• python@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Vegetarian is the dietary restriction, Vegan is more of a moral stance. As is, the definition of Vegan that most go by isn’t about not eating any animal products, but about reducing animal exploitation and harm as far as possible and practicable. I don’t think Hippos have any issue with harming anyone haha

    Also, fun fact: The original definition of Vegetarian actually did exclude eating dairy or eggs. The Vegetarians that did eat those were called Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian, but there were so many of them that the term got abbreviated to just Vegetarian, which basically made Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarians the default definition. Language is fun like that

    • saimen@feddit.org
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      11 days ago

      But then the language also changed to vegan meaning no meat no dairy no eggs because it’s written on products meaning exactly this and not meaning a moral stance of the product or the producer.

      • python@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Kinda! The Yellow V-Label actually does have more components to it than just what the food is made of. For example, coconut milk that is made from coconuts that were harvested by trained monkeys would not receive that label. Neither would products that use animal products in their packaging (like Casein-based glue).
        The term a lot of labelling actually prefers nowadays is “Plant-based”. That term only refers to whether the product itself contains animal derivatives and nothing more and has much less legal protection.

        There’s also a weird bonus safeguard in place - Donald Watson, the guy who coined the term “vegan” did so specifically because he was pissed about Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarians changing the meaning of the word. Most vegans are aware of that, and do take care to not change the meaning any further

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Hey I remember that!

      Turns out I wasn’t crazy or had bad memory, it was the definition that changed over time 🤣