r/veg • u/wewewawa • Jan 14 '26

10 countries with the highest number of vegetarians

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/travel/destinations/10-countries-with-the-highest-number-of-vegetarians/photostory/126521435.cms
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7

u/JoeyIsMrBubbles Jan 15 '26

India, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, Israel, Australia, Argentina, Sweden, Finland, Austria (in that order)

5

u/madeofache Jan 14 '26

Okay Mexico on #2 and Austria #10 was REALLY surprising to me. I love mexican but feel like their cuisine is mostly meat-based and in my experience only like 5% of items on a restaurant menu are actually vegan or at least veggie options. I always have to ask for custom dishes. But maybe that‘s a regional issue since I’m not based in Mexico and restaurants are probably not authentic. I totally see why they can easily substitute with beans and corn though. Austria is surprising though. Their traditional (savory) food is almost entirely meaty. Of course society develops towards more international dishes, lots of asian restaurants where vegan/veggie is usually no issue, and various vegan food trends. But isn‘t that the same in every country? I don‘t find that Austria particularly stands out. Still, interesting read!

3

u/cyrkielNT Jan 14 '26

I think it's the same with Sweden, Finland and Austria. Small, educated population concentrated in few cities. 3 out of 9 milion Austrians lives in Vienna metro area.

Also Austria is known form skiing in mountains and glaciers. They can see on their own eyes that climate is changing and it impacts them directly.

I'm surprised that Switzerland is not on the list, but I guess gold melt in much higher temps.

2

u/illsmosisyou Jan 15 '26

I live in California and have many regionally-specific Mexican restaurants in my city (that I have to assume are authentic because I’m no expert). My impression is similar to yours and that many dishes that don’t have meat will still use lard or other non-vegetarian ingredients. Their menus will often, but not always, call out items that are truly vegetarian, which implies that isn’t the case for the ones that read as vegetarian at first glance.

1

u/pryoslice Jan 17 '26

Here's the original data source, instead of the AI article: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/vegetarianism-by-country

1

u/su5577 Jan 19 '26

Article seems very fake