14 per thousand

[Guest guest]

This survey may be old news to some, but I recently saw the

results -- that about 1.4 percent of (U.S.) Americans are vegan -- and

was on the one hand astounded that the number is so low, and has been

roughly the same for several years, but on the other hand realized

that's why I almost never meet any vegans (except at vegan

potlucks).

 

And then I started wondering if every vegan has been, at one

point or another, an activist, because the other place where I met

vegans was in committee meetings for vegan events! Of all the vegans

I've known, a very high proportion have been activists.

 

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How many adults are vegetarian? The Vegetarian Resource Group

asked in a 2006 national poll

 

These days, almost everybody seems to have a daughter, a cousin, or a

friend who vegetarian. Even large corporations have become greatly

interested in vegetarian and cruelty-free items. For example, Colgate

recently purchased control of Tom's of Maine for $100 million. Silk

and its parent company White Wave were bought by Dean Foods, the

largest U.S. processor of dairy foods.

 

Though a high number of Americans are interested in natural foods, how

many adults are actually vegetarian? To find out this answer, The

Vegetarian Resource Group posed the following question in a national

poll conducted by Harris Interactive[R].

 

Please tell me which of the following foods, if any, you NEVER

eat:

 

* Meat

 

* Poultry

 

* Fish or seafood

 

* Dairy products

 

* Eggs

 

* Honey

 

Because we use the word " never " and name foods, The VRG's

tallies will be different from those in other polls that simply ask if

one is a vegetarian. These polls are more dependent on personal

definitions.

 

In this year's poll, 2.3 percent of adults aged 18 years or older say

they never eat meat, fish, or fowl and, thus, are vegetarian.

Furthermore, 6.7 percent of the total say they never eat meat.

 

Nine percent of females say they don't eat meat, which makes them

almost twice as likely as males at 5 percent to abstain from eating

meat. However, the percentage of vegetarians is almost evenly split

between genders with 3 percent of women and 2 percent of men being

vegetarian. Approximately 1.4 percent of the total population is

vegan, meaning that their diets do not contain meat, fish, poultry,

dairy, or eggs. Some 1.4 percent of men are vegan, while 1.3 percent

of women are vegan, another almost even split between genders.

 

Because this poll used small numbers, we can't truly make conclusions

about the gender split for vegetarians, non-meat-eaters, and vegans.

Nevertheless, these numbers support The VRG's anecdotal

observations.

 

The VRG's 2003 poll, which was also conducted by Harris

Interactive[R], found that 2.8 percent of the U.S. adult population

was vegetarian. A survey of this size can have a sampling error of

plus or minus 3 percentage points, and there are other possible

sources of errors in all polls. Thus, a direct comparison with past

polls is nonconclusive. However, taking into account our other polls

over the years, The Vegetarian Resource Group believes the number of

vegetarians and those never eating meat is relatively steady, and this

is a group that is definitely not going away.

 

In 1994 and 1997, The VRG asked a similar question to this year's in a

Roper Poll. The number of vegetarians for those years was reported at

approximately 1 percent, and the number of non-meat-eaters was between

5 and 6 percent. At the time, The VRG was told that we could only be

sure of a definite statistical movement if there was a change of 3 of

more percentage points in future surveys.

 

In The VRG's 2000 national Zogby Poll of 968 adults, approximately 2.5

percent of the population was vegetarian. Again, these different polls

can't be compared directly, and there are margins of error. However,

there appears to be a solid vegetarian segment of the U.S. population,

and this group will not disappear.

 

The U.S. 2000 census found that there are approximately 205 million

non-institutionalized adults aged 18 years or older in the United

States. Based on 2.3 percent being vegetarian, we calculate there are

approximately 4.7 million adult vegetarians in the U.S. Since there

are more people in 2006, the number of vegetarians would be somewhat

higher. Again, this is only an estimate, and these numbers are very

different than the audience that seeks vegetarian options at least

some of the time, which The VRG estimates to be 30 to 40 percent of

the population.

 

Furthermore, this poll supports The VRG's belief that the number of

vegans (who never eat meat, fish, fowl, dairy products, or eggs) is

between one-third and one-half of the number of vegetarians in the

U.S. Thus, companies that are focusing on the vegetarian audience, or

are trying to reach vegetarian trendsetters, should continue to

produce vegan foods to appeal to the largest possible audience.

 

Methodology

 

This survey was conducted by Harris Interactive[R] on behalf of The

Vegetarian Resource Group by telephone within the United States

between April 14 and 17, 2006, among a nationwide cross section of

1,000 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, and

region were weighted when necessary to bring them into line with their

actual proportions in the population.

 

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say

with 95 percent certainty that the results for the overall sample have

a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Sampling error

for the various sub-sample results is higher and varies.