Voices Pushpesh Pant Ravi Shankar Sumeet Bhasin Neha Sinha Anuja Chandramouli mata amritanandamayi MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI May 19 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Green Evolution From eating well to a plant-based diet, the newest trend taking over grocery shelves and restaurant menus, Indians are increasingly returning to their green roots I By rupali Dean ndian athletes participating in the 2024 Paris Olympics are in for a pleasant surprise. An exclusively curated plantbased vegetarian menu which dovetails with the government’s ‘leaf over beef ’ philosophy They are in good . company: Olympic sprinter Morgan Mitchell who specialises in the 400m race adopted a plant-based diet two years before representing Australia at the 2016 Rio Olympics. American Olympic silver medallist Dotsie Bausch is another leafy soul. Actor Shahid Kapoor loves chicken, pigs, cows, fish and other animals; hence he eats only plant-based vegetarian fare. So does Stevie Wonder. Vegan power couple Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli, already own a plant-based meat brand, Blue Tribe, which offers mock chicken nuggets, mutton keema, chicken momos and sausages. Vietnamese spiritual teacher Supreme Master Ching Hai aka Suma hopes the world will one day adopt a totally plant-based lifestyle and campaigns for laws that promote plant-based eating. A plant-based diet revolution is sweeping the world. India is part of it. The country’s plant-based food market size is worth $468 million and the Indian vegan food market was $1,372.3 million in 2022; it is expected to climb to $2,756.6 million by 2030. As for the world, the global business is projected to reach $113.1 billion by 2031. Siddharth Ramasubramanian, Founder, Hello Tempayy , a bean-based vegetarian protein and ready-to-cook brand, says, “People are increasingly becoming more conscious of what they eat, and we’ve seen a rise in awareness around the importance of protein in one’s diet. We are seeing an exponential rise in protein-rich food products catering to vegetarians. We launched in 2021 and have seen a growth in distribution, sales and repeat buying. While we saw instant demand in metros and Tier 1 cities, our new line of ambient products (no refrigeration) is seeing a sudden increase in sales from Tier 2 cities as they are starved for new foods that break the monotony of the same old options.” The ethical eating pyramid has been growing tiers over the past decade. Vegetarians were always around on the top shelf, vegans appeared in mid-20th century; the word was coined in November 1944 by British vegetarian activist Watson, and his school teacher wife Dorothy Morgan, by taking “the first three and last two letters of ‘vegetarian’” which according to Watson signalled “the beginning and end of vegetarian”. Watson was wrong although only three per cent of the world’s citizens, or 100 million people, are declared vegetarian or vegan. The new kid on the ethical soapbox is plant-based food. Note, all vegetarians are not vegans while all vegans are vegetarians. All plant-based food adoptees are neither totally vegetarian nor vegan. Rajeev Venkat, Author and Corporate Advisor, explains the distinction: “The difference between a vegan and a plant-based lifestyle is that you can skip the strict rules of veganism, which prohibits tucking into any animal product.” He is a part of a growing tribe of health-conscious individuals in the country who have crossed over to a plant-based food lifestyle. “Speaking personally , adopting a whole food, plant-based diet has numerous health advantages such as lowering the risk of diabetes, enhancing the gut microbiome and promoting longevity shares Venkat. ,” The man who calls himself a perennial student on the path of Advaita Vedanta is the author of Cast Your Caste Away: The Clarion Call of Turn to page 2
Express Network Private Limited publishes thirty three E-paper editions of The New Indian Express newspaper , thirty two E-paper editions of Dinamani, one E-paper edition of The Morning Standard, one E-paper edition of Malayalam Vaarika magazine and one E-paper edition of the Indulge - The Morning Standard, Kolkatta.