Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
If you’re a foodie, one of the premier travel destinations is undoubtedly Italy. All the pasta, pizza, and gelato are yours to enjoy…well, unless you’re following a vegan diet, that is. How many vegans will you find in Italy? How many vegetarians?
According to 2020 data, Italy has a small group of vegetarians in the country, only 6.7 percent of 60 million people. Far fewer of the population is vegan, 2.2 percent. The vegetarian and veganism trends in Italy are both upward for the first time in a while.
In this article, we’ll talk more about what the daily diet in Italy looks like. Then, we’ll delve further into the numbers, comparing Italy’s vegetarians and vegans against the rest of the country’s population. If you were thinking of planning a trip to Italy, make sure you don’t miss this post!
What Is the Primary Diet in Italy?
Sure, there’s the notion that carbs are king in Italy, but the residents here don’t only nosh on cannoli and pizzas. Many of them follow the Mediterranean diet, which started in Italy as well as in Greece and Spain.
If you’re not familiar with the Mediterranean diet, it’s rich in extra virgin olive oil, seafood, fish, spices, herbs, bread, whole grains, potatoes, legumes, seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Yogurt, cheese, eggs, and poultry are part of the diet as well, but in smaller quantities. Italians will eat red meat too, but even more seldom than dairy and poultry.
The Mediterranean diet also cuts out refined oils, highly-processed foods, refined grains, and added sugars. That means eliminating hot dogs, soda, fruit juice, processed sausage, canola and soybean oil, margarine, white bread, and refined wheat pasta from one’s diet.
Instead of drinking soda, Italians and others on the Mediterranean diet mostly sip water with tea and coffee. Daily, they might enjoy red wine, but only one glass, and this isn’t a crucial part of the diet.
Once a week, Italians will gather for a large meal with the family, typically on Sundays. Even then, portions are often shared. On the other six days of the week, they eat leanly, avoiding junk food yet not dieting, per se.
In Italy, lots of food portions are quite small, at least of certain foods. That goes for red meat and pasta, which Italians don’t eat as much of as most people think they do. There are also two key differences between eating in Italy versus somewhere like the United States. For one, meals are leisurely and not rushed. Second, Italians will stop eating when they feel full, which a slower eating pace makes it easier to gauge.
How Many People Live in Italy?
Now that you understand more about the Italian diet, let’s take a closer look at the country’s population so we can more effectively examine the percentage of Italian vegetarians and vegans in the next two sections.
According to 2019 data, Italy has a population of 60.36 million people. That’s less than France, which has 66.99 million people (per 2019 numbers), but more than Spain with a population of 46.94 million people.
What Percentage of Italians Are Vegetarian?
With such a robust population, how many of Italy’s residents consider themselves vegetarian? According to lifestyle website Life in Italy, a 2018 survey that asked that exact question discovered that 6.2 percent of the country is vegetarian.
That matches up with these Statista numbers, which map the trend of Italy’s vegetarianism (and veganism) from 2014 to 2020. Back in 2014, Italy had some of its largest numbers of vegetarians to date, 6.5 percent. The next year, there was a drastic decrease, with only 5.7 percent of the population considering themselves vegetarian.
In 2016, the number of vegetarians in Italy was as high as it’s been in this six-year period, 7.1 percent. Like the fluctuations between 2014 and 2015, the yearlong period between 2016 and 2017 also saw a huge downward trend in vegetarianism. Only 4.6 percent of Italy eschewed meat that year.
By 2018, the percentage of vegetarians had risen healthily again to 6.2 percent. It’s stayed somewhat consistent since. In 2019, vegetarians accounted for 5.4 percent of the population, and in 2020, 6.7 percent. That’s the most vegetarians Italy has had since 2016.
What Percentage of Italians Are Vegan?
Thanks to the Statista data, we can also paint a clearer picture of the number of vegans in Italy over those same six years, from 2014 to 2020. Vegans had always been far fewer in Italy, which became clear in 2014. That year, just 0.6 percent of the country’s population of 60+ million people were vegan.
It got even worse, as 0.2 percent reported themselves as vegan in 2015. Keep in mind that was the same year that vegetarianism was down to 5.7 percent. In 2016, the year that Italy reported its highest percentage of vegetarians, a full 1 percent of people were omitting animal products and byproducts from their diets.
The year following that, 2017, the number was even higher, up to 3 percent of vegans. Also, 2017 marks the peak of veganism in Italy as of this writing. Things took a turn by 2018. Although Italy’s population of vegetarians was holding steady at 6.2 percent that year, veganism went from 3 percent to 0.9 percent, which is a huge drop of more than 2 percent. The numbers made a slight uptick in 2019 to 1.9 percent of vegans.
That brings us to the most current data from 2020. According to Statista, vegans in Italy amounted to 2.2 percent of the population last year. That’s still quite low overall, but it’s the second-highest report of veganism in the country.
Conclusion
Italy’s residents mostly follow the Mediterranean diet, which already takes it easy on the red meat. You would expect then that the country would have more vegans, yet if the percentage tips over 3 percent, that population of vegans is considered high. There are more vegetarians in the country, a healthy rate of 6.7 percent per 2020 data.
Although Italy maybe isn’t the most vegan-friendly country we’ve discussed, given the healthy diet its residents follow, you should be able to find great things to eat and feel right at home!
Related reading: What Percentage of Irish Are Vegetarian?