If there’s one word in our modern society that is the most controversial, what word would instantly pop up in your head?
For those who do not consume or wear any animal products for animal, environmental and health reasons, it certainly is the word “Vegan”.
Veganuary
Every year in January, after the December holidays and a strong possibility of over-indulging, many feel a powerful urge to try a new perspective on diet and morality through Veganuary.
Veganism, like many controversial societal issues, divides people, not because it’s a taboo issue, but because some people who are not vegan see vegans as confrontational – speaking up for the animals, fighting for their rights, trying our best to show awareness of the environmental benefits of a vegan diet, etc.
If you’re not a vegan, you may already be thinking “Oh, those vegans again” and want to skip this article and go back to reading something less “confronting”, but I promise you, this article is not here to make you feel bad.
Eating and living a vegan lifestyle is wonderful – not only for animals but also for the rapidly warming environment.
According to the UN, adopting a vegan lifestyle can save up to 2.1 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually – but many may still find it daunting to try or are confused about what it actually entails.
Here’s when Veganuary comes to help, a portmanteau of the words “vegan” and “January”, Veganuary provides clear and helpful advice to anyone willing to try vegan. (Fun fact: did you know that around 30 million people participated in Veganuary 2026? The biggest one yet!)
Dan Richardson and 'Food For Thought'
To celebrate Veganuary’s initiative – as well as to welcome new OU students who are vegan or vegan-curious – the OU Vegan Club was lucky enough to have Dan Richardson, animal rights activist, actor and filmmaker, join us for the OU Welcome Week in January.
We were very grateful Dan joined us to talk about all things animal rights, veganism, acting, and more. Particularly pertinent was his recently released documentary on veganism, Food for Thought, made with his long-time friend and collaborator (and also vegan), Giles Alderson.
The film sees Dan and Giles travel the world (UK, California, Croatia and South Africa) meeting inspiring vegan activists in a truly global movement – a vegan body builder, vegan farmers, and even the occasional vegan heavy metal rock star (Derrick Green of Sepultura)!
Dan is passionate about animals, which comes across instantly when you start to listen to him. He is a patron of many animal charities such as Born Free, and Goodheart Animal Sanctuaries, where the piglets he and Giles rescued were rehomed.
Particularly relevant for anyone considering trying veganism, a group of non-vegans are set a challenge to go vegan for four weeks. As we are introduced to the group, each has their own personal concerns that any vegan can relate to instantly: missing cheese, what to look for on labels, how to eat with friends/family, etc.
Thankfully, the general consensus is that everyone had a positive experience, enjoying the newfound cuisine and the benefits of cutting meat and dairy from their diets, helping reduce the substantial environmental impact of industrial farming, and sparing the cruelty and suffering of the lucky few animals.
It’s well worth a watch and can be viewed in full on YouTube for free.
Dan is currently building a campaign to protest against fireworks and the harm they cause to the environment, the fear they cause to animals (wild and domestic), property damage, and littering, amongst much more.
Here are a few of the highlights of our OU Welcome Week session with Dan:
Q: How is it being a vegan on the set? Do they provide vegan food for you or do you have to prepare your own food?
A (Dan): I have to say that it’s always been very good. I think we’re lucky as vegans because, and this is going to sound terrible to say this, but we have the people with food allergies to thank. Because if you’re on set and you’re gluten-free, no one’s going to say a word, they’re going to provide gluten-free food. Or if you’re lactose-intolerant, no one’s going to tease you about it. They’re just going to provide lactose-free food. And so I think they really sort of helped to blaze a trail for us accidentally, inadvertently.
Interestingly enough, the Disney show I was just talking about, it was two seasons that we did, and it was filmed in Northern Ireland, so I was over there for periods of like two, three months at a time. It was big, it was Disney. So as you can imagine, it’s quite a big production. So there’s catering and every day you’re on set, there’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, depending on the times you’re there. The first season, I wasn’t even vegetarian. As I said, I was a meat eater. So I was at a catering truck and I was having a full English breakfast every morning. And you get to know the staff and it was the same staff the following season. So, when I got back [they] thought I was joking when I said, “Oh, I’m going to need vegan [food]”. So I literally changed from one season to the next. You know what, they went out of their way, and I think anyone, decent, normal is going to do that. It’s quite simple. If that’s not hard at all, it’s like so much stuff is accidentally vegan. Most things people eat are vegan. You know, it’s just that there’s a tonne of things out there that everyone seems to have a lot of that are, of course, not vegan.”
Q: With those friends or colleagues who you then went back to and had to say, “Oh, I’m vegan now”, and they obviously expressed surprise, and I’m guessing they asked why, and just wondering what you tend to say.
A (Dan): You know what, actually? In that particular instance, the Disney show, the cast and crew, as you can imagine, it’s a magical thing, actually, making a film or a TV show, because you’re all, you’ve got this eclectic group of people all together to achieve a common goal. There’s a magic to making films. It’s a lovely, lovely environment, nearly all the time. It’s wonderful. And so, with that being the case, you become quite close with people. You’re spending an awful lot of time with them. You know, you’re going to some creatively deep places and potentially, you know, really deep places personally as well. You become friends, and what do friends do these days? They connect on social media. Everything I do on social media is animals. I was suddenly aware of the hypocrisy that I was guilty of. I’d been speaking on podiums publicly for animals for about two or three years. I was a patron for the Born Free Foundation. I was literally speaking publicly about animal welfare, animal conservation, and so all of the folks on the set that I was connected to, whether it was the costume people, the make-up, the catering, my fellow cast, anybody – they knew that was what I was all about. They knew it before I left on the first season.
And that’s the interesting thing about the world as well, as a slight side point, no one said, “That’s interesting, you see all your animal welfare stuff on social media, but you just ordered a burger from the catering band.” No one, no one says that. I never got held to account for that, which I think is good, but it’s also kind of surprising. And, I didn’t get any kind of like, “Oh, what, wow, really?” It might have been that moment when the catering guys realised that it was the bad guy that was a vegan, which just didn’t fit. I think they laughed more than anything else, but they were very, very cool about it. Out in the world, I have to say, I’ve never, not from anyone I know anyway, I’ve not had any kind of surprise or “What’s all that about?”
Because it’s been in my DNA as well, animals, it just fits me, you know, being vegan fits me. And I think the other thing that’s been useful is I didn’t really shout about it so much.
So it was, there was never any, you know, great shakes about it. I suppose it’s good because that’s not the case for everybody. It’s a great question because it even comes up in the documentary, where people talk about the social aspects of it. And I think I’m very lucky, albeit, like I said, I wish I’d gone vegan many, many years ago.
Q: Can you tell us what you’re working on at the moment?
A (Dan): I’d love to. Thank you for the opportunity.
I don’t know where you guys all stand on fireworks, but fireworks are an absolute disaster. An absolute disaster. And that’s one of my key focuses right now. And in fact, this big old whiteboard behind me, which you guys can’t see, is just covered in this three-pronged approach, because they’ve just had a debate in Parliament about fireworks. And of course, as always, nothing’s being done about it. But in a nutshell, fireworks are traumatising and often killing pets. So we’re talking about dogs and cats. They’ll traumatise pets. Often pets are dying or they’re bolting because of being so terrified, and they’re becoming lost and never being found, or they’re being killed by cars on the road. Same with horses. I’m working with the Red Wings Horse Sanctuary where they had two horses bolt just last year on November 5th, where one of them was hit and killed by a car. The other one was injured by breaking through their fencing. They’re just in a panic. So they’re, you know, very powerful animals, and they just break through the fences, which would otherwise hold them, and the number of animals being taken to vets, the number of animals going missing goes through the roof – deaths, wild animals, birds being lost, disoriented, wild animals leaving their dens, leaving their nests and their young being killed etc.
The problems are endless for animals, war veterans traumatised by it, people with neurodivergent conditions, with PTSD, with ADHD, with dementia, utterly traumatised by them. They pollute the environment, you’ve got their noise pollution, their litter. It’s illegal for us to drop litter, but if you fire it up in the air, and you don’t know where it lands, then it’s fine. That’s what fireworks are. And here’s the thing: in Italy, in Holland, in a number of different places, they’ve implemented rules where now you can only have what they call silent fireworks. They’re not silent, but we’ve all been to fireworks displays where you’ve got ones that whizz and fizz and they don’t have those gigantic explosions.
On New Year’s Eve this year, I went out into my back garden and put my drone in the air in order to capture the noise. Because people say to me: “Well, the animals can just go somewhere else till the fireworks end”. They don’t end. I spun the drone 360 and you could see fireworks as far as the eye could see in every direction for 45 minutes. And it went on overall until 2.40 in the morning. Between Diwali, Halloween, Guy Fawkes Night, Chinese New Year, our New Year, Christmas, people’s birthdays, people’s weddings – there’s fireworks all the time, all over the place, and it doesn’t do anything but harm. Some of those problems would still exist with the so-called silent fireworks, not least the litter, of course – and by the way, fires, property damage, injury to humans, death to humans – because of fireworks, that goes up. Crime committed with fireworks; people filmed firing fireworks at other people’s houses and causing injury and damage and all sorts. There’s nothing good [that] comes of it.
I get hit with every argument under the sun, you know, tradition. Like, what are we saying here? It’s such a pathetic non-argument, the argument of tradition. What, like, women can’t vote, that was a tradition too. Slavery, that was a tradition. But because of, you know, tradition is one of the worst culprits when it comes to us not evolving. So that’s a very long-winded way of saying fireworks is my next cause. As you can tell, I’m very passionate about it because they just cause so much [stress], just so people can hear a loud bang.”
The OU Vegan Club
The OU Vegan Club is open to all students who have an interest and/or open mind to veganism. We really want to have a friendly, informative discussion about why we believe in it, and live a life “which seeks to exclude … all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose” – veganism as defined by The Vegan Society.
If you’re keen to learn more about Dan, you can find his social media links below. Follow him to keep up-to-date with his fireworks campaign and nature walks on his YouTube channel. We’d warmly welcome you to join us at the OU Vegan Club, too! You can find our links just below Dan’s:
