Prohibition on animal ingredients/involvement in any products?

Graeme M

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Joined
Nov 23, 2019
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Age
65
Location
Canberra, Australia
Lifestyle
  1. Vegan
Why the prohibition on animal ingredients and/or involvement in any products?

I often come across people being quite fastidious about whether or not animals have any involvement in their diet. For example, some folk object to eating food cooked on the same hotplate as meat or they won't touch food that may contain traces of milk or shellfish or whatever. I was looking at a website the other day that provides an app for download that evaluates products for being vegan and they take a very rigid stance on this (Fussy Vegan).

The definition for veganism by the UK Vegan Society has changed over the years with the original definition defining veganism as a diet while encouraging people to avoid use of other products derived from animals. Later, the definition became more "rights" based and aimed to prevent exploitation and cruelty. Honey has been in and out quite a few times over the years. But in all of that, I have never found any reason specifically to object to the things I mentioned above.

However, it seems that the Society and others have set a standard for what makes a vegan product acceptable today and there is even an ISO standard for this.

Where has this idea come from?

Note: Fussy Vegan provides this information:

2. Animal Ingredients

The manufacture and or development of the product, and its ingredients, must not involve or have involved, the use of any animal product, by-product or derivative.

* In regards to animal ingredients being used in pre-harvest processes, such as fertiliser, we have determined that it is currently not feasible to accurately verify this for all or even most products, as most manufacturers would source their plant based ingredients from multiple sources, which can often equate to hundreds of different farms just for one ingredient in one product. To properly determine this, there would need to be in place something similar to RSPO certification for palm oil or Fair Trade for chocolate. This is certainly not something we would have any capacity to establish. There are readily available vegan friendly fertilisers available and in instances where we are able to verify the use of fully vegan fertilisers, we will add this information to the product information page in our app. If we are able to determine that animal ingredients have been used in the pre-harvest process, such as with Biodynamic farming, we will list those products as NOT VEGAN. Going back further into pre-harvest processes, such as land clearing, is also not currently feasible for most products. The reality is that every single parcel of land being used to grow agricultural products for human consumption has most likely been cleared and with that clearing the loss of habitat or even death for any number of animals.
 
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