Rise of Vegetarianism

Vegans around the world commemorated the creation of the “V” word in November. World Vegan Day was launched on Nov 1, 1994. The day begins the World Vegan Month. Vegetarianism is becoming popular globally. The younger generation has, in recent years, embraced plant-based food with open arms. Vegetarianism is not only popular in India, due to cultural and religious beliefs, but its popularity is increasing globally due to various factors. According to a report by research firm GlobalData, there’s been a 600% increase in people identifying as vegan in the U.S in the last 3 years. It’s pretty obvious that more and more people are moving toward a plantbased lifestyle. Ashok Malkani views the scenario and takes a look at various aspects of this growing global trend.

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All over the globe, diets that limit or exclude meat are being favoured. Plant-based meal was, till about a decade ago, often viewed as weird or extreme – more the domain of hippies and activists than of large number of everyday people. In India meat-free diet can be traced back to Indus Valley civilization, and a great reverence and respect for animal life shows up in many religious and cultural texts. Three major religions of India - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - all encourage their followers to practice ahimsa (non-violence toward other living beings). But now it is advocated for health and other reasons. Tata Memorial Hospital has released a video on social media which shows synthetic steroids being pumped into chickens to fatten them. These chickens, injected with poisonous concoctions, when eaten, can have alarming and disastrous effect on consumers. Today, according to the hospital sources, one in every four human beings has cancer.

Thus religious fervor is not the only cause for popularity of vegetarian diet. Today, it is found that more and more people are turning to vegetarianism. And it has nothing to do with religion! So why is vegetarian food becoming, increasingly, the preferred food?

Aungshuman Chakraborty - Executive Chef, The Leela Mumbai avers, “Vegetarian food has always been important in India because of our culture and beliefs.

However, lately, vegetarian food is becoming popular purely because of health reasons. People now realise that consumption of Non-vegetarian food more than a limit has adverse effect on one’s health.