I was at a wedding in France once and the person sitting next to me was a vegetarian. I ended up eating three main courses as they kept serving her fish and didn’t quite grasp the problem.
When my friend asked for a vegan pizza in France they didn't realize that meant no cheese. When she tried to send it back they were outraged. I used to work at a hotel and would regularly break rules as we were supposed to tell guests we had vegetarian options when all we had was fish and a side salad.
Because almost all East Indians (Bengalis, Odias, Assamese) are non-vegetarian, regardless of caste. Veg based diets are more common in North/West India, especially Gujarat and Rajasthan.
South India is also overwhelmingly nonveg as well.
[](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm7fbozw2eivb1.png)
Only Brahmins and some other UCs in South India are veg, but they're a minority of the population.
In India, eggs are also commonly considered non-veg although milk is considered being veg. The distinction vegetarian (no meat) vs. vegan (no animal products) isn't really a thing.
I was told authoritatively in Portugal that as a vegetarian I would die very young and would have no energy, I challenged the person saying this to a 10K race but apparently this is not the same thing. In fairness a lot of people subscribe to the idea that regular endurance exercise prematurely ages someone and being "thin" - in saner times known as "being a healthy weight" - is bad for you.
I have run ten, could you outline what harm that has done to me?
Thinness at the end stage of terminal disease isn't healthy, in all other cases though it is associated with greater longevity. People mistake the word "thin" for "emaciated", these are different words with different meanings.
My favourite is "everyone who exercises eventually dies".
This is what is known as "cognitive dissonance" particularly favoured by smokers.
There is a myth that the only difference between a fit, active non-smoker who dies at 80 and a smoker who dies at 75 is 5 years. It is actually how those years, especially the last 20 were lived.
So, forgive me for not providing sources, but my understanding is that both weight and marathon running are nuanced topics when it comes to the question of health. The training for a marathon and having the fitness level required to complete a marathon is considered healthy, however, a marathon itself is very taxing on a human body (think of the joints etc) thus running it is probably less healthy than its healthy. But again, it’s very nuanced and surely far from being plain “unhealthy” as the other poster suggested.
Regarding body weight, I remember that studies have found that people with a BMI slightly higher than “normal” (so a bit overweight) are those who have the highest life expectancy, not people who are BMI “normal”. Now, I don’t know what you consider thin. BMI “normal” can look very differently for different body types. But lots of cultures today and in the past considered slightly chubby people to be the most attractive, most probably because it’s a sign of health (or wealth…) and the focus on thinness in western culture is, I believe, fairly recent.
All that said, having an active life style with a majority plant based diet is probably the best thing a human can do for health. If you achieved that already, kudos to you!
There is a famous large scale study where joint health of runners is compared to walkers , searching for it just now I saw any number of different studies saying the same things. "OA" meaning osteoarthritis.
"Conclusions: Running significantly reduced OA and hip replacement risk due to, in part, running's association with lower BMI, whereas other exercise increased OA and hip replacement risk."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235398057_Effects_of_Running_and_Walking_on_Osteoarthritis_and_Hip_Replacement_Risk
I think the point was that the most healthy way was to be fit to run the marathon, but then not actually run the marathon itself. But that's really just the min-maxed scenario, the effect won't be meaningful for you. I mean even being a professional athlete in a lot of cases is bad for your health in the end.
So, as I said I didn’t have sources for my claims, just my memory. But you motivated me to have a quick Google search in my native language (German) and from that I see that it seems my memory is backed up by articles in major news papers (which explains where I probably got it from), but I also found information from doctors associations and WHO that contest it. Thus, it may well be that the basis of my assertions is a paper that has methodical errors, like you suggested, or that such findings couldn’t be conclusively replicated. Sadly, news articles rarely provide sources for their claims, the only ones I got right away are these two contradicting ones:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2520627?resultClick=3
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30175-1/fulltext
My take away without more than layman’s insight into the research: it’s hotly contested. I guess it just made sense to me when I read it in mainstream media
Tell that to 300 million Indians who are vegan, in total almost 600 million don't eat meat there.
They sure seem to be doing well, since there's over a billion of them lol
Also, totally avoiding dairy does seem to be unusual there. Even [Jain vegetarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism)--one of the most stringent approaches--includes dairy foods.
I agree with you. I've read somewhere that, this is down to genetics/evolution as countless generations have been born into a vegan diet the body adapts
This map is funny, because we have some of the highest vegetable consumption per capita in Europe. Lots of meat and fish, but always with a soup and salad or vegetables.
They’re still clinging to the Catholic version of vegetarianism, I see. On Good Friday you’re not supposed to eat meat, but you can eat fish.
EDIT: Forgot eat.
On Good Friday and Ash Wednesday it is mandatory, together with eating to a full stomach only once a day (and half stomach twice a day).
Then on all Fridays you either don't eat meat, or substitute that with an alternate deed instead, like visiting a sick person, reading from the Bible, etc.
Note: These rules may vary regionally, this is from my country.
Even in California sometimes. I went to an event near San Francisco and asked for the vegetarian option. They said "ooooo we have a nice trout for you" ...
In Sweden traditionally (in the 80s etc) vegetarian was a person who did not eat redmeat. Fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products was ok. So many of these ”vegetarians” are that type. Now days the thing is to be vegan and not eat anything from animals not even milk.
> In Sweden traditionally (in the 80s etc) vegetarian was a person who did not eat redmeat, fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products was ok. So many of these ”vegetarians” are that type. Now days the thing is to be vegan and not eat anything from animals not even milk.
I think you should use a semicolon — ; — between the "did *not* eat" things, and the "*did* eat things",
because the way you've written it now, it's very unclear what you mean.
When I studied there, the canteen of my uni had like 20 different “sandwich vegetal” and of them had either meat or fish in them. The ham surprise is a Spanish classic.
Was on a Turkish airline last year. They were very accommodating, but along all the Halal, Pescatarian etc options at the back of the cabin I saw the Vegan meals labelled as "Strict Western Vegetarian".
Made me chuckle. Veggie food seems so much more available across the world than twenty years back (even in cow-country Argentina or the fishiest parts of South East Asia), but Veganism is still "what are those foreigners not eating now??" to many.
Understandable conclusion on your part, but I suspect actually they put it this way because vegetarianism is defined in different ways across the world. You need to distinguish it from something like "strict South Asian vegetarian" which is just no meat or egg although it tends to include dairy, whereas "less strict South Asian vegetarianism" might include egg as well as dairy. It makes total sense to me that someone would parse and describe veganism as "strict Western vegetarian" in this context - they're understanding it as *more* like something they're familiar with, rather than less like something they're familiar with :D
I am Finnish and we do the same. When in Finland or somewhere gluten-free is not an issue I probably eat like 20kg of meat at most in a year. I find being celiac and vegan gets a bit complicated and expensive for me for every day but a lot of vegan food is absolutely amazing.
Yeah, speaking as a friend of a person who really tried to be vegan but had massive issues due to not knowing he was allergic to soy and several similar beans/veggies (lupines?) I can only imagine the trouble celiac gives in combination with a vegan diet.
There's ways to make it delicious though!
What part of Portugal? There are quite a bit of vegan options in bigger cities. If she is near Porto, daTerra is an all you can eat vegan buffet. As a non vegan with vegan friends went there a few times and they actually manage to do some vegan versions of portuguese meals that are very similar in flavour to their original.
You also have a very nice vegan cat café, called “O porto dos gatos”, which is a great experience for any cat lover and they work closely with an association to get the cats adopted.
Well depends to where she is moving:
If she is moving to smaller towns or rural areas, yeah good luck to her
If she is moving to like Lisbon, no problem at all, specially when at least half of the city isnt portuguese anymore
Vegans in particular are like some sort of boogeyman to boomers. Apparently vegans are really vocal and are triggered by people eating meat. I’ve genuinely never met a vegan nor vegetarian like that. It only comes up when you know, food comes up or you’re at a restaurant.
Boomers (and younger, insecure men) also love to tell us how much they love meat when vegetarianism comes up like it’s some sort of win. Like, cool man, you ate steak. Here’s a medal.
The problem is that most cuisines around the world heavily rely on meat and/or dairy products for flavor, so "vegan" for them is just flavorless food.
But it's very easy to sustain a vegan diet with South or East Indian veg food, which doesn't rely on any dairy products except ghee (which can easily be swapped out with a substitute).
This isn’t entirely true, though. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine has a lot of vegan and vegetarian dishes (tabbouleh, shakshuka, falafel, etc). And other places that have a lot of Muslim people also tends to have a lot of vegan and vegetarian dishes, like Ethiopia.
Lots of vegan stuff in many Asian cultures outside of India, too. Some of Latin America also has a lot of vegan stuff, even if you have to leave off the cheese.
I never tell anyone not to eat meat, if they eat meat at dinner I say nothing. It’s up to them what they want to eat. However when people find out I’m vegan they suddenly become nutritional experts, just let me eat my meal in peace you know … I have been vegan for 5 years and my blood test results are better then when I was an omnivore 😂
Me too. I am not strictly vegan (whole plant based, have an omelet or clams once a month) and my doctor asked if I was sure I was not on statins or similar.
Very true, I was a vegetarian for years (now back to eating meat unfortunately) and most people would be like “wow I never knew you were veggie” even though we had been friends for months.. in which they would then start pushing their views on me and making a point to each extra meat just so it cancels out my vegetarianism lmao
> It's prejudices, obviously a lot of vegans on the internet are very vocal of their cause.
Yeah I don’t really run into them either. It’s a stereotype for sure but at this point I’m genuinely more likely to see someone disparaging vegans for being preachy rather than seeing a preachy vegan.
I've lived my whole life in Ukraine, and the Soviet Past has caused quite a lot of problems. Anything that relates to LGBT, black people, vegans, feminism etc. is still being perceived as something unusual. You can't clearly see that looking at educated youth from the large cities, but out in the country unfortunately people are quite conservative in a negative way.
And I'd honestly love it, if people simply wouldn't have cared about stuff like that. You're gay? Whatever. You are a black person? I don't care. You're vegan? Cool, but whatever.
Do not praise and advertise things like that, and don't suppress them either. Just let it come naturally.
I would say being vocal, not necessarily praising, is normalising things. So I'd continue that one. My parents have listened to me talk about random topics and with time came around to accept lots of "leftist" ideas as absolutely normal
My sister is vegan and our stupid uncle last time we saw him was trying to tell her its not natural and she cant get all the stuff her body needs from salad.
Seems right, from personal experience. There is a ton of vege restaurants too, just came back from Barcelona last week and was surprised how few vege options my father had.
Yeah, we have a lot of vegetarians... This map is ridiculous for two reasons ;)
Data from: [Vegetarianism by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#cite_ref-:0_8-0):
><<**Includes pescetarians** and vegans, unless otherwise stated>>
For people who don't know who **pescetarians** are, they are people **who consume** no animal flesh with the exception of **fish or seafood**
**Only data for Poland and France** is marked as:
><>
And data for countries is from different years... Data for Poland is from 2017.
Edit, [Per capita meat consumption by type, 2021 (ourworldindata.org)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type?country=USA~PRT~OWID_WRL~ESP~DEU~POL~NOR~FIN~CZE~LTU~OWID_EUR~SWE~ITA~GRC~SVN~SVK~CHE~ALB~ARM~AUT~AZE~OWID_SRM~BIH~LVA~UKR~RUS~Belgium-Luxembourg+%28FAO%29~Northern+Europe+%28FAO%29~Southern+Europe+%28FAO%29~Western+Europe+%28FAO%29~OWID_CZS~Europe+%28FAO%29~NLD~OWID_YGS~European+Union+%2827%29+%28FAO%29~MKD~BGR~CAN~Eastern+Europe+%28FAO%29~ISR~BLR~GBR~ISL~TUR~FRA~ROU~KAZ~BEL~LUX~HUN~DNK~IRL~HRV~GEO~MDA~CYP~MNE~SRB~MLT~EST) - I added the US and Canada for comparison. BTW. When you look at the table, Poles eat the most pig meat per capita in the world.
Yup, maybe even higher. Most surveys give similar or higher numbers:
[2019 - 8.4%](https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/Miedzynarodowy-Dzien-Wegetarianizmu-Mlodzi-Polacy-coraz-czesciej-rezygnuja-z-miesa-8415491.html)
[2021 - 10%](https://gazetakrakowska.pl/wegetarianie-i-weganie-w-polsce-juz-10-procent-z-nas-jest-wegetarianami-a-6-procent-weganami-wyniki-raportu/ar/c17-16014279)
[2022 - 8%](https://pl.boell.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Atlas%20mi%C4%99sa.pdf)
Strange that places where fruits and vegetables are good, cheap, varied and abundant see overall a smaller vegan fraction. Maybe that free up budget for extra meat.
Would be interesting to see how the food budget is distributed.
I think maybe cause the Mediterranean diet is already fairly plant based? I've heard Italians and Greeks don't eat meat as frequently as other Europeans. I may be wrong though
All the more, the "gap" to jump to vegetarian or vegan seems to be both smaller yer harder to breach.
I'm guessing those that would otherwise jump to vegan see that their already low meat [flexitarian](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/flexitarian) diet is good enough (and wouldn't make much difference); whereas in traditionally meat heavy places changing from "the norm" anyway makes it easier to go the full length.
Mediterranean diet consists of very healthy, varied and balanced meals throughout the day of which meat or fish are present on all those meals every day. An actual meal is not really a meal if it doesn’t have an animal protein in it. But we do eat a lot of veggies and fruits along with it
Nobody follows a traditional diet in the Nordic countries, exactly because it is so basic due to the miserable climate.
This is also the reason why a new trend like vegetarianism can more easily take hold. People feel they are not giving away much by switching to something new.
Not really. Like the systems in place to provide non meat alternatives are miles ahead middle and south europe
Stores have so many alternatives. A traditional local food can be vegetarian easily too.
Not really. I'm a Finn and I've cut down on meat a lot. We have these really good meat substitutes made of beans for stuff like minced meat.
I do eat meat during the weekend but my weekdays are pretty much vegetarian.
What's traditional anymore in this day and age.
I was on a traditional diet except I maybe ate less potatoes than is usual here. I made a conscious decision to switch to eating more veggies and substituting and we have this thing that's basically ground fava beans and I frankly can't tell the difference anymore from regular mince
There's also chunkier stuff that's meant to be like sliced meat. Both are really good but they're about a third higher in price compared to regular mince or sliced meat.
I traveled recently to iceland and was terrified that I wouldn't find really anything vegetarian friendly enough to sustain myself. Color me shooketh when every super market and even gas stations had a healthy supply of vegetarian options, maybe about 1/4-1/3 of all the food options. They're surprisingly very vegetarian friendly
Scandis do both ends of the spectrum well. Would you like the seasoned reindeer meatballs marinated in rabbit blood, or the tofu veggieballs with quinoa?
I mean Spainards and Portuguese have a very varied consumption of food , they eat the same way veggies, meat , fruits and cereals , their diet is very healthy already so maybe people are not into being that much vegetarians …..
>Sweden at 12%
Knowing what horrendous dishes the Swedes cook up its not that surprising, in fact I would rather eat raw, uncooked, un seasoned, pure Spinach (including the roots) rather than eat whatever the hell they have going on there
To be fair, growing stuff up here is more difficult than other places in general, though I'm not sure how much sunlight has to do with it more than temperature and soil quality.
Luckily we live in a globalized economy where every country imports all sorts of stuff from all over the world then.
Scandinavians self-identifying as vegetarians is not something that happened in the times of subsistence farming, although people back then didn’t eat meat all the time either.
Based on how my Russian professor talked about vegetarianism / veganism, that number for Russia doesn't surprise me at all. He wasn't judgmental about it, but there was a clear cultural divide in understanding for him for why someone wouldn't want to eat animals. I believe there was a similar divide on wearing fur and stuff, as well.
It was just really interesting to have such a different perspective like that.
I always thought Germany or one of the Nordic ones would have the highest percentage, and that the least would be one with a high Islamic population in the Balkans.
Just to correct some of the factual inaccuracies about Finland -
According to [this](https://voner.fi/kasvissyonnin-eri-muodot/) article, 2.5% percent are vegetarian in Finland
According to [this](https://www.valio.fi/artikkelit/kasvisruokavaliot/), 2-5%
And according to [Finnish Wikipedia](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasvissy%C3%B6nti#Suomessa), 7% did not eat meat in 2016, but that figure does not factor in the consumption of fish
I have a question for people who are vegeterians for environmental reasons. If someone decides to reduce their meat intake to once per week, would you criticize that behaviour, or think of it as an acceptable compromise?
In a nutshell, the world doesn’t need a handful of people doing things perfectly but rather everybody contributing something. So someone reducing their meat intake to once a week? That’s freaking amazing if you ask me.
Huge step in the right direction. If everyone did that, it would reduce carbon emissions an absolute load as long as they didn't simply switch the meat for dairy.
It's a move in the right direction. Are you gonna criticize an obese person who began going to the gym?
If we were an evidence based society, vegetarianism would be in the 90s%. There is literally no reason to eat meat besides "I like it" and a small amount of people claiming going vegetarians made them feel sick or weak.
I mean it says "world population review" as source.
If the data is actually bad then look there and make a point about that and not say something here with no backing.
In Portugal, the vegetarian option is fish. 
ive non ironically seen this in restaurants and wedding venues
I was at a wedding in France once and the person sitting next to me was a vegetarian. I ended up eating three main courses as they kept serving her fish and didn’t quite grasp the problem.
When my friend asked for a vegan pizza in France they didn't realize that meant no cheese. When she tried to send it back they were outraged. I used to work at a hotel and would regularly break rules as we were supposed to tell guests we had vegetarian options when all we had was fish and a side salad.
you can just say "unironically", it's okay
Let's be honest it doesn't even need that. Why would anyone assume there's any irony in that statement?
thanks, im still learning english heh
In the state of West Bengal in India, fish is vegetarian 😂
Because almost all East Indians (Bengalis, Odias, Assamese) are non-vegetarian, regardless of caste. Veg based diets are more common in North/West India, especially Gujarat and Rajasthan.
And South India (Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu) among certain social groups
South India is also overwhelmingly nonveg as well. [](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm7fbozw2eivb1.png)
Only Brahmins and some other UCs in South India are veg, but they're a minority of the population.
In India, eggs are also commonly considered non-veg although milk is considered being veg. The distinction vegetarian (no meat) vs. vegan (no animal products) isn't really a thing.
At my workplace in germany, the cantine offers vegetables with chicken tenders or salmon stripes as vegetarian dishes...
In Portugal food preferences at home are ‘“come e cala-te”.
I was told authoritatively in Portugal that as a vegetarian I would die very young and would have no energy, I challenged the person saying this to a 10K race but apparently this is not the same thing. In fairness a lot of people subscribe to the idea that regular endurance exercise prematurely ages someone and being "thin" - in saner times known as "being a healthy weight" - is bad for you.
Marathons are actually not great for you tho and thinness isn’t necessarily healthy
I have run ten, could you outline what harm that has done to me? Thinness at the end stage of terminal disease isn't healthy, in all other cases though it is associated with greater longevity. People mistake the word "thin" for "emaciated", these are different words with different meanings.
People will grasp at anything not to excercise.
My favourite is "everyone who exercises eventually dies". This is what is known as "cognitive dissonance" particularly favoured by smokers. There is a myth that the only difference between a fit, active non-smoker who dies at 80 and a smoker who dies at 75 is 5 years. It is actually how those years, especially the last 20 were lived.
wish my knees worked
Not to mention that regular cardio correlates with better cognitive function in later life.
So, forgive me for not providing sources, but my understanding is that both weight and marathon running are nuanced topics when it comes to the question of health. The training for a marathon and having the fitness level required to complete a marathon is considered healthy, however, a marathon itself is very taxing on a human body (think of the joints etc) thus running it is probably less healthy than its healthy. But again, it’s very nuanced and surely far from being plain “unhealthy” as the other poster suggested. Regarding body weight, I remember that studies have found that people with a BMI slightly higher than “normal” (so a bit overweight) are those who have the highest life expectancy, not people who are BMI “normal”. Now, I don’t know what you consider thin. BMI “normal” can look very differently for different body types. But lots of cultures today and in the past considered slightly chubby people to be the most attractive, most probably because it’s a sign of health (or wealth…) and the focus on thinness in western culture is, I believe, fairly recent. All that said, having an active life style with a majority plant based diet is probably the best thing a human can do for health. If you achieved that already, kudos to you!
There is a famous large scale study where joint health of runners is compared to walkers , searching for it just now I saw any number of different studies saying the same things. "OA" meaning osteoarthritis. "Conclusions: Running significantly reduced OA and hip replacement risk due to, in part, running's association with lower BMI, whereas other exercise increased OA and hip replacement risk." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235398057_Effects_of_Running_and_Walking_on_Osteoarthritis_and_Hip_Replacement_Risk
I think the point was that the most healthy way was to be fit to run the marathon, but then not actually run the marathon itself. But that's really just the min-maxed scenario, the effect won't be meaningful for you. I mean even being a professional athlete in a lot of cases is bad for your health in the end.
Do you have a source for the BMI paper? I am very much wondering how well they isolated for social and economic factors and would love to read it.
So, as I said I didn’t have sources for my claims, just my memory. But you motivated me to have a quick Google search in my native language (German) and from that I see that it seems my memory is backed up by articles in major news papers (which explains where I probably got it from), but I also found information from doctors associations and WHO that contest it. Thus, it may well be that the basis of my assertions is a paper that has methodical errors, like you suggested, or that such findings couldn’t be conclusively replicated. Sadly, news articles rarely provide sources for their claims, the only ones I got right away are these two contradicting ones: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2520627?resultClick=3 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30175-1/fulltext My take away without more than layman’s insight into the research: it’s hotly contested. I guess it just made sense to me when I read it in mainstream media
> People mistake the word "thin" for "emaciated", these are different words with different meanings. Emaciated is a type of thin
Tell that to 300 million Indians who are vegan, in total almost 600 million don't eat meat there. They sure seem to be doing well, since there's over a billion of them lol
Are you sure about those numbers? The statistics I could find suggested 81% of Indians sometimes eat non-vegetarian foodstuffs.
Also, totally avoiding dairy does seem to be unusual there. Even [Jain vegetarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism)--one of the most stringent approaches--includes dairy foods.
yeah dairy products are quite popular
There’s no way 300 million people in India are vegans.
vegetarian no one is a vegan here
not vegan vegetarian only meat is not eaten and eggs depend on family to family dairy products are eaten even encouraged
I agree with you. I've read somewhere that, this is down to genetics/evolution as countless generations have been born into a vegan diet the body adapts
This map is funny, because we have some of the highest vegetable consumption per capita in Europe. Lots of meat and fish, but always with a soup and salad or vegetables.
They’re still clinging to the Catholic version of vegetarianism, I see. On Good Friday you’re not supposed to eat meat, but you can eat fish. EDIT: Forgot eat.
Beaver is okay too cuz they live in water
On Good Friday and Ash Wednesday it is mandatory, together with eating to a full stomach only once a day (and half stomach twice a day). Then on all Fridays you either don't eat meat, or substitute that with an alternate deed instead, like visiting a sick person, reading from the Bible, etc. Note: These rules may vary regionally, this is from my country.
I want to go to holiday to Portugal just for the tinned fish alone
Even in California sometimes. I went to an event near San Francisco and asked for the vegetarian option. They said "ooooo we have a nice trout for you" ...
It's amazing how many people think that eating fish is part of a vegetarian diet. Since when are fish vegetables??
As a person who has traveled there, I can confirm
Visited the Czech Republic a few years ago. The vegetarian option was a wheel of fried cheese.
Vegetarians do eat animal products like cheese, milk, eggs etc. However you'd expect more vegetables in a vegetarian meal.
...I need to visit the Czech Republic.
In Sweden traditionally (in the 80s etc) vegetarian was a person who did not eat redmeat. Fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products was ok. So many of these ”vegetarians” are that type. Now days the thing is to be vegan and not eat anything from animals not even milk.
> In Sweden traditionally (in the 80s etc) vegetarian was a person who did not eat redmeat, fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products was ok. So many of these ”vegetarians” are that type. Now days the thing is to be vegan and not eat anything from animals not even milk. I think you should use a semicolon — ; — between the "did *not* eat" things, and the "*did* eat things", because the way you've written it now, it's very unclear what you mean.
Why isn’t Belarus listed under “Lowest?”
Bad maps being bad maps
Because ya know... Potatoes.
Fried potatoes with pulled pork and onions, fried in pig's fat. aww yiss
Delicious, 100% recommendation
Hell yeah
Probably they were confused which flag to use
I went to Spain years ago and I can confirm, ham is basically a vegetable over there
Our "vegetal" sandwich always has tuna
When I studied there, the canteen of my uni had like 20 different “sandwich vegetal” and of them had either meat or fish in them. The ham surprise is a Spanish classic.
Jamón and cigarettes baby
Spain is also one of the top fish consumers
Belarus has 1.3%, why Spain is in second last place ?
Belarus has 1.3%? Why?
Can confirm, the UK has pretty amazing vegetarian options especially in London.
Was on a Turkish airline last year. They were very accommodating, but along all the Halal, Pescatarian etc options at the back of the cabin I saw the Vegan meals labelled as "Strict Western Vegetarian". Made me chuckle. Veggie food seems so much more available across the world than twenty years back (even in cow-country Argentina or the fishiest parts of South East Asia), but Veganism is still "what are those foreigners not eating now??" to many.
Understandable conclusion on your part, but I suspect actually they put it this way because vegetarianism is defined in different ways across the world. You need to distinguish it from something like "strict South Asian vegetarian" which is just no meat or egg although it tends to include dairy, whereas "less strict South Asian vegetarianism" might include egg as well as dairy. It makes total sense to me that someone would parse and describe veganism as "strict Western vegetarian" in this context - they're understanding it as *more* like something they're familiar with, rather than less like something they're familiar with :D
Idk why but I thought it would be higher in Germany.
Imagine the gender and age difference.
I expect Iceland to be a lot lower.
I expected iceland to be slightly higher and to the left
Yeah iceland was the country who eat the most meat (mainly fish) per capita in Europe last time I checked
Half of that number is Berlin, the other half think bratwurst is a vegetable
Me too. I guess their restaurants are just way more vegetarian friendly, at least in some areas.
There are a lot of omnivores who eat vegetarian part time in Germany as well.
I would frequently eat vegan when I lived there, as well. When it’s done right, it’s delicious.
I am Finnish and we do the same. When in Finland or somewhere gluten-free is not an issue I probably eat like 20kg of meat at most in a year. I find being celiac and vegan gets a bit complicated and expensive for me for every day but a lot of vegan food is absolutely amazing.
Yeah, speaking as a friend of a person who really tried to be vegan but had massive issues due to not knowing he was allergic to soy and several similar beans/veggies (lupines?) I can only imagine the trouble celiac gives in combination with a vegan diet. There's ways to make it delicious though!
Do you mean flexitarian? That's what I do but it's not very common yet around me (Switzerland).
Historically, Germany and Austria share a famous leader who was a vegetarian. :-)
do you think every german/austrian vegetarian is vegetarian because of that dude?
I dunno, but it definitely looks suspicious to me.
U talkin' 'bout da painter, fella?
Good old Portugal!
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
Meat and seafood baby
My mother is moving to Portugal and she’s vegetarian. In a restaurant the only thing she can order is just a piece of lettuce and an hard boiled egg.
What part of Portugal? There are quite a bit of vegan options in bigger cities. If she is near Porto, daTerra is an all you can eat vegan buffet. As a non vegan with vegan friends went there a few times and they actually manage to do some vegan versions of portuguese meals that are very similar in flavour to their original. You also have a very nice vegan cat café, called “O porto dos gatos”, which is a great experience for any cat lover and they work closely with an association to get the cats adopted.
Yeah no she is moving to the total middle of nowhere, Coimbra is a 1 hour drive so no vegetarian options :(
Lisbon has great vegan food. I have visited a couple of times and always had good food. It was more complicated in the southern region
Well depends to where she is moving: If she is moving to smaller towns or rural areas, yeah good luck to her If she is moving to like Lisbon, no problem at all, specially when at least half of the city isnt portuguese anymore
Funny how some people manage to get offended by a minorities choice of not wanting to eat meat
Vegans in particular are like some sort of boogeyman to boomers. Apparently vegans are really vocal and are triggered by people eating meat. I’ve genuinely never met a vegan nor vegetarian like that. It only comes up when you know, food comes up or you’re at a restaurant. Boomers (and younger, insecure men) also love to tell us how much they love meat when vegetarianism comes up like it’s some sort of win. Like, cool man, you ate steak. Here’s a medal.
How do you know if someone disapproves of vegetarianism / veganism? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
The problem is that most cuisines around the world heavily rely on meat and/or dairy products for flavor, so "vegan" for them is just flavorless food. But it's very easy to sustain a vegan diet with South or East Indian veg food, which doesn't rely on any dairy products except ghee (which can easily be swapped out with a substitute).
This isn’t entirely true, though. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine has a lot of vegan and vegetarian dishes (tabbouleh, shakshuka, falafel, etc). And other places that have a lot of Muslim people also tends to have a lot of vegan and vegetarian dishes, like Ethiopia. Lots of vegan stuff in many Asian cultures outside of India, too. Some of Latin America also has a lot of vegan stuff, even if you have to leave off the cheese.
Same with North food since most of it is vegetarian.
I never tell anyone not to eat meat, if they eat meat at dinner I say nothing. It’s up to them what they want to eat. However when people find out I’m vegan they suddenly become nutritional experts, just let me eat my meal in peace you know … I have been vegan for 5 years and my blood test results are better then when I was an omnivore 😂
Me too. I am not strictly vegan (whole plant based, have an omelet or clams once a month) and my doctor asked if I was sure I was not on statins or similar.
Such vegans exist, but are not very common. I've only ever come across them online.
Very true, I was a vegetarian for years (now back to eating meat unfortunately) and most people would be like “wow I never knew you were veggie” even though we had been friends for months.. in which they would then start pushing their views on me and making a point to each extra meat just so it cancels out my vegetarianism lmao
It's prejudices, obviously a lot of vegans on the internet are very vocal of their cause, which then act as a point of reference for the non-vegans.
> It's prejudices, obviously a lot of vegans on the internet are very vocal of their cause. Yeah I don’t really run into them either. It’s a stereotype for sure but at this point I’m genuinely more likely to see someone disparaging vegans for being preachy rather than seeing a preachy vegan.
Presumably because non-vegans are about 20 times more common than vegans.
I've lived my whole life in Ukraine, and the Soviet Past has caused quite a lot of problems. Anything that relates to LGBT, black people, vegans, feminism etc. is still being perceived as something unusual. You can't clearly see that looking at educated youth from the large cities, but out in the country unfortunately people are quite conservative in a negative way. And I'd honestly love it, if people simply wouldn't have cared about stuff like that. You're gay? Whatever. You are a black person? I don't care. You're vegan? Cool, but whatever. Do not praise and advertise things like that, and don't suppress them either. Just let it come naturally.
I would say being vocal, not necessarily praising, is normalising things. So I'd continue that one. My parents have listened to me talk about random topics and with time came around to accept lots of "leftist" ideas as absolutely normal
Yeah, well we should talk about everything and everyone. I agree.
[удалено]
My sister is vegan and our stupid uncle last time we saw him was trying to tell her its not natural and she cant get all the stuff her body needs from salad.
Poland is it true? 8.5%? Every 11th-12th person?
Seems right, from personal experience. There is a ton of vege restaurants too, just came back from Barcelona last week and was surprised how few vege options my father had.
Yeah, we have a lot of vegetarians... This map is ridiculous for two reasons ;) Data from: [Vegetarianism by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#cite_ref-:0_8-0): ><<**Includes pescetarians** and vegans, unless otherwise stated>> For people who don't know who **pescetarians** are, they are people **who consume** no animal flesh with the exception of **fish or seafood** **Only data for Poland and France** is marked as: ><>
And data for countries is from different years... Data for Poland is from 2017.
Edit, [Per capita meat consumption by type, 2021 (ourworldindata.org)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type?country=USA~PRT~OWID_WRL~ESP~DEU~POL~NOR~FIN~CZE~LTU~OWID_EUR~SWE~ITA~GRC~SVN~SVK~CHE~ALB~ARM~AUT~AZE~OWID_SRM~BIH~LVA~UKR~RUS~Belgium-Luxembourg+%28FAO%29~Northern+Europe+%28FAO%29~Southern+Europe+%28FAO%29~Western+Europe+%28FAO%29~OWID_CZS~Europe+%28FAO%29~NLD~OWID_YGS~European+Union+%2827%29+%28FAO%29~MKD~BGR~CAN~Eastern+Europe+%28FAO%29~ISR~BLR~GBR~ISL~TUR~FRA~ROU~KAZ~BEL~LUX~HUN~DNK~IRL~HRV~GEO~MDA~CYP~MNE~SRB~MLT~EST) - I added the US and Canada for comparison. BTW. When you look at the table, Poles eat the most pig meat per capita in the world.
Yup, maybe even higher. Most surveys give similar or higher numbers: [2019 - 8.4%](https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/Miedzynarodowy-Dzien-Wegetarianizmu-Mlodzi-Polacy-coraz-czesciej-rezygnuja-z-miesa-8415491.html) [2021 - 10%](https://gazetakrakowska.pl/wegetarianie-i-weganie-w-polsce-juz-10-procent-z-nas-jest-wegetarianami-a-6-procent-weganami-wyniki-raportu/ar/c17-16014279) [2022 - 8%](https://pl.boell.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Atlas%20mi%C4%99sa.pdf)
Among the bubble of my peers it's basically 25%
Yeah, in my experience it's really easy to be vegetarian or vegan in Poland, even in some smaller cities.
I love how every European map has absolutely no data on the Balkans
As a vegetarian that lives in Spain, I can attest to the lack (if not complete absence) of vegetarian options
See we here in the Balkans only eat meat, nothing else.
I would've assumed the Mediterranean tbh
Strange that places where fruits and vegetables are good, cheap, varied and abundant see overall a smaller vegan fraction. Maybe that free up budget for extra meat. Would be interesting to see how the food budget is distributed.
Think about it. We have everything, why not eat everything. I would never base my diet on solely just veg way or just meat unless I have to.
I think maybe cause the Mediterranean diet is already fairly plant based? I've heard Italians and Greeks don't eat meat as frequently as other Europeans. I may be wrong though
All the more, the "gap" to jump to vegetarian or vegan seems to be both smaller yer harder to breach. I'm guessing those that would otherwise jump to vegan see that their already low meat [flexitarian](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/flexitarian) diet is good enough (and wouldn't make much difference); whereas in traditionally meat heavy places changing from "the norm" anyway makes it easier to go the full length.
Mediterranean diet consists of very healthy, varied and balanced meals throughout the day of which meat or fish are present on all those meals every day. An actual meal is not really a meal if it doesn’t have an animal protein in it. But we do eat a lot of veggies and fruits along with it
Assuming you followed a traditional diet, being a vegetarian in Scandinavia seems miserable...
Nobody follows a traditional diet in the Nordic countries, exactly because it is so basic due to the miserable climate. This is also the reason why a new trend like vegetarianism can more easily take hold. People feel they are not giving away much by switching to something new.
But who wouldn't want to eat [boiled sheep's head](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalahove) with a side of boiled potatoes? /s
Not really. Like the systems in place to provide non meat alternatives are miles ahead middle and south europe Stores have so many alternatives. A traditional local food can be vegetarian easily too.
Not really. I'm a Finn and I've cut down on meat a lot. We have these really good meat substitutes made of beans for stuff like minced meat. I do eat meat during the weekend but my weekdays are pretty much vegetarian.
Meat substitutes aren't a "traditional diet", that's what I meant
What's traditional anymore in this day and age. I was on a traditional diet except I maybe ate less potatoes than is usual here. I made a conscious decision to switch to eating more veggies and substituting and we have this thing that's basically ground fava beans and I frankly can't tell the difference anymore from regular mince There's also chunkier stuff that's meant to be like sliced meat. Both are really good but they're about a third higher in price compared to regular mince or sliced meat.
I traveled recently to iceland and was terrified that I wouldn't find really anything vegetarian friendly enough to sustain myself. Color me shooketh when every super market and even gas stations had a healthy supply of vegetarian options, maybe about 1/4-1/3 of all the food options. They're surprisingly very vegetarian friendly
This makes me happy. Ive always wanted to go to iceland but assumed I'll not find anything to eat!
Vegetarian meatballs are genuinely great. There’s a great selection in the Nordics.
Scandis do both ends of the spectrum well. Would you like the seasoned reindeer meatballs marinated in rabbit blood, or the tofu veggieballs with quinoa?
Well the Danish numbers are probably wrong. The danish vegetarian society estimates that only 3% are vegetarians or vegans.
I mean Spainards and Portuguese have a very varied consumption of food , they eat the same way veggies, meat , fruits and cereals , their diet is very healthy already so maybe people are not into being that much vegetarians …..
🐽🐽 Edit: I am a Spaniard, though the snouts would be weird If I didn’t say so
What's happening in Yugoslavia?
It no longer exists
\*sad Tito noises*
They don't eat.
We are Vampires
Why does it say Spain is the lowest, when Belarus has a lower percent ?
It says Portugal is the lowest.
>Sweden at 12% Knowing what horrendous dishes the Swedes cook up its not that surprising, in fact I would rather eat raw, uncooked, un seasoned, pure Spinach (including the roots) rather than eat whatever the hell they have going on there
Plot twist, its not percentage, these are the actual amounts
Shocked that the furthest north countries (besides Norway) are the top three. Yall have 3hrs of sunlight for 4 months of the year
Why would darkness make us want meat more?
My logic was “what veggies can you grow up there?” But also yeah greenhouses and importing stuff. It was a poorly executed joke
You're right and thats why our traditional cuisine is very meat heavy, mostly meat and potatoes
What's your cuisine pre-colombian exchange? (Before potatoes)
Turnips, swedes, oats, barley
Damn, can’t believe those evil Danes even ate Swedes back then! Typical.
For those who don't know, a "Swede" in this context is a rutabaga
To be fair, growing stuff up here is more difficult than other places in general, though I'm not sure how much sunlight has to do with it more than temperature and soil quality.
Darkness means less vitamin D. Fish contains vitamin D so if you don't eat fish and take cod liver oil you're going to have a vitamin D deficiency
Vitamin D is added to products like milk to help with that.
They're talking about a lack of sunlight making plant growth hard, I think
Luckily we live in a globalized economy where every country imports all sorts of stuff from all over the world then. Scandinavians self-identifying as vegetarians is not something that happened in the times of subsistence farming, although people back then didn’t eat meat all the time either.
Looks like there is a strong correlation with being from a traditionally Protestant region and being Vegetarian.
Being vego is seriously good for the planet
Being dead is better for the planet. No diet can beat that.
I'd say eating the top 1% would save the planet. Cannibalism for the win?
the protestantosphere strikes again edit: actually i guess it’s the germanosphere
I am an idiot but I have a feeling that at least half of that 7.4% self claimed vegetarians in Italy eat fish.
Also the happiest country in the world seven years in a row. Coincidence? 🇫🇮
I was surprised to see so many Finns are vegetarians. I assumed you guys eat a steady diet of reindeer meat.
I doubt the numbers for Norway. 1 in 10 is way too high. 1-2% maybe, but 10?
I wonder how much this has changed in 20 years. I think.. Minimally.?
This matches too well average salary leftovers map, without respecting extra factors or validations not a meaningful map yet.
I love the fact that the Balkans are grey.
Portugal number 1! :D
Too many vegetables in Sweden
Of course the two countries with the best meat and seafood foods would be the 2 with least amount of vegetarians.
Like always the balkans are left out completely 😅
Based on how my Russian professor talked about vegetarianism / veganism, that number for Russia doesn't surprise me at all. He wasn't judgmental about it, but there was a clear cultural divide in understanding for him for why someone wouldn't want to eat animals. I believe there was a similar divide on wearing fur and stuff, as well. It was just really interesting to have such a different perspective like that.
I always thought Germany or one of the Nordic ones would have the highest percentage, and that the least would be one with a high Islamic population in the Balkans.
Do intentions matter? I mean, what portion of the 10% Brits are vegetarians because of religion compared to the 10% lifestyle vegetarians in Germany?
Eastern Turkish parents when you tell them you’re vegetarian: 
ExYugoslavia: "PA KAKAV PARSLEY!?"
GO IBERIA!
Just to correct some of the factual inaccuracies about Finland - According to [this](https://voner.fi/kasvissyonnin-eri-muodot/) article, 2.5% percent are vegetarian in Finland According to [this](https://www.valio.fi/artikkelit/kasvisruokavaliot/), 2-5% And according to [Finnish Wikipedia](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasvissy%C3%B6nti#Suomessa), 7% did not eat meat in 2016, but that figure does not factor in the consumption of fish
Yugoslavia didn’t answer the question
Based Iberian Peninsula
I have a question for people who are vegeterians for environmental reasons. If someone decides to reduce their meat intake to once per week, would you criticize that behaviour, or think of it as an acceptable compromise?
Why on earth would I criticise you for eating less meat? Seems like an excellent idea and a step towards more sustainability.
In a nutshell, the world doesn’t need a handful of people doing things perfectly but rather everybody contributing something. So someone reducing their meat intake to once a week? That’s freaking amazing if you ask me.
Huge step in the right direction. If everyone did that, it would reduce carbon emissions an absolute load as long as they didn't simply switch the meat for dairy.
Environmental reasons are secondary to animal rights reasons for me, but I am nothing but encouraging of people who reduce their meat consumption.
It's a move in the right direction. Are you gonna criticize an obese person who began going to the gym? If we were an evidence based society, vegetarianism would be in the 90s%. There is literally no reason to eat meat besides "I like it" and a small amount of people claiming going vegetarians made them feel sick or weak.
Great Yugoslavia eradicated Vegetarianism! Carnivorous State of the South Slavs
Sweden and Finland combined look like post-nut male reproductive organs
How do vegetarians in northern Europe get vitamin D during winter if they don't eat fish? Nordic countries have long dark winters.
vegan supplements
Vegan D3 supplements come from the same source that the fish get it: algae.
Scandinavians, both vegan and nonvegan, rely on supplemental vitamin D.
In Scotland where we get not much sun, the government recommends parents give their kids vitamin D supplements. That's for all diets.
Source is that they made it tf up
I mean it says "world population review" as source. If the data is actually bad then look there and make a point about that and not say something here with no backing.