Google Trends: Vegans are taking over vegetarianism

I think that the reason we're seeing these types of changes is actually kinda simple: vegetarianism is based mostly on an emotional decision, whereas veganism is based on facts and reality.  People who decide to go vegetarian don't know anything about what happens on farms; they just don't like the idea of an animal dying for their food.  People who decide to go vegan have learned about the issues that actually cause people to go vegan--what the lives of 98% of farm animals are like, and that eggs and dairy are practically worse than meat.  (Animals raised for meat suffer, but they live a fraction of their normal lifespan--like 45 days for a chicken--and then are killed.  Animals raised for eggs and dairy live for a few years but they're suffering the whole time.  Then their bodies give out and they are killed for cheap meat. Etc.)  In the last few years, vegan outreach really started to take off.   In addition to this, more undercover investigations are being done in farms and in scientific labs and they're getting online and people are passing hundreds of these videos around.   There are tons and tons of websites with videos and information pages and research and it's all really accessible to anybody in a way that it hasn't been before.  And so lots of vegetarians decide to go vegan, and lots of meat-eaters do too.   There's actually a lot more to it than that (environmental and health benefits) but I'm sure this is boring enough.Thanks for putting together all the charts! 

The first time I went vegetarian was in the 1980's because it appeared to be the gold standard of health.  I was a growing teenager and lucky to have quit my first year before it did too much harm.  Harmful because I didn't know what I was doing and neither did I have the resources to do anything other than eat the crappy standard American processed diet my parents provided, but minus the meat.I'm vegetarian again, and in my fourth year of it.  This time not for health, but love: my wife has a lifetime distaste for meat and is for animal rights.  I stay abreast of the science of nutrition and am informed by ideas in the paleo diet, I don't try to kid myself with too much vegetarian ideology. . .. . . but I'll tell you, in my vegetarian social circles, the "pure vegetarians" are gaining ground, and not without strong persuasions: any reason to be vegetarian should still apply with animal products like eggs and dairy.  First, the health side shows the dreaded cholesterol and saturated fat are greatest in the non-meat animal products; and now new findings showing certain casein proteins not desirable and eggs topping metrics on all the charts.  Then we have the animal rights folks pointing-out that you're not doing animals any favors by going ovo-lacto either.  If you're swayed by vegetarianism as a cause, vegan is the place to be because nobody likes to be for a cause that's hypocritical.Personally, I'm strongly contemplating departing ways a bit with vegetarianism, paleos have some good arguments and I eat way too many carbs, but I'm still swayed by the concern for animals and all the earth friendliness, and the great peace-loving folk and the anti-violence sentiments; and of course, respect for my wife's feelings.  After these four years (five?) I don't think I can ever eat an intelligent creature like a mammal again, unless my life depended on it, but those lower creatures. . . nobody's ever had a fish follow them home and want to make friends.   Pescatarian may be where I'm headed.

Among the recent vegan converts of which I know, they have switched because of health reasons (eg, rheumatoid arthritis).  That said they cheat at times and feel extreme guilt.  One woman mentioned to a friend that she just had to have chicken fried steak, but felt so awful about it afterwards.  I think any movement such as vegetarianism develops growing offshoots such as veganism and raw veganism over time, particularly since it can now be somewhat comfortably pursued because of technology.

I'm not a vegetarian anymore, but I was one for six years... the first three as a vegan and the last as an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and remembering the politics surrounding vegetarianism it makes sense that veganism would grow more popular.  For those who go vegetarian for animal welfare or animal rights reasons, it's very easy to feel very guilty about eating anything that even touched an animal... I worked with PETA and other organizations for a long time, and if anyone found out you were eating eggs or drinking milk it turned into one of those parent-guilt situations... "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed."  Not counting the really nasty people, who aren't that common but who are really loud.  And so people would feel really, really guilty and go vegan because vegetarianism isn't enough for that sort.It usually didn't last, largely because the massive sugar content of modern veganism (especially animal rights-based veganism which is concerned with animal health and not human health) causes a lot of them (including me, at the time) to gain weight and other health problems.  Then they REALLY felt like shit because animal rights activists try to make veganism out to be some sort of panacaea and weight loss is their holy grail.

Food politics have become so trendy, and there are so many backers of the vegan diet- Alicia Silverstone, Gwenyth Paltrow, Moby... the popular book 'Skinny Bitch' (and it's sequal, 'Skinny Bastard') is vegan propaganda in mainstream disguise... even NYTimes foodie Mark Bittman is a 'vegan til dinner' advocate. Also, I believe many people who choose veganism don't neccesarily do it for health purposes but for political and/or environmental reasons, and vegetarianism supports some of the same industries as the meat industry. Vegetarianism just isn't hardcore anymore. (and there are too many letters to get it tattooed on your knuckles.)

 pale diet has been gaining ground too - www.google.com/trends