included a vegan diet and abstaining from animal
bloodshed, including sacrifices to the Greek gods.
In Asia, the Jainreligion, which is an ascetic off-
shoot of Hinduism that began in the sixth centuryBC,
still requires followers to adopt a vegan diet; they may
also not eat roots because to do so kills the plant. Most
Jains fast on holy days and at other times throughout
the year, as they believe that fasting strengthens self-
control as well as protecting the believer from accu-
mulating bad karma.
Mainstream Christianity in both its Eastern
(Greek-speaking) and Western (Latin-speaking) forms
has never required ordinary laypeople to adopt a vegan
diet as a year-round practice. Some monastic commun-
ities, however, have practiced a vegetarian lifestyle since
the fourth centuryAD, and a few monastic groups and
individual ascetics are vegans. Since the formation of
vegan societies in the United Kingdom and North
America, some Christian laypeople have chosen to
join them. One Christian denomination that was
formed in the United States in the nineteenth century,
namely the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has
expected its members to be vegetarians since its begin-
ning. Although most Adventists follow the denomina-
tion’s official diet, which is ovolactovegetarian, a
significant proportion of the members are vegans.
Most people who have become vegans since World
War II, however, do so out of concern for the environ-
ment or compassion for animals. The statement of the
American Vegan Society (AVS), founded in 1960, is a
typical expression of these convictions: ‘‘Veganism is
compassion in action. It is a philosophy, diet, and life-
style. Veganism is an advanced way of living in accord-
ance with Reverence for Life, recognizing the rights of
all living creatures, and extending to them the compas-
sion, kindness, and justice exemplified in the Golden
Rule.’’ The official slogan of the AVS, ‘‘Ahimsa Lights
the Way,’’ refers to the Sanskrit word for not killing and
not harming other living creatures.
Many members of New Age groups, as well as
some atheists and agnostics, practice a vegan lifestyle
out of respect for nature or for the earth, even though
they would not consider themselves religious in the
conventional sense. One group that broke from the
Vegan Society in England in 1984, founded by its for-
mer secretary, Kathleen Jannaway, and her husband
Jack, is called the Movement for Compassionate Living
(MCL), and emphasizes ‘‘the use of trees and vegan-
organic farming to meet the needs of society for food
and natural resources’’ as well as promoting ‘‘ simple
living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploi-
tation of humans, animals and the Earth.’’
DescriptionIn the past, planning a nutritionally adequate
vegan diet was difficult because the standard food
choice guides in use in Canada and the United States
had not been designed for vegetarians in general, let
alone vegans. Although the 1992 revisions of the
familiar U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
food guide pyramid and Canada’s Food Guide to
Healthy Eating (CFGHE) were the first to consider
overnutrition as a serious health problem and empha-
sized the importance of plant foods in the diet, they did
not include guidelines for planning vegetarian diets. In
2003 the ADA and DC jointly issued ‘‘A New Food
Guide for North American Vegetarians,’’ intended to
accommodate the needs of vegans as well as those of
less strict vegetarians. The 2003 document notes that
‘‘... any guide aimed at vegetarians must consider the
needs of vegans. Studies also indicate that a substan-
tial percentage of vegan women... have calcium
intakes that are too low, which suggests that calcium
deserves special attention in vegetarian food guides.
With few exceptions, vegetarian food guides have not
provided appropriate guidelines for vegans.’’
Vegans vary considerably in their patterns of
food intake; as a result, there is no one specific diet
regimen that could be called vegan. Most vegan
cookbooks contain a chapter on nutritional guide-
lines, including daily calorie requirements; protein,
calcium, and vitamin contents of various foods; and
sample menus intended to make the point that a
vegan diet does not have to be monotonous or flavor-
less. A table of vegan menus in an article available
from the Vegetarian Resource Group is titled ‘‘Sam-
ple Menus Showing How Easy It Is to Meet Protein
Needs’’
Breakfast: 1 cup oatmeal (6 g protein); 1 cup soymilk
(9 g); 1 bagel (9 g).
Lunch: 2 slices whole wheat bread (5 g); 1 cup vege-
tarian baked beans (12 g).
Dinner: 5 ounces firm tofu (11 g); 1 cup cooked
broccoli (4 g); 1 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa
(5 g); 2 tbsp almonds (4 g).
Snack: 2 tbsp peanut butter (8 g); 6 crackers (2 g).
Breakfast: 2 slices whole wheat toast (5 g); 2 tbsp
peanut butter (8 g).
Lunch: 6 ounces soy yogurt (6 g); 1 baked potato (4 g);
2 tbsp almonds (4 g).
Dinner: 1 cup cooked lentils (18 g); i cup cooked
bulgur wheat (6 g)
Snack: 1 cup soymilk (9g)Veganism