The Vegan Society has rebranded itself as a charity that likes to say 'Yes'
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| Vegan Diets - Sustained growth in interest - Vegan trends |
Many many years of blood, sweat and tears with volunteers or frugally paid staff at the front end of cutting edge veganism is reaching it's climatic end. Vegan Cheese? you got it! Vegan caviar? you got it!
The Vegan Society has gone from a charity obsessed with what it is against to one that stands up and speaks out about what it is for.
Some would ask what is it for? A membership organisation dedicated to providing information about veganism and how to be vegan when now you can just google the word and have your ipad spew out 39 million pages in less than a second?
But someone or some body has to be guardians and keepers of the word 'vegan' , defend Donald Watson's definition of the word vegan in the face of those who argue that honey is vegan or that breast milk isn't vegan or those who just generally miss the point. Some body has to be caretaker for the history of veganism and curate the volumes of scientific research that support the case for veganism and a vegan diet.
To be brutally honest The Vegan Society is now, on an every day, day to day level, at street level , largely defunct, almost redundant as a support network because the job of making a case for a vegan diet and a vegan lifestyle is almost done. Veganism has been well and truly unleashed from Pandora's box, the cat's out of the bag, Being Vegan is almost normal. Big supermarkets such as Tescos are now labeling products vegan and trialling vegan shelf talkers, Ocado has a whole vegan section online. Big investers such as Microsoft's Bill Gates and Twitter's Biz Stone are investing in vegan meat free alternatives and vegan cheeses. Scientists and biochemists are genetically engineering yeasts to make true dairy free vegan cheese. TV moguls such as Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood gentry such as James Cameron speak out for sustainable healthy veganism. Doctors, physicians and health professionals prove that a health vegan diet can cure heart disease and reverse diabetes. Even McDonald's chomping presidents of the USA such as Bill Clinton now follow a vegan diet.
A normal person , on a normal day could read in The Daily Mail that a vegan diet is good for your heart problem or good for diabetics wander into a supermarket and fill up their trolly with vegan ice cream, vegan pancake mix, vegan cakes, vegan cheese, vegan sausages, vegan chicken, vegan chocolate, vegan mousse and spend half an hour trying to choose which dairy free vegan milk to buy - soya? Henp milk? oat? almond? flax omega 3 milk? coconut? rice milk? tigernut milk? hazelnut ? the list just keeps growing. Then they can go recover and pick up a Soyaccino at Costa Coffee or Pret a Manger. They could even pop into Ikea on the way back and pick up some vegan caviar.
There will inevitably be those animal rights extremists who morn the day their little niche, quirky organisation with it's 5,000 members turned into a mainstream organisation with millions of supporters but lets face it - Wallmart, McDonalds, Unilever, Kraft, Pizza Hut, Kentucky fried chicken, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Doritos, Subway, Krispy Kreme Donuts, Burger King, Nestle - they don't care about the thousands - they think in millions.
Now there are millions of customers of vegan foods they are listening.
Donald Watson would be very pleased indeed that so many people now agree with his logical philosophical thoughts over 70 years ago a great way to mark 70 years of veganism.
Vegan Chef Tony Bishop-Weston can be found on;
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See also
http://www.vegfest.co.uk
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