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China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine due to Buddhism but pork is still a significant cuisine staple. China is already nominally food secure i.e. it ca

China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine due to Buddhism but pork is still a significant cuisine staple. China is already nominally food secure i.e. it can feed everyone on domestic production but absolute food security is a huge focus for central planners and from what I've gleaned, the goal is still to provide enough domestic animal production vs pivot to plant proteins. Although Chinese fake meat research is also trending. At the end of the day it's cultural, I think long term it would be easy to encourage more vegetarian diets in China because vegetarian Buddhist diets is associated with health and Chinese demographics is skewing older for the foreseeable future. Combined with lack of comprehensive health safety net and people will eventually skew towards less animal protein.

baybal2 7y ago
> China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine Doesn't seem to me like that at all. Chinese under 40 are bigger protein eaters today than even Germans and Americans
- dirtyid 7y ago
  Tradition as in there is a lot of already developed Chinese vegetarian dishes to draw from if there is to be a vegetarian resurgence. They're not popular in contemporary Chinese consumption culture but there's no need to reinvent meat.
mrpopo 7y ago
> China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine due to Buddhism This is less and less true. Chinese meat consumption increased nearly 3-fold in the 1990-2013 period (from 25kg/y/cap to 62kg/y/cap). Meanwhile, meat consumption in the EU during the same period has started reducing from 85kg/y/cap to 81kg/y/cap. The trends have been continuing since 2013. Of course, the USA is off the charts, at 115kg/y/cap, but the meat obsession there is totally unsustainable, unhealthy and insane IMO. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-p...
- namelosw 7y ago
  I believe this is mainly because of the growth of income. In the early 90s which I was born, most Chinese think of meat as an expensive ingredient, whereas in the early 2000s, most people can actually buy meat for dinner without a second thought.
  - mrpopo 7y ago
    I agree. This actually demonstrates that low meat consumption in China is maybe in part a cultural factor, but first and foremost an economical problem.

baybal2 7y ago

> China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine Doesn't seem to me like that at all. Chinese under 40 are bigger protein eaters today than even Germans and Americans

dirtyid 7y ago
Tradition as in there is a lot of already developed Chinese vegetarian dishes to draw from if there is to be a vegetarian resurgence. They're not popular in contemporary Chinese consumption culture but there's no need to reinvent meat.

mrpopo 7y ago

> China has rich tradition of vegetarian cuisine due to Buddhism This is less and less true. Chinese meat consumption increased nearly 3-fold in the 1990-2013 period (from 25kg/y/cap to 62kg/y/cap). Meanwhile, meat consumption in the EU during the same period has started reducing from 85kg/y/cap to 81kg/y/cap. The trends have been continuing since 2013. Of course, the USA is off the charts, at 115kg/y/cap, but the meat obsession there is totally unsustainable, unhealthy and insane IMO. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-p...

namelosw 7y ago
I believe this is mainly because of the growth of income. In the early 90s which I was born, most Chinese think of meat as an expensive ingredient, whereas in the early 2000s, most people can actually buy meat for dinner without a second thought.
- mrpopo 7y ago
  I agree. This actually demonstrates that low meat consumption in China is maybe in part a cultural factor, but first and foremost an economical problem.