I wouldn't say anything to them because it is none of my business how they live or what they call themselves. I don't alienate anyone. In the context of the first post in this thread I was just pointing out that his attempt to discuss a beef burger vs a vegan burger and the health of each is not appropriate on a vegan forum as 'veganism' is not defined by health but by whether animals are harmed.
Emma JC
@Emma JC . It may have sounded like I was accusing you but I just get tired of the mantra by too many people on youtube and otherwise who parrot what I consider elitist vegan stuff. They say you "were never vegan" even if a person was vegan for 5-10 years, simply because they didn't do it for THEIR reasons or didn't think exactly like them. This is rubbish. What I also think is rubbish is people saying that it's for lack of empathy (didn't do it for the animals specifically and only) that people "try and fail". As most of these people say they crave animal products, I tend to think it has a lot more to do with them eating so called "vegan" garbage foods and otherwise nutrient deficient foods, not occasionally, but regularly, and also being lax about even abstaining from all animal foods. I don't think YOU were alienating anyone, but I think that the attitudes of some already described most certainly do.
So that being said, what follows is my response to your quoted statement that I put in bold:
"...as 'veganism' is not defined by health but by whether animals are harmed."
I regularly kill poisonous spiders if I find them in my home. I let one live once, a poisonous but non deadly one, thinking everything would be fine. It wasn’t bothering me, just sitting on the wall. So I let it live.
It found it’s way into my bed at night and got spooked while I was sleeping and bit me.
An animal wasn’t harmed, but I was. I had a scar and lump for around a year. Now I kill those particular kind and any other deadly kind that happen to find their way in.
Am I not a vegan? By the definition you stated, I’m not. Nor would I be by that definition if I killed invading rats that could bite me and give me disease, a rabid dog I may encounter completely minding my own business, any snakes I come across ( Australia has the deadliest snakes and spiders).
The founder of Veganism defined it as a diet (for the person wearing the label, not their mother, distant aunt, not their dog and not their cat) with encouragement not to use other animal products where you can. To me that’s pretty simple. I eat a diet free of animal products. I live in an industrialized country and area where I can use motorized transport. So no need of a horse. But I’d ride the horse if I needed to. I live in an area where I can get animal free clothing so I do so. But if that wasn’t available I’d buy what I needed to keep myself covered and warm in the winter months.
Too many people seem confused about this. The UK Vegan society didn’t invent the word and they certainly don’t own it. Donald Watson came up with the term and to him it was primarily a diet. The first and only requirement to this diet was an exclusion of all animal products. There are no other requirements, only encouragements to avoid other non food animal products where you can.
Not harming animals full stop belongs in a world where animals don’t attack and bite humans, don’t decimate crops, invade factories and so forth. So in other words, a world different from this one.