Q: So what is veganism and what does it mean to be vegan?
Because I'm unoriginal, I'll quote from Wiki.
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A follower of the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan.
Q: How is a vegan diet different from a vegetarian one? What can you eat?
In my experience, in Singapore we have varying levels of vegetarian diet which we do not distinguish when we generalise the term "vegetarian", which becomes super confusing and I always need to seek clarity whenever someone tells me they are vegetarian or whenever someone tells me the food is vegetarian.
- There are vegetarians who eat anything as long as it's not meat (and fish. I don't distinguish meat and fish, they are "meat" to me though I've met some people who differentiate between them).
- Vegetarians who eat what vegetarians in group 1 eat but without egg (mostly Indians due to religion).
- Vegetarians who eat what vegetarians in group 1 eat but without the 5 pungent spices like onions and garlic (these are usually Buddhists).
- Vegetarians who eat what vegetarians in group 3 eat but without egg and dairy too.
- Vegetarians who eat what vegetarians in group 1 eat but without egg and dairy.
- There is another subset that don't eat mushrooms (it's not very common in the Chinese community, but I've found that it's common in Indian community).
- And there are Jains as well (I've never met any in my life, so I'm not 100% sure that their diet is also known as vegetarian diet in SG...)
Vegan diet is very similar to number 5, but a little stricter as all animal byproducts are not consumed. This includes honey for example which are avoided on animal suffering grounds. There are certain foods which are surprisingly non-vegan like wine as although the ingredients are plant-based, some of them use fish bladder in the filtering process.
