History of Veganism Timeline

One of the most influential vegetarian books of that time was Frances Moore Lappé's 1971 Diet for a Small Planet, which linked meat consumption to resource waste and world hunger.

Image source: Diet for a Small Planet

From the 1980s onward, veganism became strongly associated with the punk subculture. This association continues into the 21st century, as evidenced by the prominence of vegan punk events such as Fluff Fest in Europe.

Image source: Anarcho-punk

Advocates produced a series of books recommending vegan or vegetarian diets, including McDougall's The McDougall Plan (1983), John Robbins's Diet for a New America (1987), which associated meat production with environmental damage, and Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease (1990).

Image source: John A. McDougall

A wave of influential media followed: Earthlings (2005), Campbell's The China Study (2005), Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch (2005), Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals (2009), and the film Forks Over Knives (2011) brought vegan ideas to mass audiences.

The Vegetarian Butcher (De Vegetarische Slager), the first known vegetarian butcher shop selling mock meats, opened in the Netherlands in 2010, while America's first vegan butcher, the Herbivorous Butcher, opened in Minneapolis in 2016. The global mock-meat market increased by 18 percent between 2005 and 2010.

Image source: The Vegetarian Butcher

In 2011, Europe's first vegan supermarkets appeared in Germany: Veganz in Berlin and Vegilicious in Dortmund.

Image source: Veganz

In the U.K., the plant milk market increased by 155 percent in two years, from 36 million litres in 2011 to 92 million litres in 2013. By 2016, 49% of Americans were drinking plant milk, and there was a 185% increase in new vegan products between 2012 and 2016 in the U.K.

Image source: Plant milk

In 2017, the United States School Nutrition Association found 14% of school districts were serving vegan school meals compared to 11.5% in 2016. Growth continued with lunches added by Los Angeles, California in 2018, Portland, Maine in 2019, and New York City in 2022.

Since 2017, more than 12,500 chain restaurant locations have begun offering Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods products, including Carl's Jr., with the U.S. mock-meat market growing 37% between 2017 and 2019. The U.S. market for vegan food was valued at $3.9 billion in 2017.

Image source: Beyond Meat

In January 2021, 582,538 people from 209 countries and territories signed up for Veganuary, breaking the previous year's record of 400,000. In 2021, Greta Thunberg also called for more vegan food production and consumption worldwide.

Image source: Veganuary

Carol Adams's premier work, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990), noted the relationship between feminism and meat consumption. In her speech 'Why feminist-vegan now?', adapted from her address at the 'Minding Animals' conference in Newcastle, Australia (2009), she recalled that the connection came to her in October 1974.

Image source: Carol J. Adams

The term 'ethical vegan' was popularized in 1995 by Brian A. Cross, distinguishing dietary choices from veganism as a broader moral philosophy. Dietary veganism is in contrast to ethical veganism, defined as a philosophical belief protected under the UK's Equality Act 2010.

Image source: Veganism

Feminist scholar Angella Duvnjak wrote in 'Joining the Dots: Some Reflections on Feminist-Vegan Political Practice and Choice' (2011) that she was met with opposition when she pointed out the connection between feminist and vegan ideals, even though the connection seemed more than obvious to her and other scholars.

In 2013, the Oktoberfest in Munich, traditionally a meat-heavy event, offered vegan dishes for the first time in its 200-year history.

Image source: Oktoberfest

The EU bans labeling vegan products with dairy-related words like 'almond milk', a rule instated in 2017. As of 2019, six countries in Europe apply higher VAT rates to vegan plant milk than to cow milk, which pro-vegan activists have called discrimination.

In Portugal, starting in 2017, public administration canteens and cafeterias such as schools, prisons and social services must offer at least one vegan option at every meal.

In the United Kingdom, an employment tribunal ruled in 2020 that the Equality Act 2010 protects 'ethical veganism', a belief it defined as veganism extending beyond diet to all areas of life and motivated by concern for animals. In Ontario, Canada, veganism was ruled not to be a protected belief in 2023, following earlier guidance from the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2015.

In 2021, the International Organization for Standardization published standard ISO 23662 on definitions and technical criteria for foods and food ingredients suitable for vegetarians or vegans and for labelling and claims. This followed Germany's Ministry for Consumer Protection approving a definition for vegan-suitable food on 22 April 2016.

Image source: International Organization for Standardization

In 2003 two major North American dietitians' associations claimed that well-planned vegan diets were suitable for all life stages, boosting mainstream credibility.

According to a 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, Livestock's Long Shadow, around 26% of the planet's terrestrial surface is devoted to livestock grazing, and livestock consumed 1,174 million tonnes of food in 2002—including 670 million tonnes of cereals, one-third of the global harvest.

Image source: Livestock's Long Shadow

A 2010 UN report, Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production, argued that animal products 'in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives'. A 2015 study also determined that significant biodiversity loss can be attributed to the growing demand for meat.

Image source: Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production

A 2017 World Wildlife Fund study found that 60% of biodiversity loss can be attributed to the vast scale of feed crop cultivation needed to rear tens of billions of farm animals. Also in 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a warning to humanity calling for 'promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods'.

Image source: World Wide Fund for Nature

A 2018 study found that global adoption of plant-exclusive diets would reduce agricultural land use by 76% (3.1 billion hectares, an area the size of Africa) and cut total global greenhouse gas emissions by 28%. In the same year, Jacy Reese Anthis's book The End of Animal Farming argued that veganism will completely replace animal-based food by 2100.

Image source: Environmental impacts of animal agriculture

On 8 August 2019, the IPCC released a summary of its special report asserting that a shift towards plant-exclusive diets would help mitigate and adapt to climate change. The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report had also found that industrial agriculture and overfishing are primary drivers of the extinction crisis. The Economist declared 2019 'the year of the vegan'.

Image source: Special Report on Climate Change and Land

A 2023 study published in Nature Food found that a vegan diet vastly decreases the impact on the environment from food production, reducing emissions, water pollution and land use by 75%, reducing destruction of wildlife by 66%, and water usage by 54%. Another 2023 systematic review found no evidence of considerable health effects, while noting issues with selection bias and sample sizes.

Image source: Plant-based diet

As of 2024, the German Society for Nutrition holds that for healthy adults a vegan diet can be healthful when B12 is supplemented and the diet is well-planned so critical nutrients are provided. As of 2022, 45% of government nutritional guidelines discuss vegan meat or milk alternatives, or both.