Man I had Indian food for the first time a few months ago. Had some cauliflower that tasted like chicken. Changed my life.
Makes absolute sense after you've tried paneer.
I am a meat eater extraordinaire.
But Paneer is love. Will absolutely demolish it.
Not surprised. Vegetarianism has been the default in India for ages.
They've greatly explored the spice palette and can make pretty much anything taste amazing.
EDIT: some clarification. I did not mean to imply that majority of Indians are vegetarian. No. Majority do eat meat.
But in most parts of India they do not eat meat on a daily basis. It's typically a once a week kind of thing. And yes, I've observed this among friends and colleagues from practically all parts of India. Even the most fierce non-veg fiends will typically do a weekend bash, but eat regular roti sabzi, dal chawal rest of the week.
But they also have one of (probably the) highest levels of food insecurity, for kids and adults.
Most can't even afford beans, very few could afford meat if they even wanted to.
they also have world's biggest food security program. nutrition is improving and they also lifted huge percentage of their population from below poverty.
4 out if 5 people in India are also protein-deficient. Meat and diary consumption will only increase in India going against global trends.
I wonder what percentage is a choice or social pressure or affordability
Probably not that high. From experience, it's just that you've been eating vegetarian food all your life, it's really weird to eat non vegetarian. In fact, there are many of my friends who've turned non vegetarian due to peer pressure from their friends.
When I was a vegetarian, Indian food was my go to. Guaranteed to be vegetarian and tasty. It would even be mostly vegan but they use ghee in almost everything, so it's a big no-no for vegans unfortunately
I've been told that Sri Lanka is a popular travel destination for vegans because the food is like Indian food minus the ghee.
Nice tip! Thanks
Almost a half of world's population lives in India. Most of everyone will end up there.
For comparison, India has ~18% of the world population.
Half? It's around 18% of the world's population.
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