Meatless Monday Blues
The Meatless Monday campaign has recently fomented outrage among both foodies and politicians alike. The campaign is a public health campain encouraging Americans to forgo meat on Mondays on environmental and health grounds. According to an article on Slate, an internal newsletter at the USDA encouraging Meatless Monday participation invited strong backlash to opponents; one senator believed the proposal to be "anti-agricultural."
In conversation with the many food writers and tweeters who observe and discuss Meatless Monday each week, Jess Kapadia of Food Republic claims that vegetarianism in the United States has declined from 6% to 5% since 1999. Kapadia ponders the reasons contributing to this decline in "vegetarienthusiasm," especially given the increase in farmers' market attendance. Is vegetarianism just a fad? Or, as Kapadia wonders, does the increased availability of "ideal" meats placate wafflers and conscious consumers, instead of deterring them from meat altogether?
Meatless Monday: U.S. Vegetarianism Down by 1% from Food Republic
Written by: Rachel Zarrow
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The article has a link to the Gallup survey: http://www.gallup.com/poll/156215/Consider-Themselves-Vegetarians.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication
Apparently 2% define themselves as vegans but NOT as vegetarian, so that 5% of non-meateaters could be interpreted as 7%. The vegan option was never included in the survey until this year. From the Gallup site:
'In a new question asked for the first time, Gallup also finds that 2% consider themselves to be "vegans." ... Vegans apparently view themselves as different from, rather than a subset of, vegetarians; most of the small number of respondents in the survey who said "yes" to the vegan question had said "no" to the vegetarian question.'
95% confidence? ±4 percentage points?
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