Have you ever thought that veganism is only a trend of the millennial generation? Maybe you think it is only a publicity trick, marketing, green washing or only new products for sale.
If you have genuine curiosity about this lifestyle, what it means to be a vegan and what it implies to be one, then read on.
In 1944, Elsie Shrigley and her husband Donald Watson created the moniker “vegan” within “The Vegan Society,” in Leicester, England. Their motivation was to try and reflect the “beginning and the end of vegetarianism,” focusing on the ethical posture and the politics that go with it. In 1951, this society focused not only on living with a healthy non-meat diet, but also turned their attention to animal rights and the just treatment of them.
This isn’t the first time in history that animals were considered sentient beings, with the right to live their own life. In the tenth century, the philosopher and poet Al-Ma’arri advocated that man not consume anything that comes from animals, which he considered unjust. And centuries before that, Asia Buddhism and Jainism considered that all living beings have a divine spark, and thus should not be harmed. Absolute respect for life and non-violence are one of the cardinal virtues of Jainism and the first of the five precepts of Buddhism, which relates to the notion that any violence has karmic consequences.
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