The closer you are to hunting or slaughtering the more it's just a normal part of life. I've never met a vegan when I grew up in a rural area around farms, only after I moved to the city and it's almost exclusivly people that grew up in the city.

[–] Rozlif 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

vegan here who grew up on farms. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they aren't common.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Well, I wouldn't say vegans are common anywhere (where I've lived). It's like 1-2% of the population.

And while my point indeed was totally anecdotal, it goes beyond just knowing people. There are other hints. I still often visit family in my childhood home area and even today you can notice a different in marketing. Restaurants there often don't even mark meals as vegan on the menu, while restaurants in big cities often have an entire section for vegan meals.

Also supermarkets specialising on bio food and such (our equivilant of like wholefoods) aren't present at all. You'd have to drive like 30km to get to one. Also in regular supermarkets meat replacement options are either not availible or poorly stocked.

So I'm not sure if it's a result or a cause, but I'd say it's much harder to be vegan in a rural area, just from a logistical standpoint. And you get a lot more local farmers markets, so you also have access to fresh and relativly cheap meat.

I've tried to search for some statistics about the distribution of vegans in urban and rural areas, but didn't find anything useful. I did find some quora and reddit threads with quite a few replies of people that have similar expirences to mine.

If you have any, please share.

[–] Rozlif 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, you're right it's a different thing to doing it in cities, cooking is important. In my experience, I have lots of vegan rural friends however that's due to my social circle and isn't representive. In the uk apparently we are on 4.7% vegan now (1567% increase in 10 years) its become noticeably more over the last few years but probably not to the same level as cities.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is that from people converting or because of immigration from places like India?

[–] Rozlif 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

To be honest I'm not sure. The increase I have seen has been across all ethnicitys, mostly younger people though.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Ah interesting

[–] suction@lemmy.world -2 points 4 months ago

Oh you’re vegan, too? Because I’m vegan!!

[–] Machinist@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

You might be right. When I was young; didn't meet vegans until I experienced big cities.