SINGAPORE, January 2, 2012 (by George Martin Jacobs): Singapore has more than 500 vegetarian outlets, and many non-veggie eateries offer a growing variety of veggie options. Unfortunately, stereotypes discourage people from enjoying veggie food.
Two of these stereotypes: Only people of certain religions eat veggie food and being vegetarian is an either/or situation.
One idea gaining favour worldwide, arising from the understanding that people of any religion can eat vegetarian, is to eat plant-based food one day a week. In Singapore, we call it Veggie Thursday.
This addresses the second stereotype that vegetarianism is an either/or situation. Indeed, maybe it is better not to think of people as vegetarian or not vegetarian but instead to think of meals as vegetarian or not vegetarian. Maybe vegetarianism is better seen as a continuum, with people choosing to be anywhere along that continuum or to change where they are as they make choices about what to eat.
Three secular reasons for eating veggie are to boost our health, protect the environment and show kindness to animals. Health seems to have been the first secular reason to reach public consciousness.
In the past year, three students from the local universities have interned with the Vegetarian Society (Singapore) (VSS). For each, even the intern who was not (and still is not) a vegetarian, the kindness reason was paramount.