The rise of plant-based diets: Why more and more people are turning to veganism

The charts of veganism's popularity over the last several years have climbed like staircases steadily from left to right, year after year, whether looking at veganism as a diet and lifestyle, as a keyword, or as a growing market trend. While the data online about veganism?s growth is not comprehensive, the Guardian estimates that there are 79 million vegans around the world.

Veganism is a philosophy that seeks to avoid the unnecessary suffering of all sentient beings, practiced as a diet and lifestyle in which individuals choose to avoid ingesting or using products made from animals. It could also be considered a social movement.

There are many different ways to measure the growth of veganism. One way to do so is by looking at how popular the term is on Google Trends. The term?s popularity has increased since 2004, when data first became available, and peaked in January 2020. It first surpassed ?beef? as a search term in 2016, and they are now steady competitors for search interest. Veganism caught up with the term ?meat? in 2016 and has consistently surpassed it in popularity since.