During the past few years, Americans have become increasingly health conscious. Study after study have been showing the link between animal foods such as meat and dairy triggering obesity, raising cholesterol levels, and eventually leading to diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and various types of cancer. Documentaries such as Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, Planeat, and What the Health have inspired millions of Americans to adopt a plant-based diet, ditching the meat and dairy. But, what is a plant-based diet? A plant-based diet is commonly referred to as the “vegan diet” with vegan defined by Merriam-Webster as, “a strict vegetarian who consumes no food (such as meat, eggs, or dairy products) that comes from animals”. A person following a plant-based or vegan diet …show more content…
Sixty years later, in 2014, a report by Global Data stated that 1%, roughly 3,186,000 people, of the American population identified as vegan (“Veganism”). When the same report was released for this year, it stated the American vegan population had skyrocketed to 19,386,000 or 6% of the US population (“Veganism”). Between 2014 and 2017, over just three years, the proportion of the US population identifying as vegan exploded by 600% (“Veganism”). Stefan Lorkowski, vice president of the German Nutrition Society attributes the rise of veganism to the fact that, "the diet is increasingly of interest, as is the idea that you can do something beneficial to your health by choosing the right products" (Senthilingam). Not just individual people have been making the change from the SAD to a plant-based diet, American hospitals have started replacing meat-based menu items with plant-based meals. The rapid expansion of veganism does not come as a surprise to Kay Peggs of the UK’s Kingston University. She says of the increase, "There is a lot of concern around health, so it will keep rising"