As vegetarianism grows in popularity, so are food options

Port Huron Times-Herald: Eat your veggies

This one starts off obnoxiously:

When vegetarians go out to eat, they're usually green with envy.

I may envy the selection carnists can choose from, but certainly not the offerings. It continues:

"You go to a restaurant and you can choose from five pages of food," said Sherry Young of Port Huron, a vegetarian for the past 14 years. "If I go to some restaurant and there are three choices for me on the menu, that's huge.

Young admits things have gotten easier in the past couple of years. She and other local vegetarians said they are seeing more meat-free options at restaurants and grocery stores. And vegetarianism has a growing, positive image, especially among young people.

This is true enough. The trend shows in the continued opening of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, especially in major cities. In Los Angeles alone, several vegan restaurants have opened in just the past three years, and most of them appearing to be doing strong business. I think we may need to step up the frequency of polls into people's veg*nism. Would be interesting to see if there is a statistically significant increase in various types of vegetarianism over the last 2-3 years, and what kind of trend we'll see over the next five years.

Of course, those numbers mean nothing compared to the dollars spent on vegetarian products, and clearly that market is growing rapidly.

Categories: food | meat-free