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Veganism and Plant-Based Diets On the Rise

https://foodrevolution.org/blog/vegan-statistics-global/

https://www.vegansociety.com/news/media/statistics

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-10-21%202019-11-21&q=%2Fm%2F07_hy

https://www.livekindly.co/vegan-celebrities/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/climate/plant-based-meat.html

Google trends shows that searches for veganism have been on the rise since 2010 and are projected to keep increasing. There has been a 600% increase in US consumers identifying as vegan in the past three years, an increase from 1% in 2014 to 6% of total US vegan consumers. Plant based diets are growing all around the world, as mainstream health organizations are recommending plant based diets as a preventative healthcare solution and reversing heart diseases caused by eating meat. Efforts from environmental activists and animal rights activists have turned many consumers vegan in the past decade, and now plant-based and vegan athletes are proving that plant based diets are advantageous over excessive, meat heavy diets. 

 

Companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have launched meat alternatives, and many mainstream stores and establishments carry these alternatives, including Cornell Dining. Burger King has even launched their “Impossible Whopper,” and Dunkin’ Donuts has launched a Beyond Sausage Sandwich. Celebrities have played a major role in the veganism movement as well. Snoop Dogg has teamed up with Dunkin’ Donuts by playing employee for the day at an LA Dunkin’ Donuts. Other celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth, Ariana Grande, and Benedict Cumberbatch are vegan and have played a key role in the movement. More recently, the Game Changers documentary was released, and features various athletes, mostly male, and promotes the health benefits of a plant-based diet. Since the date of its release, the Google worldwide searches for “plant-based” have spiked.

We can look at the veganism trend in terms of cascading behavior in networks. We are currently in a second “cascade” of veganism movement that is marketed as the “plant-based diet” and focused on the health benefits of veganism. The first veganism movement wave from environmentalist and animal rights activists caused the first “wave” of people to change to veganism, as networks of people interested in environmental and animal rights issued spread awareness of impact of diet on these issues, causing a cascade and behavior change in these networks. We can characterize this person-to-person influence primarily to informational effeccts. People observed the decisions of their network neighbors, or their friends and families, who provided the indirect information that allowed them and led them to try this new vegan diet and lifestyle. Celebrities play a key role in helping to spread this through certain networks. Adding the health component into this vegan, plant-based diet, and a new wave of vegans through the form of athletes, especially male athletes and body builders has created another diffusion through a network. We can consider this a “tipping point” to the model network, and many believe that veganism and plant based diets will continue to increase higher than ever before.

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