ABSTRACT
This chapter explores vegan vlogs presented on YouTube as a site to explore contemporary social media meaning-making related to food and dietary restriction, self and wellness. In Western countries, food and eating have often fallen within the scope of public health, with ‘healthy eating’ guidelines developed at the population level. The specifics of such guidelines shift and evolve, but food tends to be broken down into broad food ‘groups’, with proportional amounts of each group advised. Unlike many Western government-approved healthy eating guidelines, which promote variety and ‘balance’, these diets tend to promote the exclusion of whole food groups, or food processes, or food at particular times. Veganism–a diet involving the avoidance of animal-based products, including meat, seafood, dairy products and eggs–offers a potentially different mode of dietary consumption and restriction. Blogs and vlogs, their audio-visual sibling, offer particular spaces for food/eating representation and discourse.
