Humboldt_honey,
I know I've said that "I'm not vegan for animal cruelty reasons" the fact is that it DOES make my list but yes, it IS toward the bottom...
if animal cruelty were the ONLY reason for veganism, (i.e. if milk and meat were healthy for you and GOOD for you) I am not sure if I'd be vegan or not... it hard to wrap my mind around at this point.
I would never support factory farming but there are other aspects of factory farming besides just cruelty... like cleanliness and that americans are lied to by the goverment about standards and practices.... ALL bad.

Honestly, it's probably a thing I'd only say on vegweb becuz I think newbies here are often are here for animals reason and I DO like to remind people that there are many, many other reasons to be vegan and all are just as vaild.
In fact, I think animal creulty is often used by the public/media to make vegans look like crazies, if the health aspects were promoted more often to mass america (which is happening more and more) maybe we'd have more converts.... ?    which again, is good for everyone.
If a non-veg person asked me about animal cruelty I'd offer resources and help educate them. I just don't like to be a PETA mouthpiece. I use PETA as a resource but I'm really not a fan of much of their work.
Currently, I do SUPPORT animal testing (as well as more human testing!) for drugs and medicines (but not for cosmetics and such) and maybe I should look into that more as I haven't explored it in depth.

I guess I don't have a top to bottom list as to why I'm vegan there is just a scrolling sign in my head and some items have little *'s or !'s by them and cruelty makes the scrolling list but doesn't have a * or !

It's funny you mentioned that part about no pets making me more vegan because I have often thought about it in that way. I repect pet owners/ lovers and this is a totally different discussion with many facets (probably with a lot about domesticated animals and responsibility) but to me it's just not kind to 'keep' an animal.

and BTW I am totally a sociopath. :D  I'm really a pork eating mcdonald's exec here to win you veggers over and convert you all eventually.... I send Meaty McVibes to you through your computer monitors ;)

wow i totally rambled this whole post out and I'm not editing it whatsoever... and I do appologize for that.  :-\

today every thread on vegweb seems to be digressing! lol

It is impossible to be a 100% "pure" vegan if you want to define it as zero tolerance for animal products. I would have to live naked, in a hut out in the woods, with no electricity,  no pets, nothing that would even harm an insect. That is a line I'm not crossing. As it has been stated here before, we all do what we believe is right for us personally. Some of us will move further down a non-animal existence, and some will be happy to spend their lives where they are right now. Others here may go back to consuming and using animal products. At the end of the day, all of us combined, being either vegan, or a veggie, or whatever you are comfortable calling yourself, will save thousands and thousands of lives each and every year by the personal choice we have made for ourselves. That I can live with.

-dave

Funny, Dave, but every once in a while, you tempt me to say "Amen, brother!"  ;)

Sadly the concrete we drive on is often made with animal products. The film at the movie theater (tho digital technology is helping that, I think). I suspect the glue in the boxed food we buy . . . etc.

I try to keep on a steady course of improvement. And, sometimes I buy a (non-food) product that I know is not perfectly vegan because to buy the vegan one is so costly that I feel like my self indulgence is starving someone on the other side of the world.

The goal is to make the world a better place for all God's creatures - human and non-human, including ourselves, by improving our own health.

We don't all make the same choices or use the same method, but we all have the same goal.

Encouraging each other is the best option : )

To me, it is much more "vegan" to continue to use any animal products that you have than to throw them out all at once and go buy all vegan products. I think it can be very easy to forget that just because your cereal/shoes/sofa/shampoo don't have animal products in them, it doesn't mean that animals weren't harmed in the making of them. Manufacturing new products can do major damage to the habitats of all kinds of animals--not to mention the environment in general. I would say that to be truly vegan, one has to think about the environment (as well as avoiding animal products) in every choice that they make.

Which actually harms more animals:
an organic naturally scented beeswax candle made locally and sold at a farmer's market
or
a petroleum based heavily chemically scented candle made in China and shipped to Wal-Mart?

That's an extreme example, of course. I know that those aren't the only options in the world, but it saddens me to see that some vegans (I'm not talking about vegwebbers, just vegans that I've known personally) don't look at the big picture when making choices like the one above.

I couldn't agree with this more! you could say i'm green first, my main motivation for going vegan is environmental factors so i am not going to sacrifice my better judgment to have something just because it is vegan if it has unrecyclable packaging, petroleum based fibers, chemicals, or is something i can get secondhand, etc... Those things aren't good for the earth and therefore aren't good for it's inhabitants.

i must say, and be perfectly honest, that i am no longer vegan. i do eat all vegan food in my house and when i can afford it, use vegan/earth friendly cleaners. i don't own leather (save for a pair of hand-me-down black docs).

when i was "fully" vegan, i became pretty much mentally ill. i was CONSTANTLY worried and feeling guilty that i might be eating/using an animal biproduct. i stopped brushing my teeth even, because i couldn't afford to buy the "animal friendly" toothpaste but couldn't bring myself to use my regular toothpaste. i started losing weight and couldn't stay awake. i was obsessed in every sense of the word. i was so hard on myself and often i found the guilt overwhelming.

then one day i broke. i was starving, not because i wanted to really, but because i just couldn't eat right. so i ate and ate and ate at a restaurant with some friends. they were amazed. i just gave it up. and i feel better about it now. i'm ovo-lacto when i'm out and about now.i just cannot buy $6 or more toothpaste and that's okay. all i can do is my best, as corny and silly as that may sound, but it's the truth.

it is about finding that peace. i do my best to be aware of the food i eat and the product si use but i strive to not let it take-over who i am.

It's also extremely hard to be "in between" vegan and vegetarian. If I tell someone that I'm a strict vegetarian, they still think that I eat dairy--or sometimes even eggs. If I tell people that I'm vegan, it's not really true, because I still eat some things with honey in them and wear some wool. But, when I tell people the exact way that I eat they just say, "Oh, so your vegan". And then I have to explain to them why I'm not vegan. I would imagine for "dietary vegans" it's just as difficult. Argh!  :-\

Yeah, I have this same problem. When people invite me for dinner, they ask what I eat - I'm not strict about small amounts of dairy or egg (for instance, in a pancake) - but I don't want to be served a big slab of cheese for dinner. It's hard to explain it - I usually just tell people "nearly vegan, but relaxed about it"

I can see how you don't want the word vegan to be ripped apart, like you said, Janeyboo, and I agree with you to an extent. I am 16, I live with my parents in a houst with 5 other people. All of whom eat meat, milk, cheese, eggs, foods with gelatin, non-vegan sugar and bought a leather couch even though I told them that I was really unhappy with their decision.  I own one pair of leather shoes and some wool yarn from before I went vegan. Now, I make sure shoes are canvas or another material and that I buy yarns made of other materials (my fave is bamboo!!). However, I think that if I were to introduce myself as a vegan and someone were to tell me that I'm not really a vegan because I wash my hands with the same soap as my omni family and it's not veggie friendly, that I would be highly offended.
I think that vegan IS being concious of your choices, it is being able to sleep at night with the choices you have made, and it is informing people (in a respectful and kind way) of the choices you have made so as to educate them and gain their respect for your beliefs. Being vegan to me, is a system of beliefs but everyone expresses those beliefs in a different way.

when i was "fully" vegan, i became pretty much mentally ill. i was CONSTANTLY worried and feeling guilty that i might be eating/using an animal biproduct. i stopped brushing my teeth even, because i couldn't afford to buy the "animal friendly" toothpaste but couldn't bring myself to use my regular toothpaste. i started losing weight and couldn't stay awake. i was obsessed in every sense of the word. i was so hard on myself and often i found the guilt overwhelming.

Well, for the record, ALL of us eat products that harm animals. There is no way around that. You eat wheat ... and mice in the fields were minced up by the machine that cuts the wheat. That's true for any grain based food. No one hand cuts it any more ... and small wild critters are bound to get in the way of machines.

So, I agree with you in that being vegan is a conscious way of viewing our choices - knowing what goes in our body, what is in our products, etc. I think people qualify for vegan as long as the "major" things are avoided, i.e. meat, animal by-products, and animal testing. After that, it's just way too hard to keep track of what's happening in that corn field to the mice or bunnies.

I'm not anal about being vegan when I go to someone's home for dinner. I don't eat meat. But, when there is a side of veggies and it has butter in it ... I'm not going to sit there with an empty plate. Or if I'm going out with friends, and everything on the menu has some form of dairy in it (this is rare, but it's happened a few times), I won't refuse to order anything. When I need to use a public restroom, I use the soap in there to wash my hands. I don't carry my vegan soap with me, after all. When I travel to foriegn countries like Indonesia, I pick the most vegan choice available out of all the options. But, it's not always possible to be 100% vegan, 100% of the time. Trying to be is bound to drive anyone batty!