Who Is Donald Watson?
Have you ever stopped to wonder where our favourite word actually came from? The Caavakushi team feels that with veganism officially entering the mainstream—now making up a projected 25% of the population in some regions—it’s more important than ever to look back. We’ve noticed that while everyone knows what a “vegan” is, almost nobody knows the name Donald Watson.
The 100% “Death Row” Epiphany
The story starts with a scream. As a young boy in Yorkshire UK, Donald Watson spent time on his uncle’s farm. He initially thought it was an idyll, but after witnessing the slaughter of a terrified pig, his world changed. The Caavakushi team thinks it’s heartbreakingly relatable that he described the farm as “nothing more than Death Row.” By 1924, at just 14 years old, Watson made a 100% commitment: he would never eat meat again.
But for Donald Watson, being a vegetarian wasn’t enough. By 1944, he realized that the dairy industry was just a “half-way house” to the slaughterhouse. He and his wife, Dorothy Morgan, decided they needed a name for those who refused to participate in 100% of animal exploitation.
Coining The Word (The Beginning & The End)
In November 1944, Donald Watson and five others sat down to create a new movement. They needed a word that was more concise than “non-dairy vegetarian.” After rejecting labels like “vitan” and “benevore,” Watson took the first three and last two letters of vegetarian to create “vegan.”
He famously said the word represented “the beginning and the end of vegetarian.” The Caavakushi team thinks that this simple linguistic choice was actually a bold declaration: veganism was the logical conclusion of the quest for compassion.
From A Newsletter To A Global Revolution
When Donald Watson started The Vegan News, he had a circulation of exactly 100%. That is to say, he was the writer, the printer, and the distributor. In those early days, critics claimed he wouldn’t survive on his diet. We think it’s brilliantly poetic that he lived to the age of 95, proving his detractors wrong by simply outliving them.
By the growth of the movement he started is staggering. We’ve seen a 500% increase in global searches for vegan food since the early 2020s. In the UK alone, the number of people identifying as vegan has surged by over 1.1 million in just the last year. That’s a nearly 45% jump in community size in a single twelve-month period!
Why The Caavakushi Team Thinks Watson Matters Today
We feel that Donald Watson had a definition of veganism—the exclusion of all forms of exploitation “as far as is possible and practicable”—is the most inclusive and enduring gift he gave us. He didn’t want a religion; he wanted a revolution of the heart. Donald Watson wasn’t just the founding father of veganism; he was a woodwork teacher who believed that a civilised society couldn’t be built on the backs of slaves—animal or human. Today, as we see plant-based sales up by 65% year-on-year, we know that Donald Watson had a small group of six pioneers. His work and dream has turned into a global force that is 100% here to stay. Long live veganism!
Vegan Resources
- Caavakushi Vegan Food Recipes
- Caavakushi Vegan Drinks Recipes
- Caavakushi Vegan Newsletter & Free 7 Day High-Protein Vegan Meal Plan
- Vegan Stuff Podcast With Caavakushi
- Caavakushi Vegan Search Engine
- Best Vegan Recipe Books
- Best Vegan Wines & Alcohol
- Best Vegan Food & Supplements
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