I've often wondered how many vegans there are in the world? And is the vegan population growing? There seems to be a growing awareness. Are there any statistics out there?
I've often wondered how many vegans there are in the world? And is the vegan population growing? There seems to be a growing awareness. Are there any statistics out there?
:p Gwynneveg
Not enough, but we can work on that.......
i reccon they are waking up to themselfs every now and then but we can sow the seed and just water it every now and again but its up to them to let it grow
If i cant kill it i WONT eat it, If i cant look into its eyes and hurt it, I wont take from it.
"A 2000 National Zogby Poll estimated the number of U.S. vegans to be about two and a half million."
This is a quote from "Why Vegan? found in www.VeganOutreach.org
Knowing the truth is freedom, all else is a prison {?}
Thank you, Veganfever, for the info - The Zogby Poll info was interesting. The results from 2003 said anywhere from 4 to 6 percent of the U.S. were vegetarian. I really thought there were more than that.
:p Gwynneveg
don't get too excited! there was a poll with all these vegetarians, then they were asked if they ate fish, chicken, eggs, etc, and if they did, how often? Hard to find more than one to two percent who really were veggies - forget the vegans, even they apparently thought nothing of eating cheese, milk, honey, and even occasionally a fish! What's that phrase about statistics and lies?
Eve
Does anyone know how many vegans there are in the world, compared with meat eaters??.
I think veganism is a growing trend and wondered how many of us are in the world today, compared with, say, ten years ago?.
I think there's more. The internet has really sped things up. If this was 1995 or 1985, I don't think I'd be vegan. I just wouldn't know much about it, and my meal idea options and "support" options would be very limited.
That's a good point. We now have an online community where we can discuss with over a thousand other vegans available to us anytime, anywhere. It's pretty neat when you think of it that way.
The last set of statistics I saw estimated that there were about 250,000 vegans in the UK and US estimates vary from about 600,000 to a million. I don't think a worldwide figure is known. There are definitely more of us than 10 years ago
Nah. No way are there 250,000 vegans in the UK. That seems very unlikely to me. I certainly hope it's right though! Oh I dunno!
does it take to change a lightbulb....???
www.myspace.com/natureworks1
sorry htat was immature of me. io often wonder about this and it feels like we're quite isolated... but then I hear of more and more... theres such a number on here and we represent such a small portion im sure. but 250,000. i'd like to think but im not convinceed
www.myspace.com/natureworks1
Posted by pixiequeen:
That's the first thing that entered my head when I read the title of the thread.does it take to change a lightbulb....???
Posted by pixiequeen:
Nahhh, we need our sense of humor don't we?sorry htat was immature of me.
1 million in US! That's enough to make a vegan country. I've heard there are over 60 000 vegetarians in Norway. That's a high number, I think, considering the population is only 4 million.
"Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends". ~ George Bernhard Shaw.
Kris, perhaps thats what we ought to do. Can we colonise an island somewhere and ban corpse eaters!!!
How MANY vegans does it take to change a light bulb?.---
answers please??
Two. One to take the old bulb out and one to check the ingredients on the new one.tails4wagging
Vegan StatisticsStu
The estimation of the number US vegans came from a ROPER poll in 1997
http://www.reference.com/Dir/Society...ices/Veganism/
I don't know, there's about 250,000 people living in my borough alone. I don't see why there couldn't be 250,000 vegans in England.pixeequeen
Well I suppose if there are 1,000,000 vegans in the US, and the population of the UK is about a quarter of theirs, then it tallies that there should be roughly 250,000. I certainly hope it's right; the idea of it warms my cockles.
Re:If there are (estimated) 250,000 in the UK, then logically it seems obvious that there wouldn;t be (an estimated) 250,000 in just England.I don't see why there couldn't be 250,000 vegans in England.
Not that this is a bad thing, 250,000 in the UK seems like plenty to me ...
It does indeed look as if we're multiplying
Unfortunately, the % of the total population who are vegans seems to be dropping - but the actual number of vegans is rising at a very healthy pace, which is really nice to see.
These figures only go up to 2001 as well, I'd be interested to find out whether the more recent barrage of pathogen scares has made a dramatic impact on the number of people who embrace omnivorism / whether it resulted in any substantial increase in the number of people turning towards vegetarianism or veganism.
1,000,000 vegans in the U.S.? You would think that there would be a lot more vegan restaurants and shoes stores.
interesting link aristacat. wonder why the numbers dropped in 2001?
Astrocat
Sorry! I can make no excuses for that, I read UK as England.
There seem to be a few people on this board from Scotland and Wales, I'm sure they all want to kill me now...
I reckon that numbers are dropping because of this huge enforcement of the "fish is COMPULSORY in a healthy diet" nonsense which is being put about.
That's just a theory , though.
Fair enough Sisha, no hard feelings but i do wish that less english people wouldn;t just treat England as the only country in the UK whenever it is something positive under discussion.
I can see exactly why it was that you did it as this is a false notion which is reinforced the whole time by the media, and even by sporting events.... whenever it is something negative under discussion, suddenly Scotland & Wales are a part of the UK but if it is something positive under discussion somehow England is the only country worth a mention as part of the UK... or sometimes England is treated like the only part of the UK as standard whether the news is good or bad.
Whenever i hear the media or sporting events (when i lived with my folks my dad drove me spare by watching the football, which is rather racist indeed often) acting like England is the only country in the UK i feel like tossing a good old Scottish caber onto whoever is being racist, as ... well... it won;t hurt them anyway since i don't exist, and assumedly neither do scottish cabers since scotland doesn;t exist
So yeah, to conclude I do feel exasperated by people who act as if England is the only country in the UK - but it's not because of you Sisha (and wellll, you DO live in London, hehe, i gather than many Londoners imagine that LONDON is the only place in the UK so you're one-up on them anyway), and I'm sure that you didn;t do it conciously or meaning to be racist or anything.
it's okay, you know ? And nooooo, it's okay - i don;t want to toss a caber onto you.
Oh, and if you think that what you said was bad, you should see what maps are like - many of them don;t even bother having the islands where i live marked on them, so when i see them I'm like, "What the - ? what am I - floating above the ocean and just imagining that there's land here ???"
Back to the subject... I tried to go vegan in early '98 (new years resolution) but after 2 weeks was eating cheese again (as a chef, it was in front of me and I couldn't resist).
Then when I finally went vegan one year ago this week, I found that there are far more vegan food products available at local supermarkets than there were in 98. It is possible that companies have just spotted that there is a market to begin with, but I like to think that enough people have gone vegan and requested vegan versions of foods to be made conveniantly available that they are now being supplied.
Definately more vegans!
-a little off topic... I was in a book store with my boyfriend looking at cookbooks and this guy came up to us and was asking us which cook books we recomended, etc. This was right around when the mad cow issue in the US came up again and he and his family decided to go veggie.
Overgrow the government!
it's amazing when you think about it - if we accept official figures (i'm not saying we should) there are 345,000 vegans in the U.K. - that's 0.6% of the population [http://www.imaner.net/panel/factfile.htm]. I've heard friendlier figures that suggested around 500,000 of the population in the U.K. are Vegan - but that's still a really small amount. I find this fairly amazing to think about, that so small amount of people are Vegan. And the obvious implications for how likely we are to meet other vegans. I suppose I find this curious because i've know other vegans (not loads, but some) and work with another vegan.
What do you think about the head-count for vegans being so low?
"Life is beautiful. Let future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full." Leon Trotsky
I thought 6% of UK citizens were vegan, compared with 4% of Canadians and 2.5% of Americans. It still doesn't account for all that much though . I think it's so low because people are by nature resistant to change. I remember deciding that I should be vegatarian, yet continuing to eat meat for nearly 6 months before finally making the change
"Man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills" - Arthur Schopenhauer
Maybe those percentages you heard were for vegetarians too (including those pescatarians)?Yoggy
Peace, love, and happiness.
I work it out at about roughly 1 in 150 people being vegan, I think that's a fair estimate.
I've never met another Vegan, plenty of vegetarians though. I suppose being a vegan among vegetarians increases the chance of one of them adopting it though, I hope.
"I don't want to live on this planet any more" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I think half a million is quite a good amount!
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty!
I've never met another vegan either, my godmother's son used to be vegan apprantly, but he found it too hard after a few years so went back to being vege
"We ourselves may be loved only for a brief time...Even so, that will suffice...There is a land for the living and there is a land for the dead"
This looks a bit erratic to me? Surely the vegan population can't be so fickle as to vary in numbers by such a great amount each year.
How many vegans in the UK?
The number of vegans in the UK is around a quarter of a million or 0.4% of the population (based on the surveys below).
Year % of UK population No of vegans Source
2005 0.6% 345,000 * (10)
2004 1.0% 593,000 * (9)
2003 0.5% 324,000 * (8)
2002 0.2% 131,000 * (7)
2002 0.2% 131,000 * (6)
2001 0.4% 246,000 * (5)
2001 0.3% 176,000 * (4)
2000 0.5% 280,000 * (3)
1997 0.4% * 224,000 (2)
1995 0.3% * 170,000 (2)
1993 0.2% * 100,000 (2)
Avg 0.4% 247,000 (1)
* This number has been extrapolated to enable comparisons between surveys. It is based upon the latest population estimates available and may therefore change over time.
"I don't want to live on this planet any more" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I've met (what seems like) loads of vegans- but that maybe because I spend most of my time in Brighton, hanging out with veggies and vegans and go to a lot of gigs. The punk scene has a lot of vegans. For instance I know one person who is vegan that doesn't listen to punk. But I know about 20 vegans that do listen to punk. Especially in Austria. Though apparantly it's cool to be vegan and straight edge there.
I think the main reason is that people act according to their habits, to what they have been brought up with, and not according to how they really want to live their lives.boxinghefner
Since many people focus on what most other people do, and (almost without noticing it) try to live the same way, actually focusing on how many people who are vegan and how many are not could be another reason...
Hmm... maybe it's just government propaghanda to lower vegan moral, adopt a defeatist attitude and go back to eating meat and supporting the multinationals??! ....
... No? ok, well then i just like to think that although the numbers are low, they probably do not give an accurate representation (ok so maybe im in denial) and i like to think that everyday there is someone turning vegan and therefore increasing the numbers. Even if only a little.
I only know a handful of vegans at the most but many vegetarians. I think vegetarians are vegans in waiting so the numbers will undoubtedly increase at some point. i hope...
"Human Freedom, Animal Rights, One Struggle, One Fight!!"
How do they know? I've certainly never been asked!
i thought it was into the millions at least.
i dont know any other vegans..i know a few vegetarians though..but even THEY think i'm weird for being vegan
Snap.............and yeh,I wonder where they get the figures from because i havn't been asked and i can't think of any of my friends that are vegan mentioning being asked???Troutina
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty!
same here..ive never been asked!
There seem to be massive regional variations.
I've met quite a few vegans - but have only met vegans 'by accident' in Cambridge. There was a vegan couple living down the road, a whole family in the next street and a few others in the neighbouring streets.
In comparison I haven't ever met a single vegan in the whole of Cumbria!
I had a look around the FSA's website, from what I can work out they only survey about 2000 people which would explain the varied figures.
"I don't want to live on this planet any more" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Yeah, me too! Last I heard it was 250,000. Do we qualify as some kind of ethnic minority now??gogs67
"Do what you can with what you have where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt
haha..........that would be good.........i refuse to wear a motorbike helmet because there is leather in the lining and the law cant stop me!RedWellies
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty!
it's good - but relative to the overall population it's kinda tiny! Size isn't everything of course, just find it interesting.I think half a million is quite a good amount!
"Life is beautiful. Let future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full." Leon Trotsky
To put it into perspective how many people ,say,go to church on a Sunday or go and watch live football on a Saturday afternoon in the UK..........the latest figures i can find is a church of England weekly attendance of 1.2 million and a figure of 1.6 million who attend football matches evey week! I think we're doing OK and,unlike the 2 examples mentioned,our figures are rising!boxinghefner
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty!
Bookmarks