**3. About vegans**

*Veganism - a Fashion Trend or Food as a Medicine*

specific situations completely irrationally.

their own species and disregard all human evolution history.

**2.2 Nature**

**2.3 Science**

capital in contemporaneity:

*who decides to live by other principles. (Man 1)*

*This is one of the most annoying topics. People come to me and tell me I must eat meat because God said so. I reply, so what? I am not killing an innocent animal because God or the devil said so. Then they call me atheist, as if it were a flaw. The curious thing is, I remember now, is that that astonished woman who told me that was a divorcée. Does God approve the divorce? People follow God, the bible, or the law according to what is convenient and they think they have the right to criticize* 

Coherence is being demanded in this example. A religious individual should, according to this testimony, follow all biblical principles, including the one regarding marriage and the ingestion of meat as well as other demands. Such coherence does not exist for innumerous historical reasons that restrict the way of appropriating the testaments. On the contrary, vegetarians are charged for their coherence as well. If they defend animal rights, the opponents of the vegetarian diet discuss that one must refuse products tested on animals, including vaccines, and to the extreme living with animals considered plagues in cultivations given the impossibility of the use of pesticides and also a stimulated conviviality between predators and preys. Even though they demand logic, neither vegetarians nor defenders of meat consumption practice it, because both deprive on the consumption of certain species or

Vegetarians question the culture where they were born, but they also question the humanity omnivorous nature. All vegetarians said they had heard being omnivorous is part of the human nature. In this sense, vegetarians act against their own nature. By proposing respect to animals, vegetarians are accused of not respecting

What is not visible in this debate, though it is implicit, is that the man-nature relation is historic and subject to transformations, as Keith Thomas [8] demonstrates in his study on man's relationship to plants and animals in England 1500-1800, a period with substantial changes. According to the author, man used to live in a hostile environment and it would be anachronistic to think of cruelty towards animals in

Nowadays, we can see changes in the way to think about nature, which is a symbolic construction, and there are various alternative proposals to interact with it. One of the conflicts on what the natural world is can be observed in the context of eating. Vegetarianism, in the sense adopted in the testimonies, can be an example.

The search for coherence finds in science, or in its jargon, an allegation to defend

*I hate it when people tell me how I replace proteins. I do not eat proteins, vitamins, carbo or other scientific names. I eat food. Then they tell me it is not healthy, but I am not worried with my health, I am worried about animals' health. (Man 2)*

If rationality is not the only thing that build an eating habit, some scientific allegations, or science-like allegations, despite the popularity they use from media,

its options. Both vegetarians and the ones against vegetarians appeal scientific allegations. The discussion is, mainly and recurrently, according to testimonies, about the genetic tendency to vegetarian or omnivorous diets, about the risk of lack and excess of proteins. Within this subject, it all comes to health, a highly valued

a situation that imposed the need to fight to conquer and control the world.

**64**

In the world today, we watch the interdiction of all types of animals' meat for reasons of beliefs and health, ethical motivations, and environmental concerns. They question or neglect an alleged humanity omnivorous nature, as discussed in the previous topic, and for these reasons, I highlight the abolitionist vegan aspect. As mentioned, the total or partial restraint of meat can be religious, secular, based on ethical principles, nutritional beliefs, which they defend according to some more or less irrational allegations.

Resuming the classification by Beardsworth and Keil [4], there are six general types of vegetarian diets, which are not fixed, so they can transit among them both ways, from the most rigorous to the least rigorous one and vice-versa. In this most radical diet, there are the strict vegetarians, as vegans are called, one of the groups that compose this subchapter.

Eating vegetables exclusively is the main element that compose the vegan diet, but this one is not only restricted to eating.

Despite many reasons for not ingesting meat, what really motivates veganism is the conception that its followers have about non-human animals. In synthesis, they have the conviction that these are animals with sentience, they are able to feel pain and suffering and have their own interests, and there is no distinction between them and humans that justifies their exploration, slavery, torture, and slaughter.

The conception of humanity and animality is not fixed and not natural among times and cultures. Thomas [8], for example, recalls the creation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in 1824, in England. This society still exists, now with the addition of the distinctive term Royal to its name, a gift from Queen Victoria. In this same country, in 1944, Donald Watson founded a society against animal exploitation: The Vegan Society.

It is important to emphasize the existence of simultaneous values: the man of science of the industrial era, based on Cartesian allegations, justified animal exploitation for they believe they were just automata. However, Thomas [8] highlights the affection that animals start to enjoy and that today we qualify as companion animals or pets. The societies of protection are born in England, in a country where gaming was one of the most refined sports.

Back to the field of science, even though and despite all questions raised by scientists, including Charles Darwin, who lists man in the animal category, the anthropocentric border remains, and only some of them see the approximation with animals, mainly the mammals or those who have conquered some human affection. In this case, scientific allegations – the strongest ones – end up submitted to relations of affection.

Along with various social moments and with the aid of different scientific signatures, the human supremacy goes under a new review and Richard Ryder [9] coins the term speciesism, in 1970, to mean an asymmetry between humans and other animals.

In this point of view, the so-called speciesism is exactly analogous to racism and sexism, that also describe man supremacy (qualified as masculine, white,

European, and western) above all the rest. Nevertheless, this term raised controversies among antiracist and feminist movements about the analogy experienced by the explored ones. After all, is talking about holocaust of cows in slaughterhouses the same as talking about The Jewish Holocaust? Is the slavery imposed to Africans lived similarly as the confinement of animals? Can milking cows and factory-farm chickens be compared to sexist relations lived by women?

For some, the analogy between speciesism and other liberation movements is viable and enriches everyone in terms of power and voice; for others, the comparison is exaggerated. It seems that feminist ecology has more sympathy to movements related to animal rights, because females are exactly the most explored ones by the industry: for milk, eggs, frequent pregnancies, rape, etc., which draws more empathy in women.

Two authors, among others, appear in the discussion about animal rights. The philosopher Peter Singer [10] claims that animals are sentient and have their own interests and it is not ethical using them for human interests. Tom Regan [11], in the field of law, questions the use of arbitrary weights and measures compared to a distinctive treatment among species, for there would be no difference between the humanity and the rest of the living beings that would rationally justify a pending scale.

The discussion proceeds towards an endless path, walking from the real desire about having a rigorous anti-speciesism attitude; finding yourself deciding whether you are going to take your son to vaccination or not, because it has been tested in animals; giving dog food made with animal by-product to a dog that has been rescued from the street; or willingly or unwillingly killing an ant. The animal rights movement divided itself mainly in these parts: (1) Abolitionists: Contrary to any type of dominance of an animal of any species. Abolitionists believe that all types of interspecific relations will end up being asymmetric and so, instead of abolishing the exploitation. For that, they defend the abolishment of any relation, including with pets and they are, despite the coherence of their speech, impracticable in every single way; (2) Welfarists: They carry the flag of better life conditions for animals, including revivifications in the field of law. For instance, welfarists are favorable to a more human cattle farming, even if it comes to beef cattle. In general, activists that are more radical criticize them and accuse them to defend only the animal welfare for the benefits they can obtain from these practices, like havening more tender meat; (3) Protectors or rescuers: they are not necessarily against beef cattle farming and not against consumption of meat, but they offer temporary or permanent shelter to species elected in terms of affection, specially feral cats and street dogs, but occasionally they also manifest against animals used to pull wagons, tortoises, guinea pigs, and others that, for a given reason, moves someone.

We have generally described the broad terms of these animal right movements, each one their own way, that fight for animals, which are incapable of fighting for their own cause.

At this point, we understand some subdivisions of the movement, because there are people who claim to be vegans, and have a restrict action to the boycott of meat consumption or clothing industry, and are less rigorous about animal products in general. Others get more directly involved in political causes; they free animals from captivity; and actively intervene for changes in the law related to animal rights, among other manifestations. However, in the case of consumption and lifestyle, the fundamental terms of this discussion, we can affirm that an idealtypical vegan: (a) Refuses to ingest animals and animal products like meat, eggs, milk, honey, and gelatin desserts. (b) Refuse to consume clothes, accessories, and shoes made of animal products. (c) Refuse to consume health, hygiene, and esthetic products tested on animals. (d) Oppose to vivisection as a pedagogical practice at universities. (e) Oppose to the use of animals in scientific researches. (f) Oppose to entertainments that use animals, like rodeos, circuses.

**67**

**Author details**

and final revision of the text.

**Thanks**

**4. Conclusions**

Juliana Abonizio

Federal University of Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil

\*Address all correspondence to: abonizio.juliana@gmail.com

provided the original work is properly cited.

*Vegetarianism and Veganism: Conflicts in Everyday Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94063*

possible coherence in a world of incoherence and inequality.

reflection about the contemporary society and its multiplicity.

Although the outlines of what a vegan "must be" are clear, the everyday life comes with surprises, from food for your pet, taking your kid to vaccination, being or not being a new target of companies that produce animal products. After all, would it be illicit for a vegan to consume a vegetable burger produced by a famous company that makes lots of profit producing other burgers made from the slaughter of cattle and chicken? The companies are interested in catching vegans, but that is when they should watch what they say. Deciding what to put in a shopping cart becomes an ethical dilemma; deciding whether adopting or buying a pet; offering or not offering vegetables to carnivorous pets in apartments; demanding or not demanding children to follow a vegan diet and restrict their socialization in children's parties. At last, the idea is coherent and of easy understanding, but the difficulties to practice it vigorously are much more difficult and what one lives with it, at the end, is the biggest

The results of this research show that the option for vegetarianism or veganism finds resistance and it is subject to everyday embarrassments; nevertheless, despite the divisive role played by vegetarians and vegans in rituals surrounding eating, sociality prevails. Through the data, we realize that the negotiation, the refusal, and the acceptance of varied diets help understand the complexity this decentered society today, which favors the dilemma of individual choices, elaborated by available information and social life embarrassments, whose patterns are fragile. In the intertwining of these vectors, the options for consumption as well as the refusal of consumption provide social roles, communicate social places, and favor the

My thanks to Master Fernando Gil for the translation into the Inlesa language

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Vegetarianism and Veganism: Conflicts in Everyday Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94063*

Although the outlines of what a vegan "must be" are clear, the everyday life comes with surprises, from food for your pet, taking your kid to vaccination, being or not being a new target of companies that produce animal products. After all, would it be illicit for a vegan to consume a vegetable burger produced by a famous company that makes lots of profit producing other burgers made from the slaughter of cattle and chicken? The companies are interested in catching vegans, but that is when they should watch what they say. Deciding what to put in a shopping cart becomes an ethical dilemma; deciding whether adopting or buying a pet; offering or not offering vegetables to carnivorous pets in apartments; demanding or not demanding children to follow a vegan diet and restrict their socialization in children's parties. At last, the idea is coherent and of easy understanding, but the difficulties to practice it vigorously are much more difficult and what one lives with it, at the end, is the biggest possible coherence in a world of incoherence and inequality.
