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The History of Veganism: From Ancient Grains to Impossible Burgers

  • Writer: Emanuele Bortolotto
    Emanuele Bortolotto
  • Jul 23
  • 8 min read

Updated: Sep 8


I bet that most people think of veganism as a fairly new invention. I imagine they picture it being created sometime around 2014 in a brightly lit laboratory in California, probably by a group of tech billionaires who were really into yoga. It feels so modern, so tied to the internet, Instagram aesthetics, and the recent explosion of plant-based products that it’s hard to imagine a world where someone was vegan before they had a smartphone to document it.

This perception of newness makes it easy for critics to dismiss it as a fleeting trend, a dietary fad like the grapefruit diet, but with more self-righteousness. But the more I started digging into the past, the more I realized that this assumption couldn’t be more wrong. The word "vegan" is relatively new, yes. But the idea—the profound, deeply held conviction that humans should not consume animals or their products—is ancient.

So today, I want to take you on a historical journey. We’re going to be archaeologists of the plant-based plate, uncovering the secret history of this radical idea. So, how did veganism start? The story is much longer, weirder, and more fascinating than I ever imagined. 📜


The Ancient World: Before It Was Cool (Or Even Had a Name)


Long before anyone had heard of tofu or nutritional yeast, pockets of humanity were already wrestling with the ethics of eating animals. This wasn’t about health fads or environmental science; it was about philosophy and the very nature of life and death.


Greece's First Great Influencer: Pythagoras


If you paid attention in math class, you probably know Pythagoras for his theorem about triangles. But when I started my research, I found out he was much more than a numbers guy. Around 500 BCE, he was essentially the ancient world’s first wellness guru. He founded a commune-like community in Croton, southern Italy, where his followers, the Pythagoreans, lived by a strict set of rules. And the biggest rule? They did not eat meat.

Pythagoras’s reasoning was primarily spiritual. He believed in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls—or as we know it, reincarnation. To him, the soul of a human could be reborn into an animal, and vice versa. Therefore, eating an animal was a horrifying act of potential cannibalism. You could be chomping down on your reincarnated great uncle. Awkward. 😬

The Pythagoreans weren’t strictly vegan as we define it today—some historical accounts suggest they may have consumed certain non-flesh animal products. But they were the first major, organized group in the West to reject meat on purely ethical grounds. For nearly 2,000 years, a meat-free diet was simply known as the "Pythagorean diet." He was so influential that he basically had the naming rights on vegetarianism until the 1800s.


Ahimsa in the East: The Vow of Non-Harm


At around the same time Pythagoras was worrying about eating his ancestors in Greece, a powerful philosophical wave was cresting in India. This was the concept of Ahimsa, or the principle of non-harm towards all living beings. It became a core tenet of several major religions, most notably Jainism and Buddhism.

For followers of Jainism, Ahimsa is the highest duty. This led them to adopt a strict form of vegetarianism that is, in many ways, functionally vegan. They avoid not only meat but also root vegetables like potatoes, onions, and garlic, because harvesting them can kill the entire plant and the tiny organisms in the soil. It's a level of meticulous compassion that is truly astounding.

Buddhism also champions non-harm, and while not all Buddhists are vegetarian, the philosophy has led to a rich tradition of plant-based eating across Asia for millennia. This ancient commitment to non-violence is a stark contrast to the traditional diet here in Finland, where hearty meat, fish, and dairy dishes were historically essential for surviving the long, brutal winters. It’s a fascinating example of how our philosophies and our climates have shaped what ends up on our plates for thousands of years. 🥶


The 19th Century: Vegetarians Get Organized (And a Little Radical)


For centuries after the ancient world, the "Pythagorean diet" remained a niche practice of a few hardy philosophers and religious groups. But in the 19th century, something started to shift. The industrial revolution was in full swing, and in response, a romantic, back-to-nature counter-movement began to bubble up in England.

In 1847, the first Vegetarian Society was formed in Ramsgate, England. This was a huge moment. It was the first time that people who chose not to eat meat had a formal community, a name, and a platform. But even within this new group, there was a more radical faction. Some members felt that simply abstaining from meat wasn’t enough. They pointed out that the production of milk and eggs was not free from harm and that a truly ethical diet should exclude these as well.

Figures like the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the physician William Lambe were already advocating for a diet free of all animal products on both ethical and health grounds. In fact, an entire religious sect, the Bible Christian Church founded in 1809, mandated that its members abstain from meat, alcohol, and, for the most devout, dairy and eggs. These were the vegans before the word "vegan" even existed. They were the trailblazers, the ones who saw the ethical inconsistencies long before anyone else.


1944: The Year of the Vegan 🗓️


This brings us to the pivotal moment in our story, the birth of the modern vegan movement. The year is 1944. The place is Leicester, England. A mild-mannered woodworking teacher named Donald Watson is growing increasingly frustrated.

Watson was a member of the Vegetarian Society, but he was one of the radical ones. He believed that consuming dairy and eggs was just as exploitative as eating meat. He argued that the modern dairy cow was living a life of "slavery" and that the system was built on the suffering of both the mother and her calf. He petitioned the Vegetarian Society to create a section in their newsletter for those who abstained from all animal products. They refused.

So, in August of 1944, Watson and a small group of about five other "non-dairy vegetarians" decided to break away. It was a schism so dramatic it makes every rock band breakup look tame by comparison. They decided they needed their own name, their own society, and their own newsletter.

In November of that year, Watson published the first issue of his newsletter, which he called "The Vegan News." He needed a name for their new movement. He and his wife, Dorothy, played with different ideas. He wanted something that captured the idea that their philosophy was the ultimate conclusion of vegetarianism. As he later wrote, he took the first three and last two letters of the word "vegetarian" to create a new word: vegan. It was, in his words, "the beginning and end of vegetarian." ✨

In that first newsletter, Watson defined veganism as "a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose." It’s a definition so robust and comprehensive that it is still used by The Vegan Society today. What's more, Watson was already talking about the environmental benefits, the health advantages, and the need for plant-based alternatives, laying the entire groundwork for the movement as we know it today.


From Counter-Culture to Mainstream: The Modern Explosion


For its first few decades, veganism remained a tiny, obscure movement. But in the latter half of the 20th century, it began to grow, propelled by larger cultural shifts.

  • The 60s and 70s: The "back-to-the-land" hippie movement embraced whole foods and vegetarianism. Early health food stores began to pop up, and books like Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet introduced millions to the environmental impact of meat production.

  • The 80s and 90s: The modern animal rights movement gained momentum. Philosophers like Peter Singer, with his hugely influential book Animal Liberation, gave the movement a rigorous intellectual foundation. Activist groups like PETA brought the harsh realities of factory farming into the public consciousness.

  • The 2000s and 2010s (The Internet Age): This was the catalyst that changed everything. The internet allowed information to spread like wildfire. Online communities gave vegans a sense of connection and solidarity. Most importantly, viral documentaries like Earthlings, Cowspiracy, and What the Health reached millions of people, converting waves of new followers with their powerful (and sometimes controversial) arguments. The simultaneous explosion in the quality and availability of vegan products—from Beyond Burgers to oat milk—removed the final barrier of inconvenience.


Questions from the Internet



Questions from the Internet: "So, who was the first vegan?"


This is a tricky question. If we're talking about the first person to use the word "vegan" and found the modern movement, the answer is definitively Donald Watson in 1944. But if we're asking who was the first person to live a life free of all animal products for ethical reasons, the answer is lost to history. It could have been an ancient follower of Jainism in India, a devout Pythagorean in ancient Greece, or countless other anonymous individuals throughout time who came to the same conclusion on their own.


Questions from the Internet: "Why did vegetarians get so mad about eggs and milk?"


This was the core of Donald Watson's argument. He didn't see it as "mad"; he saw it as a matter of logical and ethical consistency. His argument was that the dairy and egg industries are fundamentally built on exploitation and killing. He pointed out that to produce milk, a cow must be repeatedly impregnated and then have her calf taken away from her. The male calves are often killed shortly after birth, and the mother is slaughtered when her milk production declines. Similarly, in the egg industry, male chicks are killed at birth because they are useless for egg-laying. For Watson and the other early vegans, there was no ethical distinction between the cruelty of meat and the cruelty inherent in producing dairy and eggs.


Internal Link Break!


The modern vegan movement has an answer for everything, from the ethics of honey to the magic of eggless cakes. If you want to dive into the practical alchemy of modern plant-based baking, check out my guide: [Vegan Baking Secrets: Egg and Dairy Substitutes That Actually Work]. 🍰


The Conclusion: An Old Idea in a New World


So, how did veganism start? It didn't start with an Instagram influencer or a trendy restaurant. It started as an ancient philosophical whisper, a question about our relationship with the other animals on this planet. It was an idea that echoed through millennia, championed by Greek mathematicians, Indian monks, and radical English poets.

It was finally given a name and a modern mission by a quiet woodworking teacher in 1944, and then it was supercharged by the social and technological revolutions of the 20th and 21st centuries. Veganism is not a new fad. It is a very old idea that has finally found its moment. It is a testament to the enduring power of compassion, a philosophy that has been patiently waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

And if you’re exploring this modern version of veganism, one of the first questions you’ll probably have is about its real-world impact. For that, I have another deep dive: [Can Veganism Save the Planet?].


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