Young people across China are becoming vegetarians for a variety of reasons, from weight loss to worries about the quality of meat

    A vegetarian diet, once associated with monks or priests, has become fashionable in China, spawning the launch of a raft of restaurants catering to a new no-meat clientele.

    Several online surveys conducted by AC Nielsen, a leading global provider of market research information services, show that young people make up the majority of Chinese vegetarians. For the young, saying no to meat is a way to express their lifestyles and values.

    In addition to the pursuit of health and respect for animals, people who choose to be vegetarians also say they have no confidence in the safety of meat. Often they are wary of the food given to farm animals. Although choosing a vegetarian diet is just about food, it shows a new attitude to the world around.

    Vegetarians can be divided into two groups: strict vegetarians (vegan) and ordinary vegetarians (vegetarians), but in the eyes of non-vegetarians, the difference between the two is negligible, that is "none of them eat meat."

    "After I had been a vegetarian for some time I met my boyfriend Gu Yue, but I felt strongly after a while that I had fallen in love with a ‘killer,'" said Ning Er, who works in a foreign company in Beijing. Gu was born in Guangdong Province. People there are famous for their love of meat. There is a saying that "they can eat everything flying in the sky except for the planes, and everything running on the ground except for the trains." The difference in eating habits between Ning and Gu caused many conflicts. "Although he is a nice guy, I made up my mind several times to break up with him," said Ning.

    Gu gradually came to agree with his girlfriend that rejecting meat was the right thing to do and quit. He said it was a vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai called Jujube Tree that caused his transformation.

    On each wooden table in Jujube Tree there is a small sign that says, "Pure persistence, for our planet, for your health." The boss of the restaurant, Zeng Fangying, is a vegetarian. Several years ago, her mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and was told she had six months to live. After switching to a vegetarian diet her mother-in-law lived several years longer. Zeng became a vegetarian after that. "The vegetarian lifestyle gives me new understanding toward life," she said.

    In addition to respecting all life, some turn to vegetarianism because they believe it helps protect the environment and prevent world hunger. Zhou Yongshan is a young teacher from Taiwan. He is busy giving lectures around China on how to eat healthily. "The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by an ox per year equals that emitted by a car," he said. Raising poultry on a large scale needs more feed, which needs more land and leads to the cutting of the trees. Sandstorms across China have become increasingly serious in recent years, and huge areas of grassland have become deserts due to overgrazing. All these have sounded alarm bells and led to a rising tide of vegetarians, according to Zhou.

    Ning said she did not think about this much when she became a vegetarian at first. Initially she just wanted to lose weight. At first, she worried that a vegetarian diet might not provide enough nutrition, but a professor from the School of Life Sciences of Peking University told her that a vegetarian diet could provide more direct nutrition than meat. "The nutrition of meat also comes from the plants," she said. Now Ning, and many others like her, form a growing voice of vegetarianism around China, which could see diets and restaurants changing dramatically in years to come.

    在中國, 年輕人開始成為素食者, 他們出于各種原因, 從減肥到擔心肉的質量.

    一向與和尚或神父相聯系的素食飲食,現在在中國已變得很時尚, 這種形勢下出現了許多素食餐館,它們滿足那些新出現的、不吃肉的客人.

    一個世界領先市場研究信息服務供應商, AC.尼爾森所做的在線調查顯示中國素食者,年輕人占了大多數. 對年輕人來說, 對肉說不表達了他們生活方式與價值觀.

    除了追求健康與尊重動物,那些選擇成為素食者的人們還說他們對肉的安全缺乏信心. 通常他們會注意飼養動物的食物. 盡管選擇素食飲食只是關于食物, 但這顯示了人們對周圍世界的新態度.

    素食者可分為兩種: 一種是嚴格素食者(純素食者),另一種是一般素食者(素食者), 但是在非素食者的眼中,他們之間的差別是微小的,  那就是"他們都不吃肉".

  " 在我成為素食者一段時間之后,我遇到我的男朋友顧悅, 一段時間后,我強烈地感覺我曾愛上了一個"殺手",在北京一家外資公司工作的寧兒這么說. 顧悅出生在廣東省, 在那兒的人以愛吃肉而著名. 有句話說"他們可以食一切天上飛的動物,除了飛機, 食地上一切奔跑的動物,除了火車." 顧與寧在飲食習慣上的不同引發了許多沖突."  雖然他是一個不錯的男子, 我幾次下決心想與他分手,"寧說.

   漸漸地顧開始同意了他女友的觀點, 認為拒絕食肉是一件做得對的事, 并戒掉了食肉.他說，在上海有一家叫棗樹的餐館，就是這家餐館促成了他的對肉的變革。

   在棗樹的每一只木頭餐桌上，都標有一個小的記號，上面說“為了我們的星球，為了我們的健康而進行純粹的堅持。”餐館的老板曾芳穎，就是一位素食者。幾年前，她的婆婆被診斷為癌癥，并告知只有六個月可活。當她婆婆吃素食之后，就活了幾年。這之后，曾就成了素食者。“素食者的生活方式給予我對生活新的理解，”她說。

    除了對所有生命的尊重，有些人轉而奉行素食主義，因為他們堅信這種生活方式可以有助于保護我傘兵環境，并防止世界饑餓。周詠珊是來自臺灣的一名年輕教師。他正忙于在中國各地做關于如何健康飲食的講座。“每年一頭年所發出的二氧化碳量等同于一輛汽車所排出的量，”他說。在規模地飼養家禽需要更多的喂養，這需要更多的土地，這就得砍伐樹。在近幾年來，中國各地的沙塵暴變得越來越嚴重，由于過度放牧，大面積草場已成為沙漠。所有這些都敲響了警鐘，導致了素食浪潮的席卷，根據周所說。

    寧說，之初成為素食者并沒有想得那么多。她最初只是想減肥。開始，她擔心素食飲食可能不會提供足夠的營養，但北京大學科學生命學院的一位教授告訴她素食飲食比肉能提供更多的營養。“肉的營養也是從植物上汲取，”她說。 現在，寧與許多其他像她一樣的人，在中國大地發出一種日漸響亮的聲音，素食主義，在未來幾年，這將使我們看到中國人的飲食與餐館會有巨大的變化。