Have you noticed that more and more people you know have stopped eating meat?

The official results are in: during the past four years, there has been a boom in the number of people going vegetarian in Australia.

In a poll released this week , it was revealed that between 2012 and 2016, the number of Australian adults who are eating all or almost all vegetarian rose from 1.7 million people (9.7 per cent of the population) to almost 2.1 million (11.2 per cent).

Where Are All the Vegetarians?

It might come as a surprise to many that Tasmania leads the nation with the highest proportion of residents who embrace meat-free eating, at 12.7 per cent.

Of course, we already knew that there were a growing number of compassionate eaters in Tasmania, since we revealed back in April that the state was leading the pack in terms of the number of Google searches for the word “vegan”.

New South Wales has experienced the biggest jump since 2012 – with a whopping 30 per cent increase in vegetarian eating!

Why Go Vegetarian?

As the researchers discovered, while more than 60.7 per cent of Australian adults are overweight or obese, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index, and only 45.5 per cent fall into the overweight or obese categories.

And it seems word is spreading about the health benefits associated with giving meat the chop, as more than half (53.4 per cent) of Aussies agree that they’re “eating less red meat these days”.

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