UNITED STATES, June 30, 2003: In the United States the interest in vegetarian foods has exploded in the last few years, as evidenced by the increased number of vegetarian products now available in stores throughout the country. However, how many people are actually vegetarian? A 2003 Vegetarian Resource Group Harris Interactive survey indicated that 2.8 percent of those surveyed said they never eat meat, poultry, or fish/seafood and over half those vegetarians can be classified as vegans, those who do not consume meat, poultry, fish/seafood, dairy products, eggs, or honey. Six percent of the population said they never eat meat while ten percent within the 25-34 year age bracket indicated they have a meatless diet. As to how many vegetarians — the U.S. 2000 census found that there are 209 million people 18 and older in the U.S. If we subtract 4 million institutionalized of all ages, based on 2.8 percent vegetarians, we calculate there are about 5.7 million adult vegetarians in the U.S. For additional statistics on vegetarianism in the United States kindly see “source” above.
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