1994-2012
1994-2012
Veganism got a calendar day, a climate argument, and a foothold in the culture. A UN report reframed it as an environmental question, and the movement started to look less like a subculture and more like a direction of travel.
- 1994
November 1, 1994
World Vegan Day
The society's chair created a day to mark its own fiftieth birthday, and it became the movement's annual fixture.
Source: Wikipedia, World Vegan DayThe event was established in 1994 by Louise Wallis, then Chair of The Vegan Society in the United Kingdom
Louise Wallis, The Vegan Society - 1996
April 16, 1996
Oprah Swears Off Burgers on Air
Vegetarian ex-rancher Howard Lyman told a daytime audience how cattle were fed to cattle, and the most influential woman on television reacted out loud. Texas cattlemen sued the pair under a food-disparagement law, and lost.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (archived)It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger. I'm stopped.
Oprah Winfrey, The Oprah Winfrey Show ('Dangerous Food'), April 16, 1996 - 2002
May 17, 2002
Germany Writes Animals Into Its Constitution
By 543 votes to 19, the Bundestag added 'and animals' to the Basic Law's clause on protecting the natural foundations of life, with the most immediate effect expected on animal experiments.
Source: CNNGermany has become the first European nation to vote to guarantee animal rights in its constitution.
CNN, reporting the Bundestag vote of May 17, 2002 - 2005
January 2005
The China Study
A Cornell nutrition scientist and his son turned decades of diet and disease research into a mass-market book, and made the case for eating plants a bestseller.
Source: Wikipedia, The China StudyThe book argues for health benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet.
T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II, The China Study - 2006
November 29, 2006
The UN Counts the Cost
A UN report put a number on livestock's climate footprint and moved the argument from ethics to emissions.
livestock accounts for 18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions
Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock's Long ShadowThe FAO later revised this figure to 14.5% in its 2013 assessment; the original 18% was widely quoted and widely corrected.
Source: Wikipedia, Livestock's Long Shadow - 2011
May 2011
Forks Over Knives
A documentary built on the research of T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyn took the whole-food, plant-based diet to a wide audience and helped make it a household phrase.
Source: Wikipedia, Forks Over Kniveswhat An Inconvenient Truth did for global warming, Lee Fulkerson's persuasive documentary does for a vegan diet
Loren King, The Boston Globe, reviewing Forks Over Knives
The bookshelf
The book on this era
Paid links. If you buy a book through these links, Bookshop.org pays us a small commission and sends a share of the sale to independent bookstores.
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Reporting
Fast Food Nation (opens Bookshop.org)
Eric Schlosser · 2001
Eric Schlosser reports on how the fast-food industry reshaped American food, with chapters on meatpacking plants and their workers.
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The argument
The Omnivore's Dilemma (opens Bookshop.org)
Michael Pollan · 2006
Michael Pollan follows four meals back to their sources, from industrial corn to a hunt he undertakes himself, and takes on Singer's argument along the way.
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The argument
Eating Animals (opens Bookshop.org)
Jonathan Safran Foer · 2009
Novelist Jonathan Safran Foer reports on factory farms and family history while deciding what to feed his son, and explains why he chose vegetarianism.
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The argument
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (opens Bookshop.org)
Melanie Joy · 2010
Psychologist Melanie Joy coined the term carnism for the beliefs that let people love some animals and eat others, and she looks at how the system keeps that split in place.
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