IN the aroma of food and pop music, customers were lining up in front of the “Vegan Beef” booth at a food festival held in Sarona Park in downtown Tel Aviv.

Besides the plant-based beef hamburgers, the visitors also gravitate toward a variety of other innovative vegan dishes, fruit juices, vegetable cream cake, and pita bread, to name only a few.

The three-day food festival, which already wrapped up last Thursday, is billed as the world’s largest vegan event. It hosted more than 100 stalls of vegan restaurants, along with cooking classes and food-related activities for children.

“The purpose of the event is to show that the vegan lifestyle is accessible and easy, with great food, great atmosphere, and great people,” said Omri Paz, CEO of the Vegan Friendly Association, organizer of the event.

Currently, fewer than 1% of the world’s population are vegan.

When Paz founded the association 10 years ago, there was only 1% vegetarian population in Israel, and now the proportion has risen to 5%, he said.

In a broader sense, “about 1 million out of 10 million people in Israel choose not to eat animals,” he added.

Veganism, analysts say, is rooted in the Jewish dietary tradition, as Judaism has a long tradition of compassion for animals.

As a leader in protecting animals’ natural rights, Israel has long banned the sale of personal care and household products that were tested on animals, and was the first country to ban horse and donkey-drawn carts and carriages used for work purposes.

Unique to Israel is the mix of the traditional Mediterranean diet and the strict dietary rules of kosher food — the separation of meat, dairy and parve which is pretty much vegan apart from the fish gelatin and honey, an Australia-based online cookbook “Chef’s Pencil” said.

Additionally, the constant influx and mix of immigrant cultures are believed to have added a diverse flavor to vegan food in Israel.

With less than half the population being native to the region, the immigrant mindset of looking for something new has to be a big reason veganism has become so popular, according to “Chef’s Pencil.”

The British newspaper the Independent called Tel Aviv, with 400 vegan and vegan-friendly kitchens, the “vegan capital of the world.”

The Vegan Friendly logo now appears at 1,500 Israeli eateries and on 6,500 products. “Since August 2019, we had about 50 new businesses every month that got certified as vegan-friendly or 100% vegan,” said Paz.

The Israel Defense Force, the country’s army, is also the most vegan army in the world. Israel National News reported that the number of vegans among serving members has increased 20-fold in just three years.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization showed total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, constituting an important cause for climate change.

“If the world went vegan, it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by two-thirds and avoid US$1.5 trillion of climate damages. That’s a significant step toward saving the planet,” Israeli company Redefine Meat predicted.

Data from Germany-based company Statista showed the global plant-based food market is expected to reach US$77.8 billion in 2025, and by 2030 the market will have more than doubled.

In terms of both the cultured meat, still at the laboratory stage, and the plant-based meat, the current mainstream meat substitute in the market, Israel has taken the lead, where the number of startups has exceeded 50.

“I came specifically to Israel, because Israel is one of the largest, most significant concentrations of people that are removing animals from the food system. There are so many innovations in so many companies,” said Jennifer Stojkovic, author of the book “The Future of Food Is Female” and founder of Vegan Women Summit.

(Xinhua)