The Vegan Society tried very hard to count vegans last year/the year before... they got a little over 1% iirc, so, it's not surprising to hear that the 7% figure is made up haha

It really makes no sense to me to exclude questions about cooking from a veg*n perspective from our scope... I really can't imagine what is about veg*nism if making tofu is off topic

topic overlap between SE sites is not a bad thing

The entire Ask Ubuntu site is a subset of Unix & Linux

one of the problems we have on Ask Ubuntu is that people try to close questions that they think are not specific to Ubuntu, like questions about text processing or Bash.

Just because something isn't unique to one thing doesn't mean it's not applicable to that thing.

if we closed every such question (on AU), the site scope would be extremely narrow, difficult to define, and a lot of people who answer a lot of questions and do a lot of moderation would just leave because the questions that most interest them would no longer be on topic (myself included)

@Mithrandir exactly

@Nic That is actually a bit disheartening. I cannot imagine a worse thing that could happen to the vegnism movement than spreading false information in order to create hype. It would be amazing if more people went vegn but claiming it just for the sake of claiming it is only going to be harmful in the long term. Manipulating data is bad on its own, when done to affect some social change it discredits (wrongly) the whole movement..

And yes, I have thought about it many times too. In my opinion it would make the most sense if this was done by government during the census as it would invole minimal cost with biggest benefit. It also has a direct impact on some governmental services (I guess that depends on country though) such as the nutritional and cooking norms for nurseries and schools, the governmental subsidies for given food groups and so on.

@Zanna Yes, I remember the 1% results too. I mean, there was mentioned to be 600%+ growth of veganism in the UK in those studies so that could potentially even make sense with the claimed 7%, but that growth was over 10 years.. :D

But all in all, I feel pretty positive about the current state of this whole movement of ours. It seems to me lately that the stigma is largely disappearing and that the wider public is actually starting to adjust to the idea of it and even be willing to try it out. Also, the concept of obnoxious vegan seems to be on decline which is a good thing. Do you guys have a similar experience?

@AlexanderRossa Kind of surprised Viva! published something so dubious though. I am more disheartened by that because they publish a lot of science-related stuff, study reviews etc

Since veganism (much more so than vegetarianism) creates a demand for products, I think it is very vulnerable to co-optation in a capitalist economy

@AlexanderRossa in London, I think there is a bit of a culture change. There are vegan options everywhere and many non-vegans generally seem to have got used to vegans and many do things like choose the vegan option or go to a vegan restaurant just in the general spirit of exploration prevalent among the young and affluent of the city

OTOH, in the East Midlands where I live now, it's certainly bigger, but still very much on the margins

There are very few veg*n friendly places to eat, and fewer specifically veg*n places.

Most pubs/restaurants will have no vegan options at all and very few vegetarian options even if their menu is large. The big chains with nationwide menus like Pizza Express, Carluccios, Wetherspoons etc are exceptional in having something labelled vegan on the menu

You are just as likely as ever to be hassled by omnivores if you have to eat out with them. My dad boasts about how he tells people why he is vegetarian when they ask, and my mum complains about having to fend off questions about it.

@Zanna Yes, I agree that veganism in particular is quite susceptible to the hype. Well, as long as the hype is good it can be beneficial as it may make more people to ask themselves questions which they wouldn't otherwise, but I worry a bit what happens when the next trend comes around. But maybe that is unsubstantial.

Yes, I can imagine London being particularly embracing about this. As someone who lived in East Midlands for a while and who now lives in East Riding of Yorkshire I have to agree, the changes here a lot more subtle because of many factors and yes, it is mainly the chains that are setting the trends. Tesco seems particularly focused on expanding the plant based offer lately which is great since that has a huge impact in general.

@Zanna Oh yeah, the Vegan Society ran a pretty good study. vegansociety.com/whats-new/news/… Still, I wish they would publish the text of the questions that were asked for full transparency.