1. Cegan easily converts phonetically to several different spoken and written languages, no matter where native speakers set an accent in its pronunciation or spelling. Just like the word “vegan” having been adopted or adapted into many other languages, using “cegan” would be far easier than translating cell-based or cultivated or cultured.
2. Cegan describes a production method, a consumption preference, and an identity label. It could be a unifying industry brand, not just a product category brand. It hashtags more easily than #cultivatedmeat or #cellularagriculture or #cellbasedmeat.
3. Cegan products can include a-cellular agriculture, or precision fermentation. The “c” can also signify ethical veganism but material carnism. This is a persistent problem in calling a product vegan although it contains animal matter.
4. Cegan can also be used to describe hybrid products that are part plant-based, part cell-based. After all, some processed meats contain some plant-based fillers but no one thinks it is necessary to say “mostly avian pectoral muscle with a little soy powder glue mixed in.”
5. Cegan fits right in with Gen Z’s tendency to create their own identity labels, and although Gen Z youth aren’t as opposed to the word “vegan” as previous generations, it is unlikely that they will culturally reproduce the vegan identity of their parents.
6. Ceganism will be a holistic future lifestyle that will include not just cultivated meat, seafood, and dairy but also cultivated silk, leather, fur, chocolate, coffee, and even cultivated wood. Why assign a different label to all these products when they speak to the same ethos of cultivating, rather than raising or growing what we consume?
7. Cegan can mean inclusivity and variety of food elements. If plant-based can include fungi, then cegan can include a-cellular products or precision fermentation. Both can include algae or entirely new compounds of animal-free substances.
8. Cegan would be easier to include on clothing labels than “bio-printed cultured silk” and it could encompass all materials that are bio-fabricated rather than nature-sourced like fur or rare wood.
9. Cegan isn’t any more confusing for the consumer as calling a beef chunk “steak” which originally simply refers to the stick that the meat was attached to in order to cook it on an open fire, and not even the meat itself.
10. Ceganism as a culturally shared food practice has the potential to lessen the ideological divide between ethical vegans and dedicated carnivores, and instead create a new taxonomy that unites them as ethical or conscientious consumers.
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