There has been a spike in the number of Australians opting for a meat-free diet, with most vegetarians living in New South Wales.
The number of Aussie adults whose diet is all or almost all vegetarian rose from 1.7 million people (or 9.7% of the population) to almost 2.1 million (11.2%) between 2012 and 2016, according to a new report from Roy Morgan Research.
The shift towards vegetarianism has been most striking in New South Wales, where there has been a 30 per cent growth in this kind of diet.
As of March 2016, 12.4 per cent of people living in NSW agreed that ‘The food I eat is all, or almost all, vegetarian’, up from 9.5 per cent back in 2012.
There was also a solid increase in Western Australia, with 10.9 per cent of adults adopting a meat-free (or meat-minimal) diet (up from 8.7% in 2012), and in South Australia (10.4%, up from 8.5%).
Tasmania leads the nation with the highest proportion of residents who eat little or no meat (12.7%, up from 12.2%), while Queensland (9.2%, up from 8.3%) retains the distinction of being the state least inclined towards vegetarianism.
Australia’s vegetarians (and those who eat an almost vegetarian diet) are more likely to live in capital cities than in regional or rural areas.
While 60.7 per cent of Australian adults have a Body Mass Index that qualifies as overweight or obese, this figure drops to 45.4 per cent of those whose diet is mostly or totally vegetarian, according to Roy Morgan Research.
