Around one in five U.S. adults born between 1995 and 2004 are either vegan or vegetarian, according to Statista’s latest Global Consumer Survey. As our chart shows, the share of people opting for a plant-based diet decreases rapidly with age.
Six percent of U.S. adults born between 1965 and 1979 said that they were vegetarians in the survey, while only two percent said they followed a vegan diet. For the baby boomers, three percent were vegetarian and only one percent vegan. However, the survey also found that many more U.S. adults can imagine going without animal produce at least on occasion, with between eight and 14 percent of survey respondents per generation describing themselves as “flexitarians”. This diet focuses more on cutting down on eating animals and their produce, rather than stopping eating meat and fish altogether.
As awareness around the carbon footprint of meat production increases, more and more people are turning to plant-based diets, driving the innovation and production of meat substitute markets. However, as Felix Richter reports, meat substitutes still make up only a tiny sliver of the U.S. meat market, pulling in $1.3 billion in sales in 2021 versus the $160 billion of fresh and processed meat.
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