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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.

Veganism entering the cultural and climate mainstream.
Wikimedia Commons / Plant-based diet
  1. 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.

    The event was established in 1994 by Louise Wallis, then Chair of The Vegan Society in the United Kingdom

    Louise Wallis, The Vegan Society
    Source: Wikipedia, World Vegan Day
  2. 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.

    It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger. I'm stopped.

    Oprah Winfrey, The Oprah Winfrey Show ('Dangerous Food'), April 16, 1996
    Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica (archived)
  3. 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.

    Germany has become the first European nation to vote to guarantee animal rights in its constitution.

    CNN, reporting the Bundestag vote of May 17, 2002
    Source: CNN
  4. 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.

    The book argues for health benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet.

    T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II, The China Study
    Source: Wikipedia, The China Study
  5. 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 Shadow

    The 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
  6. 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.

    what 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
    Source: Wikipedia, Forks Over Knives

This history is still being written.

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