Remembering Donald Watson – Vegan Pioneer
Donald Watson’s legacy extends beyond providing a name for our movement, but creating the term ‘vegan’ is certainly one of the most salient and perhaps widest reaching of his contributions.
Donald Watson’s legacy extends beyond providing a name for our movement, but creating the term ‘vegan’ is certainly one of the most salient and perhaps widest reaching of his contributions.
It's often assumed that leather is merely a byproduct of meat, and that it does not contribute to a profoundly brutal and immoral institution. This is a false assumption. Not only is it highly profitable for the meat industry, much of the world's leather comes from animals killed primarily for their skins.
Being vegan is about embracing a worldview that is starkly different from the dominant premise that other beings exist simply to fulfill human desires. The reality is that we do not need to exploit insects, and there is no justification for using them as a resource for our own ends.
From duck feathers to pancreatic enzymes, commercial bread provides a whole new collection of reasons for everyone to learn how to decipher an ingredients list.
As we look more closely at the reality of the backyard chicken trend, it becomes increasingly clear that it is the same commodification of animals, packaged in niche marketing to appeal to the modern “conscious consumer”.
Wool often tends to be overlooked by animal advocates because its cultivation does not necessitate the death of the animal. However, the cultivation of wool is far from the pastoral idyll one might imagine.