ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways vegans discursively construct their diet in relation to health. Online forums represent a crucial site of discourse and meaning construction for vegans, particularly around food. Blogs, forums and social networking sites have been identified as important locations of vegan community-building, organising, information exchange, cultural transmission, identity-building and meaning construction. Culture is understood as an intricate text underpinned by a semiotic structure of signs and symbols, that is both a pre-structured system of symbols and a reflexive practice for meaning construction. Many contributions by posters on VegChat centred on making claims for the superior healthfulness of a vegan diet. Vegan diets were also frequently medicalised, presented as a treatment or cure for a variety of health problems. The redemptive narrative of veganism was strongly underscored by healthist, neoliberal discourses which position health within a highly individualised framework of risk and responsibility.
