The origin story

November 1 is World Vegan Day. Actually, the next 30 days are marked as World Vegan Month, because way back in November 1944 in England, Donald Watson issued the first vegan quarterly magazine, The Vegan News (www.worldveganmonth.net/the-origin-of-the-word-vegan). In it, Watson—who coined the term for animal-free diets by combining the first three and last two letters of “vegetarian”—wrote, “The unquestionable cruelty associated with the production of dairy produce has made it clear that lacto-vegetarianism is but a half-way house between flesh-eating and a truly humane, civilised diet, and we think, therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve.”