The Aspirational Plate: Mapping The Gap Between Vegan & Vegetarian Identity And Global Behavior
Background
How many vegans does it take to tip the scales? Well, it depends on which scales you’re using.
Despite growing cultural visibility of plant-based diets, the true global prevalence and growth rates of vegetarianism and veganism (veg*nism) remain unclear. To make sense of the state of veg*nism, advocates are currently navigating two avenues of conflicting data: who people say they are (self-identification) and what people actually eat (intake). And the difference between these two measures is no small thing. An analysis by Animal Charity Evaluators found that only about 1% of U.S. adults consistently abstain from animal products, despite as much as 6% of the public self-identifying as vegan.
This gap between identity and behavior is a well-documented methodological challenge. Self-identity measures — polls asking “What diet do you follow?” — tend to overestimate adherence due to aspirational reporting and social desirability bias. Dietary recall approaches that ask people what they actually eat, such as 24-hour food logs, are more conservative and behaviorally accurate, but are conducted less frequently and often limited by smaller sample sizes. Faunalytics first flagged this problem in its foundational analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, which revealed a stark discrepancy between the number of U.S. adults who identify as vegetarian and those whose diets actually reflect that label.
Compounding this is a fragmented research landscape. There is currently no single, standardized resource that synthesizes veg*nism data on a global scale, which makes it difficult to pinpoint whether rates are actually rising, falling, or plateauing in different parts of the world. It also creates strategic risks for advocates who rely on these metrics to plan campaigns and evaluate interventions. Studies also vary considerably in how they define “vegetarian,” “vegan,” and “flexitarian,” making cross-study comparisons difficult. Furthermore, geographical coverage is deeply uneven: research has disproportionately concentrated in Europe and North America, while large portions of the global population — particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — remain essentially unstudied.
This report addresses these gaps through a systematic review of 837 nationally representative sources across 58 countries, capturing dietary rates over the past decade (2015 to 2025) and spanning both academic and gray literature. Specifically, we aimed to synthesize regional-level prevalence estimates; track longitudinal trends in vegetarianism, veganism, and flexitarianism; quantify the gap between dietary self-identification and measured dietary intake; document variation in how diets are defined across studies; and map where data is most scarce. In other words, we’ve conducted a methodological audit of what the field actually knows — and what it doesn’t.
Key Findings
- Veganism rates have risen significantly over the past 10 years, though this increase is more akin to a crawl than a sprint. Global growth appears to be driven by Europe, where veganism has increased about 0.1% per year. Other regions showed either a plateau over time or could not be estimated at all due to a lack of data.
- People are significantly more likely to self-identify as vegan or vegetarian than to actually follow an animal-free diet. In practice, this means that while 1.65% of Europeans on average claim to be vegan, only 1.01% actually follow a vegan diet. Turning to vegetarianism, only 0.75% of North Americans fully abstain from meat, while many more (3.24%) claim to follow a vegetarian diet — meaning over four times more North Americans consider themselves vegetarian than their diet actually reveals.
- The vast majority (87%) of our nationally representative data on veganism came from Europe (69%) and North America (18%), despite the fact that these regions combined only make up about 16% of the global population. In fact, nationally representative veganism data was entirely absent for multiple global regions (Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia) and extremely limited in others; our literature search only turned up a single nationally representative study for Latin America / the Caribbean as well as for the Middle East / North Africa.
Recommendations
When carrying out interventions that aim to reduce and/or eliminate the consumption or purchase of animal products, we make the following recommendations.
For Advocates
- Treat self-identification prevalence statistics with caution. When citing veg*n rates in campaigns or communications, be mindful that polls relying on self-identification — the most commonly cited figures — likely overestimate actual dietary adherence. This does not mean the numbers are useless, but presenting them as definitive can undermine credibility if scrutinized.
- Consider the aspirational upside of the identity-behavior gap. More people claim a vegan or vegetarian identity than actually maintain a veg*n diet. This gap may signal that these diets are increasingly seen as aspirational or socially desirable. Advocates can leverage this: people who over-identify as vegan may be more receptive to messaging that helps them close the gap between their values and their plate.
- Do not assume European trends reflect the rest of the world. The growth story for veganism is, right now, largely a European story. Advocates operating in other regions should be cautious about assuming the same momentum applies locally, and should push for better regional data to inform their strategies.
For Researchers
- Prioritize filling the Global South data gap. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia together account for nearly 40% of the world’s population, yet nationally representative veg*n data for these regions is effectively nonexistent. Future research should actively pursue data collection in underrepresented regions. Local advocates should be directly involved in the translation of surveys into local languages as part of this research focus, ensuring that the resulting data is not compromised by mistranslations and lost cultural context.
- Use dietary intake measures alongside self-identification wherever possible. Self-identification is a useful and practical tool, but our findings confirm it consistently overestimates adherence relative to dietary intake measures. We recommend pairing self-identification items with a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) or similar intake measure in future studies. This does not require abandoning self-identification, but rather treating it as one data point instead of the whole picture.
- In lieu of standardized dietary definitions, offer transparency. Our review surfaced dozens of distinct definitions for “vegetarian,” “vegan,” and “flexitarian” across studies, potentially making cross-study comparisons unreliable. Definitions for vegan and vegetarian were numerous but often nothing more than re-phrasings of the same concepts (e.g., veganism might mean “I never eat animal products, such as meat, fish, cheese, dairy, or eggs” or “Diet free from all animal-based products, including honey”). Flexitarianism, however, varied at a more foundational level, with studies describing distinct eating behaviors ranging from vague reduction claims (e.g., “I am cutting back on meat but not avoiding it completely”) to concrete frequency boundaries (e.g., “Consume meat no more than once a week”). The field would greatly benefit from a shared definitional framework, as an established standard allows for meaningful comparison over time and across regions. In practice, we admit that establishing and enforcing such definitions, especially worldwide, is likely to be a losing battle. Where standardization cannot be found, researchers should clearly specify their definitions and acknowledge those definitions’ limitations.
Applying These Findings
We understand that reports like this have a lot of information to consider and that acting on research can be challenging. Faunalytics is happy to offer pro bono support to advocates and nonprofit organizations who would like guidance applying these findings to their own work. Please visit our virtual Office Hours or contact us for support.
Behind The Project
Research Team
The project’s lead author was Elise Hankins (Bryant Research). Dr. Allison Troy and Dr. Andie Thompkins (Faunalytics) reviewed and oversaw the work.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank several advocates who provided valuable input about this research throughout the process. In addition, we are grateful to Faunalytics’ donors for your support — your donations allow us to conduct essential research like this to help you take action for animals.
Research Terminology
At Faunalytics, we strive to make research accessible to everyone. We avoid jargon and technical terminology as much as possible in our reports. If you do encounter an unfamiliar term or phrase, check out the Faunalytics Glossary for user-friendly definitions and examples.
Research Ethics Statement
As with all of Faunalytics’ original research, this study was conducted according to the standards outlined in our Research Ethics and Data Handling Policy.
Generative AI Statement
Literature searching: Elicit and Google Gemini (model: 3.1 Pro) were used to assist the literature search for this study. We used Elicit’s systematic review feature to identify potentially relevant academic sources for this project and Google Gemini to identify gray literature sources from one organization of interest. All other gray literature was identified without the use of AI. Details on the data gathering process, including AI use, can be found under section heading Gathering the Data. Every source cited in this report was directly accessed and reviewed by the lead author, and all claims made about research citations were checked and verified for accuracy by the authors.
Data analysis: Google Gemini (model: 3.1 Pro) was used to assist in code creation and review. Final code was checked and verified for accuracy by the authors.
Report editing: This report was written by Elise Hankins with editing and support from Allison Troy and Andie Thompkins. We also used Anthropic’s Claude (model: Opus 4.6) to help produce the Extended Analyses and Extended Results found in the report’s Supplementary Materials (i.e., turn bullet points into prose, streamline the language, apply formatting consistent to the main report). All language in this report, including the supplementary materials, was reviewed and checked for accuracy by the authors.
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Citations:
Hankins, E., Troy, A., & Thompkins, A. (2026). The Aspirational Plate: Mapping The Gap Between Vegan & Vegetarian Identity And Global Behavior. Faunalytics. Retrieved from: https://faunalytics.org/global-veg-behavior-gap/
