In the vegetarian trend, there are already things more popular than fruit and vegetable juices and wheatgrass. Donuts, vegetarian pizza and artificial meat burgers are gradually awakening the natural attraction of fried high-calorie foods to humans.

These added foods, like some non-vegetarian foods, are high in oil, sugar and salt. Even though they have vegetarian ingredients - such as using artificial meat instead of meat and soy products instead of dairy products, they are still because It goes against people's usual impression of vegetarianism - eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, being healthy and having little carbon emissions - and is called vegetarian junk food.

They are now back in style.

“There are so many unhealthy choices that it’s hard to resist.” American vegetarian Jessica McCully said at a recent vegetarian food festival. When she said this, she was holding a Serving a faux chicken taco.

Los Angeles even holds a "Vegan Oktoberfest" every October, allowing vegetarians to indulge in soy protein ice cream, chocolate, large glasses of beer and fried snacks.

According to a survey by Harris Interactive, from 2008 to 2015, the number of vegetarians in the United States increased from more than 7 million to more than 10 million, and their proportion increased from 3.2% to 3.4%. Considering the U.S. population base of more than 300 million, this is not a very fast growth rate - of course, other less strict vegetarians are also increasing - but it is enough to convince merchants that it is a potential market, and they It seems that the demand for high-calorie foods among vegetarians was seen earlier.

Even before the “juicy” artificial meat burgers, which cost more than $180 million to develop, go on sale in New York in late July, some cheese companies have seized the market in advance. For example, Kite Hill has developed a cream cheese made from almonds; Treeline from New York has a richer range of vegetarian cheese products, with 6 types in a year, all made from cashews.

$12 artificial meat burger | Picture from impossiblefoods

In March of this year, in order to satisfy vegetarians’ love for junk food, By Chloe near New York University The restaurant has been a success. They offer a wide range of categories that are no less than other fast food chain brands, such as burgers, ice cream, cup cakes, pasta, and fries. It's just that the ingredients used to make these junk foods are different: most of them contain avocado, plus mushrooms, cashews, almonds, and vegetarian cheese to bring satisfaction to diners.

This trend is not limited to the United States. Last week, at the Ribfest held in Ontario, Canada, thousands of people lined up to buy a vegetarian burger called Big MACinnes, which uses chickpeas, onions, mixed with soy sauce and bread crumbs to create a patty-like texture. texture, then topped with mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, pickles, and dairy-free cheddar cheese. Over the course of the five days of the festival, 300 kilograms of dried chickpeas were used to make the burger.

The demand for vegetarians in the UK may be greater - after all, in the past ten years, the number of vegetarians in the UK has tripled from 150,000 to 500,000 - in February, A new vegan junk food restaurant called V Revolution has opened in Manchester, serving burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese and desserts.

Vegan junk food restaurant By Chloe has a long queue in front of the door | Picture from BI

And Australia. According to data from market research firm Euromonitor International, currently, the world's largest packaged vegetarian market is the United States (USD 1.75 billion), followed by Germany (USD 614 million), the United Kingdom (USD 507 million) and Australia (USD 136 million). Euromonitor predicts Australia's share of the market will reach $215 million by 2020, a 58% increase.

But vegetarian junk food accounts for the larger share of the Australian packaged vegetarian market - the largest category is dairy alternatives ($83.7 million), followed by sauces, dressings and condiments ( $26.3 million), cookies and snacks ($12.5 million), candies ($6.9 million) – followed by seemingly healthier breakfast cereals ($5.4 million) – and less healthy spreads such as cream and jam ($5.4 million) $1.1 million).

This seems to be no secret to the fast food industry. Australian fast-food brand Grill’d said sales of several of its veggie burgers were up 12 per cent on last year and are growing rapidly.

“Although salads are also good, our goal is to capture a larger share of the vegetarian market,” said Nelson Lima, manager of Sydney-based Portuguese fried chicken chain Ogalo. “Now every time we sell Out of 30 burgers, one or two will be vegetarian. What vegetarians want is the satisfaction of burgers.”

Not to mention the Indian market. Due to cultural factors, India has the highest proportion of vegetarians in the world. Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, McDonald's, Domino's... almost all of these high-calorie chain brands have launched vegetarian menus for India, and they are still launching new ones regularly.

This trend of junk food seems to indicate that people may become vegetarians for more than just health reasons - because they do not reveal concerns about the calories in their diets ——It may be due to environmental awareness to reduce carbon emissions, protection of animal rights and other reasons.

In other words, vegetarianism has become more of a choice based on values, but human beings’ taste requirements and desire for high calories are difficult to sacrifice in the diet of some vegetarians. dropped.