Growing Vegetarian Food Use Helps Pacify the World-Vegetarian Era-The Supreme Master Ching Hai Hai News Magazine.151

In recent years, rising awareness of compassion for animals, concerns about meat-related illnesses such as “mad cow” and heart disease, and the expanding array of vegetarian products now on the market have inspired people around the world to reduce or completely stop their consumption of meat. Thus, in many countries such as the United States, the vegetarian food industry is booming. As the market for vegetarian products explodes, items such as soy milk and veggie burgers are showing up more and more frequently in mainstream groceries and fast food restaurants. A recent study by the British market research firm Mintel International Group Ltd. found that from 1998 to 2003, U.S. retail sales of vegetarian foods and dairy alternatives grew 113% to $1.6 billion. This statistic is especially telling because as Supreme Master Ching Hai says, the U. S. has traditionally been the world leader in per capita meat consumption: “America has the highest rate of cancer in the world because the Americans eat a lot of beef. They eat more meat than any of the other countries. Ask yourself why the Chinese or communist countries don't have that high a rate of cancer. They don't have as much meat. That’s what the research says.”

Compassion a Factor in Avoiding Meat

Regarding individual motivations for the rise in vegetarian food sales, Debra Wasserman of the U.S.-based Vegetarian Resource Group, says, “Supermarkets think people buy vegetarian for health reasons, but the biggest [number of potential customers] — the pushers of vegetarianism — are in support of animal rights.” Thus, even more than personal health, compassion for sentient beings appears to be a driving force in the growth of vegetarian food consumption. Wasserman also states that the animal rights movement came of age in the early 1980s so vegetarian and vegan (completely meat- and dairy-free) diets that promote compassion for animals have a special appeal to younger members of the population. And surprisingly, it is the mainstream food producers that understand this trend best: “A lot of good veggie and vegan items are coming out of chicken [and other such] companies. They understand the movement and know that young people are the future.”

As mentioned above, besides animal welfare, health concerns are also a major factor influencing the rise in vegetarian food use. But even when a consumer’s motivation is good health, their meat-free food choices still benefit animals. As Bruce Friedrich, spokesman for the U. S.-based group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals affirms, there is no harm in the focus on health instead of animal rights issues because meat avoidance benefits animals no matter what the basis: “From our perspective, if people influenced by health consequently cut back on fish and meat consumption, that helps animals. If two people cut their meat in half it helps as much as one person going completely vegetarian.”

Health Concerns as Motivators

Until the mid-1990s, the change toward vegetarian food use was slow, but as mounting scientific evidence revealed high-fat diets as key contributors to coronary artery disease, many people began re-examining their eating habits. Besides heart-related issues, worries about contracting the human form of “mad cow disease” (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) from tainted beef have also arisen in recent years, adding to the reduction in red meat consumption. While some consumers simply replace red meat with chicken, pork or fish, others substitute at least some of the red meat with textured vegetable (soy) protein, wheat gluten and similar products. This switch to semi-vegetarianism (called ‘flexitarianism’ by the media) has been a major driver of the vegetarian foods market. Like many pure vegetarians, a large number of flexitarians are motivated by the growing body of medical data showing the health benefits of eating vegetarian products. Thus, as Suzanne Hobbs, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina says, the growth of vegetarian food consumption can be credited to the nation’s growing understanding of the diet-disease connection: “Whether you make a commitment to eating strictly vegetarian or not, cutting back your dependence on meat is something most people know they should do.”

Future Growth is Inevitable

Many of today’s popular vegetarian food products originated in the health and natural foods sector. However, the entry of large traditional food producers such as Kraft, ConAgra, General Mills, Dean Foods and Kellogg’s into the market has clearly been responsible for the sizeable gains in mainstream supermarket retail sales, thanks to these companies’ greater capacity for product development, distribution and marketing.

So as more and more large corporations join the trend, the future looks bright for continued growth of the vegetarian food industry. In fact, the above-mentioned market research firm Mintel’s Global New Products Database reports that total retail sales of vegetarian products have increased between 20 percent and 40 percent annually for the last five years. In 1996, U.S. retail sales of vegetarian foods were $3.1 million; by 2001, sales had jumped to $1.25 billion, and Mintel predicts that sales will hit $2.8 billion by 2006.

Moreover, the Vegetarian Resource Group reports that 4.8 million Americans — 2.5 percent of the adult population — view themselves as vegetarian, and almost one percent or 1.7 million are vegan. Other polls reveal that five to nine percent of American adults — 9.7 million to 17.4 million — are “almost vegetarians” who eat some meat, poultry or fish, and another 38.6 million to 48.2 million Americans — 20 percent to 25 percent of the population — are “vegetarian inclined,” eating four or more meatless meals a week.

These data show that the U. S. population is indeed beginning to follow Supreme Master Ching Hai’s admonitions about reducing meat consumption and thus pacifying the world: “For all health reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all scientific reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all economic reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all compassionate reasons, we should be vegetarians. And as well, to save the world, we should be vegetarians. It is stated in some research that if people in the West, in America, eat vegetarian only once a week, we would be able to save sixteen million starving people every year. So be a hero, be vegetarian. Even if you don’t follow me, or don’t practice the same method, please be a vegetarian for your own sake, for the sake of the world.”

Conclusion

Moreover, in other parts of the globe, where vegetarian food use is more common for religious, cultural and economic reasons, this trend is already underway. So as the new millennium unfolds, the era of compassionate vegetarian living is clearly beginning, thus hastening the arrival of the Golden Age by heeding Master’s advice: “Just give up the meat-based diet; that will be enough to save the world as well as your own and the nation’s health. To refrain from eating meat is to contribute to peace on this planet.”