Court of Human Rights. The ruling is the first of its kind in Denmark, and the Vegetarian Society of Denmark is proud to have taken this case to the courts and won. The case was about the right of vegan children in public daycare institutions to be able to eat vegan food. A Danish kindergarten (and the municipality running it) had refused to prepare…
HEADS-UP: Plant-based diet may boost quality of life after prostate cancer
BRIELLE BENYON: Patients with prostate cancer may experience fewer sexual and urinary side effects if they take on a plant-based diet, according to recent research published in the journal, Cancer... The study included 3,505 individuals with non-metastatic prostate cancer who filled out food-frequency questionnaires and had their quality of life calculated by the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, is a 15-item questionnaire that measures urinary incontinence, urinary irritation, as well as bowel, sexual and hormonal health-related…
‘Moral Impossibility’: What if veganism is not a choice
SILVIA PANIZZA: In their daily practices, many ethical vegans choose what to eat, wear, and buy among a range that is limited to the exclusion of animal products. Rather than considering and then rejecting the idea of using such products, doing so often does not occur to them as a possibility at all. In other cases, when confronted with the possibility of consuming animal products, vegans have claimed to reject it by saying that it would be impossible for them to do so. I refer to this phenomenon as ‘moral impossibility’. An analysis of moral impossibility in animal ethics shows that it…
‘Zero-Compromise Veganism’: Should vegan parents raise their children as vegans?
JOSH MILBURN: Should vegan parents raise their children as vegans? In a recent paper, Marcus William Hunt contends that there are good reasons not to raise children as vegans grounded in concerns about the impact of veganism on children’s wellbeing. Carlo Alvaro, in response, contends that parents should raise their children as vegans. This debate is interesting, important, and worth attending to.1 In this paper, I want to focus on a specific and novel contribution Hunt makes concerning vegan parenting. In a separate piece, Hunt argues that when parents disagree about whether to raise…
The animal feed industry’s impact on the planet
VICKY BOND: Take a moment to picture a farm animal enjoying dinner. Are you imagining a cow grazing on grass or perhaps a chicken pecking at the ground, foraging for seeds and insects? In today’s factory farming system, the “feed” these animals eat is far removed from their natural diets. Rather than munching on grass or insects, most animals on factory farms eat some type of animal feed—a cost-effective mixture of grains, proteins, and often the addition of antibiotics designed to make them grow as quickly as possible.
The ingredients in animal feed don’t just matter to the animals’…
BEHIND THE MASK: How ‘One Health’ instrumentalizes nonhuman animals
L. SYD M JOHNSON: One Health (OH) is an approach to health that views the health of humans, nonhuman animals, and ecosystems as interconnected. Conceptually, it emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to global health challenges. The World Health Organization notes that OH “is particularly relevant for food and water safety, nutrition, the control of zoonoses … pollution management, and combatting antimicrobial resistance.” This statement of priorities is reflected in the growing literature on OH and pandemics, wherein the emphasis has often been on nonhuman animals as vectors of disease and…
The ‘Animal-Based Food Taboo’: Climate change denial in media and journalism
NURIA ALMIRON: Climate change denial refers to the stances that advocate against the evidence posited for human-induced global warming... Since the publication of Livestock's Long Shadow by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2006, an increasing number of governmental and non-governmental organizations and independent researchers have pointed at animal agriculture, and, by extension, animal-based diets, as a primary contributor to global warming.
At the same time, over the last few decades, animal advocates, animal rights organizations, and many scholars and experts from a wide array…
Five people on how Veganuary changed their lives
MORGAN OFORI: It has been 10 years since Jane Land and Matthew Glover started a plant-based revolution. In the last decade, the number of vegans in the UK has quadrupled to one million. Here, five readers share how they fared with Veganuary since it launched a decade ago...
‘The only thing I regret is not doing it sooner’. I tried veganism in January 2014, which coincided with the first Veganuary. I only committed for six weeks, thinking it would be too difficult to go without cheese. I still remember taking a couple of hours to do my first food shop, reading all the labels. Now I’ve been…
Veganuary 2024: Total number of global participants could be 25 million
VEGCONOMIST: With Veganuary 2024 having recently come to a close, the organization has revealed that over 1.8 million people received its support and guidance to try veganism, in the form of emails, videos, social media posts, and podcasts...
Veganuary has calculated that the actual number of participants is likely to be even higher than the figures indicate, as many people take part without officially signing up. To gain an estimate of the true number, the organization has commissioned YouGov surveys in its core campaign countries. The results suggest that the total number of participants…