Veganism is a social movement. It’s based on the principle that human beings should live without exploiting animals.
Vegans seek to end the use of other animals for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection—and all exploitation of animal life.
In the hope of achieving the ideal, vegans commit to living as closely to it as personal circumstances permit.
While veganism is not a diet, vegans do apply the principle to their diets, committing to complete and consistent vegetarianism.
People become vegetarians for various reasons—humanitarian, ecological, health-based, etc. Veganism, though, is a principle—that we have no right to dominate and control other animals—so we follow a consistent, animal-free diet. Free of flesh, whether of mammals, birds, or sea animals, free of eggs, free of honey, free of animal milk and its derivatives, our culinary arts are plant-based, wholesome, and guided by fairness. We seek animal liberation—that is, reintegration of other animals within the balance and sanity of nature itself.
Our purpose is to redeem a great mistake, with the stupendous effect it has had upon the course of evolution. As veganism spreads, the conception of other animals as existing within Earth’s great bio-community for us to possess will begin to fade away.
The purpose of veganism transcends welfare; its goal is liberation—of other animals and of the human spirit.
It is not so much an effort to make the present relationship between ourselves and other animals bearable, as an uncompromising recognition that because it is basically one of master and slave, that relationship has to be abolished before something better and finer can be created.