Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Gary Francione, PhD,
Animal
Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
October 2017
Some people are upset about the fact that Daiya has been acquired by a company that is reported to do animal testing. They are claiming that Daiya products are, therefore, no longer “vegan.” That is silly. It is no different from saying that a package of frozen broccoli isn’t vegan because it is made by a company that also makes meat/dairy/egg products.
Some people are upset about the fact that Daiya has been acquired by a
company that is reported to do animal testing. They are claiming that Daiya
products are, therefore, no longer “vegan.”
That is silly.
It is no different from saying that a package of frozen broccoli isn’t vegan
because it is made by a company that also makes meat/dairy/egg products. It
is no different from saying that the vegetables you just bought at the farm
market are not vegan because the farmer is not a vegan and will use the
money you paid to buy animal products she will consume. There is no
difference between animal testing and any other form of animal exploitation.
It’s all morally unjustifiable. But it is not relevant to whether a product
contains animals or animal ingredients. And that is the only thing that
determines whether a particular thing is suitable for a vegan to eat.
A company may make a product that contains no animal ingredients and do no
testing, but may make all sorts of animal products. There is no moral
difference between exploiting animals for testing and exploiting them in any
other context. Many “animal people” seem to think that animal testing is
more morally objectionable than other forms of animal exploitation. But
then, many “animal people” believe that fur is more morally objectionable
than leather or wool; or that foie gras is more morally objectionable than
steak or chicken or fish; or that that hunting is more morally objectionable
than paying someone else to impose the suffering and death and buying
packaged corpses at the store. Many “animal people” really have been taken
in by single-issue campaigns that may be great for fundraising, but are an
impediment to clear thinking about animal ethics.
Where do people buy Daiya products now? They buy them from a supermarket
that sells tons of animal products, or from a “health food” store that sells
“happy” animal products. Indeed, many people buy their Daiya in places like
Whole Foods, which relentlessly promotes “happy exploitation” and is praised
for doing so by the large corporate charities. How is animal testing any
different from the exploitation that these welfarist “animal groups”
shamefully praise? And even if the store in which they bought the Daiya was
exclusively vegan and the owners and employees were all vegan (pretty
unrealistic for sure), the Daiya was transported in various ways by people
who may not be vegans. And is everyone who works at Daiya and who is
involved in the production of these products vegan? Are all of Daiya’s
suppliers vegan? If Daiya is not vegan because the acquiring company tests
on animals, it was not vegan before either. Indeed, on this reasoning, it
was never vegan.
What determines whether a product is suitable for a vegan to consume is what
is in it. The moment you go beyond that, then you rule out anything and
everything that you do not make yourself using things that only you produce
and that you do not acquire from any other source. Once you get away from
what’s in the product, given the pervasiveness of animal use and the fact
that all money is dirty, there can be no limiting principle.
We are all in favor of supporting “vegan” companies (although all companies
participate in animal exploitation in the production/distribution process).
We are not opposed to expressing disappointment when a vegan company sells
out to a company that is not vegan (although that will happen more and more
as veganism becomes more popular and larger companies will see acquiring
vegan subsidiaries as profitable). Our point is that a “vegan” product does
not cease to become suitable for vegans to eat because there is animal
exploitation involved in the production/distribution process. There is
animal exploitation involved in everything that you don’t make yourself
using ingredients that you produced.
We are also not saying that there are not good reasons to be critical of
particular corporations, such as their treatment of workers, the
environment, etc. We don’t eat non-fair-traded cashew nuts or dairy-free
chocolate because, although these products are vegan, they result in
terrible harm to humans. But they are vegan.
By the way, we are not encouraging people to eat Daiya. We personally think
it is a very unhealthy thing to consume. We never eat it.
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