What Does Vegan Mean? 什么是素食主义者？

Here is why vegan diets andlifestyles have enormous appeal!

这就是为什么素食主义者的饮食和生活方式有着巨大的吸引力!

The word vegan refers to anything that’s free ofanimal products: no meat, milk, eggs, wool, leather, and so forth. Yoursandwich, your shampoo, and your car seats are examples of items that could bevegan.这个词素食主义者是指不接触任何动物产品及衍生品，包括：肉、牛奶、鸡蛋、羊毛、皮革等。你的三明治，你的洗发水，你的汽车座椅项目都是反映可否成为素食主义者指正。

Veganism carries at leastthree potential advantages:

素食主义至少存在三种潜在优势：

1.    avoidance of animal mistreatment and slaughter(避免杀害及虐待动物)

2.    elimination of certain health risks(降低健康风险)

3.    reduction of environmental footprint(减少环境污染)

Can you become a vegan throughdiet alone? Absolutely, since, as we will see in the next section, vegan wasoriginally defined purely in dietary terms.你能成为一个素食主义者吗？当然，让我们在下一节得到认识，素食主义者其原本、纯粹的饮食定义。

A handful of vegans insistthat veganism is a lifestyle, not a diet. In other words, you don’t get to jointhe vegan club until you go beyond food to purge your life of leather, wool, andanimal-derived cosmetics.一些素食者坚信，素食主义是一种生活方式，而不是节食。换句话说，除非你控制食物，舍弃皮革、羊毛制品及动物源类化妆品的生活，否则你将永远无法加入素食团体中。

Etymology 词源

Donald Watson coined the term vegan in 1944 in Great Britain. Here’s Watson from that year, in the first issue of The Vegan News, proposing that hisreaders either embrace the word, or come up with a better one, as the basis fora new social movement: 唐纳德-沃森在1944年英国创造素食一词。这年，素食新闻最先争论的是，作为新社会运动的基础，他建议读者们或者接受，或者能做到做得更好：

We should all considercarefully what our Group, and our magazine, and ourselves, shall be called.‘Non-dairy’ has become established as a generally understood colloquialism, butlike ‘non-lacto’ it is too negative. Moreover it does not imply that we areopposed to the use of eggs as food. We need a name that suggests what we do eat, and if possible one thatconveys the idea that even with all animal foods taboo, Nature still offers usa bewildering assortment from which to choose. ‘Vegetarian’ and ‘Fruitarian’are already associated with societies that allow the ‘fruits’ (!) of cows andfowls, therefore it seems we must make a new and appropriate word. 我们都应该仔细考虑一下我们的机构、杂志以及我们自己将被称作什么。“无牛奶”已经成为一个普遍可理解的口头禅，但似乎太否定。而且这并不意味着我们拒绝使用鸡蛋的食品。我们需要一个建议我们吃什么的名字，如果可能，那是表达禁忌食用所有动物类的食物的意思，显然还为我们展现了多种选择。“素食主义者”和“水果主义者”已经被联想成牛和家禽的“果实”（！），因此，我们必须建立一个新的和适当的词。

As this first issue of ourperiodical had to be named, I have used the title “The Vegan News”. Should weadopt this, our diet will soon become known as a VEGAN diet, and we shouldaspire to the rank of VEGANS. Members’ suggestions will be welcomed. The virtueof having a short title is best known to those of us who, as secretaries ofvegetarian societies have to type or write the word vegetarian thousands oftimes a year! 这一期我们的期刊已经被命名，我用的标题是“The Vegan News”。我们应该采用这种饮食，并将很快成为一个素食主义者，我们应该追求素食主义者等级。会员的建议会受到欢迎。一个简洁的标题的好处是让我们这些专属名词，在一年内成千上万次被谈到，将最容易被大众熟知！