Dear Vegan Fusion,
There are different figures regarding the number of vegetarians and
vegans in the United States, and very sketchy statistics, at best,
regarding the rest of the world.
In the United States, an 2003 Harris Poll conducted for a vegetarian
organisation, found that 4-10% of the American population calls itself
"vegetarian". However, only 2.8% of the population never eats meat,
poultry, or fish/seafood. The rest are "occasional vegetarians", who
sometimes eat meat, or avoid red meat and eat poultry, or avoid those,
but eat fish. The estimation is that 1/3-1/2 of the 2.8% is also vegan
(specifically, the percentage of population that indicated that they
never eat Meat, poultry, fish, seafood, dairy products, eggs or honey
was 1.8%[1].
A Zogby poll conducted in 2000 has similar findings. While 2.5% of the
population reported that they never eat "meat, poultry,
fish/shellfish"; 0.9% actually reported to be "vegan" [2].
As Food Review wrote in 1996, ?No Change in the Prevalence of Vegetarianism
A deluge of newly published vegetarian cookbooks and the introduction
of brand-name meatless vegetable burgers and sausage-style products
across the marketplace suggests that vegetarianism may be a growing
consumer movement. But surveys indicate that the proportion of true
vegetarians - people who eat no red meat, poultry, fish, or shellfish
- among Americans may be the same today as it was 16 years ago.
A 1992 survey conducted by the market research firm Yankelovich,
Clancy, and Shulman and commissioned by Vegetarian Times magazine
found 12.5 million in this country described themselves as vegetarians
- nearly 5 percent of the population. There was only one catch,
however; most of them actually ate poultry and fish, and even enjoyed
red meat once in a while. The majority cited health concerns as the
reason for adopting a semivegetarian diet?[3]
Regarding world population, the figures are sketchy at best and there
is no global statistics. There are several reasons why this is so:
- First, because of different cultural perceptions, of what
"vegetarian" consists of. In the U.S., for example, one is considered
vegetarian even if they eat eggs and drinks milk (in some cases even
if they eat fish only); in other cultures this is not the case.
- Second, because there are no accurate statistics on the population
of the world. Think of a country like Somalia: do you really think
that they run surveys on who is vegetarian?
There is some anecdotal evidence, which is mostly skewed and based on
unsubstantiated information provided by vegans and vegetarians:
?Did he know that approximately one-fourth of the world's population
is vegetarian??[4]; or - ?[?] 60% of the world's population is
vegetarian.?; and ?I started thinking that about 30% of the world's
population is vegetarian.?[6]; ?Nearly half of the world's population
is vegetarian and most of the other half eat meat sparingly.? [7];
and, lastly, ?It still amazes me how this book ended up in a business
bookstore. The author taught me that over 50% of the world's
population is vegetarian. ?[8]
Looking at the world?s most populated countries ? China, India, the
United States, Indonesia and Brazil ? only one of them has a large
vegetarian population, which is India. As discussed in depth later,
about 30% of the Indian population is completely vegetarian. However,
the percentage of vegetarians in China and Brazil is negligible. In a
survey conducted in Hong Kong, for example, only 1.5% consider
themselves vegetarians [9]. While the population of the world?s five
most populated countries makes up about half of the world population,
there are ? in these settings ? about 15% of vegetarians (being very
generous).
In addition, there is hard data from few countries:
The International Vegetarian Union (IVU) provides the following statistics:
Country Vegetarians Total Population %
France 500,000 56m 0.9
Germany 700,000 56m 1.25
Netherlands 700,000 16m 4.4
Poland 75,000 38m 0.2
Sweden 60,000 8m 0.75
United Kingdom 3,500,000 57m 6.1
(SOURCE: IVU, ?Global News Round Up? <http://www.ivu.org/news/95-96/general.html >
The European Vegetarian Union keeps data from August 2005 on their site:
How many Veggies ... ?
<http://www.european-vegetarian.org/lang/en/info/howmany.php>
For specific countries:
UK
----
How Many Vegans in the UK?
<http://www.imaner.net/panel/statistics.htm>
Vegetarian Society - Summary of RealEat polls 1984 ? 2001
<http://www.vegsoc.org/info/realeat.html>
Also see the European Vegetarian Union?s data.
Germany
-----------
?Wochenpost's results suggested 2% of the population is vegetarian
whilst Focus reported 3% as vegetarian.? (SOURCE: Thomas Schönberger,
?Meat Eating in Germany?, IVU News, April May 1996,
<http://www.ivu.org/news/95-96/general3.html>)
Also see the European Vegetarian Union?s data.
Norway
----------
In Norway, ?Norwegians eat less meat than other Europeans, but our
consumption of animal products is, unfortunately, increasing.
Vegetarians are few. The only survey ever undertaken shows that some
1% of the population is vegetarian, equalling about 40,000 persons.
This estimate is probably somewhat high, but it gives an idea of the
situation. The survey, undertaken in 1993, also shows that 0.1% of the
population consider themselves vegans? (SOURCE: News from Norway Vegan
Views 68 (Spring 1995),
<http://www.veganviews.org.uk/vv68/vv68norway.html >).
Also see the European Vegetarian Union?s data.
Canada
---------
?In a recent Canadian survey by the National Institute for Nutrition,
about 4% of Canadians called themselves vegetarian. However, of the
4%, about 70% still ate meat or fish occasionally and about 10%
described themselves as vegan. That translates into about 1 200 000
Canadian semi-vegetarians including approximately 250 000 Canadian
vegetarians and 100 000 Canadian vegans.
Another study showed that 97% of Canadians still include meat in their
diets, 99% consume milk and milk products, 2.7% say they exclude meat
from their meals, and only 0.5% are strict vegetarians. ?
(SOURCE: Amanda?s Kitchen ?How many vegetarians are there??,
<http://www.colba.net/~ajstrong/About.htm#howmany>)
Also see the European Vegetarian Union?s data.
India
-------
The most concentrated population of vegetarians (and vegans) is in
India, where many avoid meat of religious reasons. However, because of
the nature of statistical information about India, it is not clear how
many really avoid meat, and how many do that out of principle
(religious or ideological) reasons, as opposed to those who cannot
afford meat. Because of the religious nature of vegetarianism, it is
also possible that people ?beautify? their answers at polls, and
occasional meat-eaters claim to be vegetarians. Most Indian
vegetarians are lacto-vegetarians (who drink milk but avoid eggs), and
this counts, according to U.S. Dept. of Agriculture data, to 20-30% of
the population. Large parts of the remaining 70% are only occasional
meat-eaters, and don?t eat animal products regularly (See: Wikipedia,
Vegetarianism, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism>).
Also see the European Vegetarian Union?s data.
Notes:
[1] "How Many Vegetarians Are There?", Vegetarian Resource Group,
Vegetarian Journal, 2003 No. 1,
<http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2003issue3/vj2003issue3poll.htm>
[2] "How Many Vegetarians Are There?", Vegetarian Resource Group,
<http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/poll2000.htm>
[3] Lawrence A. Duewer, ?US per capita food consumption: record-high
meat and sugars in 1994 - includes related article? Food Review,
May-August, 1996, <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3765/is_n2_v18/ai_18509713>
[4] Jim Mason, ?On Restoring Evolution?, September 1998,
http://www.satyamag.com/sep98/evolution.html
[6] Bicycle Eye Blog, ?Bicycle Smile?
http://bicycle-eye.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_bicycle-eye_archive.html
[7] Readers? Views, Sunday Herald, March 25, 2001
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20010325/ai_n13956728
[8] Zarinea Lee Zolivea, ?My Pilgrimage Journey?, The Peacable Table, Issue 17,
http://www.vegetarianfriends.net/issue17.html
[9] Andrea Chiu, ?Breaking the taboo?, The Standardm August 10, 2005,
<http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=2966&sid=4842264&con_type=1&d_str=20051008>)
I hope this answers your question. Please contact me if you need any
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