Vegan travel index ranks Australia way down

Australia has been ranked very low on a vegan travel index compiled by prominent travel researchers Asher and Lyric Fergusson.

The people behind the list of best and worst countries for solo female travel and the global analysis of airBNB complaints have ranked 37 countries where tourists commonly head in terms of their vegan friendliness.

They have drawn on data from sources like the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and official government census statistics for the research.

They used seven factors relating to how vegan and vegetarian travellers would fare such as the vegetable, fruit, and legume supply quantity per capita per year, the percentage of the population that is vegetarian and the number of vegan restaurants per million tourists. A lower meat supply quantity in a country contributed to a higher mark.

India, the country with the highest percentage of vegetarians in the world at 29 in every hundred, unsurprisingly topped the chart.

Fascinatingly, one of the world's biggest beef exporters, Brazil, slotted into the top five along with Mexico, Vietnam and China.

Even though Brazil's meat supply was very heavy, it also scored high in fruit, vegetable and legume supply and had a high number vegetarian restaurants per tourist numbers. It also has a higher percentage of the population that are vegetarian than all other countries other than India.

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Australia was ranked right down the bottom in 29th position, although the researchers did make the point that certain regions or cities can be very vegan-friendly where the country's overall ranking is low.

Australia was below the United Kingdom, New Zealand and United States but above France, Norway and Denmark.

Finland had the highest number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants and China enormously outscored all others on vegetable supply.

Of course, Australia's mark was dragged down by its ample supply of meat which was beaten only by the United States and Argentina.

Latvia was at the bottom of the list. Just three per cent of Latvians are vegetarians, and there are very few vegetarian-friendly restaurants.

The authors said it was estimated that 11pc of global consumers are vegetarian, 3pc are vegan and 20pc are flexitarian.

An interesting element to the Asher & Lyric research was the list of types of sans or restricted meat diets.

Alongside the plain old vegan, who does not consume any animal products or by-products and typically also refrains from using or wearing any animal products like leather, wool or even beeswax, is a long list.

Raw vegans eat only uncooked foods that have no animal products or by-products.

Fruitarians predominately eat fruit, and some seeds, nuts, and legumes. Certain practitioners of this diet will only eat fruit that has fallen from the plant so as to not harm any living creature.

Lacto-vegetarians do not eat any type of meat, fish, poultry, or eggs but generally consume dairy products like milk and cheese.

Ovo-vegetarians do not consume meat, fish, poultry, or dairy, but they do eat eggs and products containing eggs.

And lacto-ovo-vegetarians, probably the most common type of vegetarian, do not consume meat, fish, or poultry but do eat eggs and dairy products.

Then comes the list of plant-based diets.

Flexitarians primarily follow a vegetarian diet but occasionally eat meat.

Pescatarians limit their meat consumption to fish and shellfish.

Pollotarians consume periodic poultry, but no seafood or red meat.

Peganism is a hybrid of veganism and paleo that focuses on the 'hunter-gatherer' diet including fruit, nuts and seeds, vegetables, and occasional meat. The premise is to eat things that are wild caught like those who came before farming but with a higher emphasis on the vegetarian diet rather than a more paleo meat-heavy diet.

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