Hacker News Reader

Comment by function_seven | Hacker News Reader

The Euphemism Treadmill dictates that "vegan" is now "plant-based diet."

Among those that herbivores would like to convert, "vegan" is saddled with negative perceptions.

Strangely enough, plant-based doesn't necessarily mean vegan. Some 'plant-based' diets include eggs and dairy at times. I've yet to find a plant-based food item that wasn't vegan though, so perhaps the diet aspect needs further refining.

This makes sense to me, doesn't "based" or "base" mean that the food is _mostly_ made from plants.

As someone who's trying to follow a vegan diet I am very happy about "plant-based" food generally being vegan though!

There is actually a difference between 'vegan' and 'plant-based diet'. A car can be 'vegan'. A car is not part of a 'plant-based' diet.

Understood, but that difference doesn't apply when we're talking about food specifically. I'm saying that the "vegan" label is marketing liability if you're trying to sell to the general public (and not just to the existing vegan community).

If we're talking about shoes, or cars, then the euphemism will be something like "cruelty-free". No car company is going to associate their cloth interiors with veganism. Well, maybe Subaru would :)

Don't forget about the subset of vegans who avoid palm oil/almonds and other particularly environmentally taxing plant-based products.

That's why the common parlance is 'plant-based upholstery' for these situations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com