"Digger" > wrote in message ...
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:57:03 -0400, "magnulus" > wrote:
> >"Digger" > wrote in message ...
> >>
> >> "It applies to the practice of living on the products of the
> >> plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs,
> >> honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages
> >> the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly
> >> or in part from animals."
> >> http://www.vegsource.com/jo/essays/namegame.htm
> >>
> >
> > That's actually a good definition (if quite wordy- try explaining that to
> >anybody when they ask you what a vegan is), but if you just changed "animal
> >milk" to "nonhuman animal milk", it would be flawless.
>
> I'm afraid not, because making human milk an exception
> to the rule leaves the way clear for any man to regard
> himself as a vegan while nourishing himself on it. Vegan
> mothers must start being content with the hard fact that
> their suckling babe is neither a vegetarian or a vegan.
>
> There's nothing ugly or wrong in feeding a child naturally
> with mothers milk and having a non-vegan in the family,
> and those who want to assume there is and go so far as
> to pretend that the milk they give it is a vegetarian food
> are wrong and simply deluding themselves.

Doesn't 'vegetarian' in the UK, simply mean those who
abstain from meat, as in 'lacto-ovo-vegetarians', (whilst in
the US, 'vegetarian' means what we call 'vegan')? Maybe
we should just call nursing babies, of any species, 'lactarians'?
(There's probably already an accepted definition, though .