Reading
The vegetarian option
1 Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)? Circle your
answers.
1 Vegetarians don’t eat any meat T / F
2 70% of people in India don’t eat any meat. T / F
3 Eating a lot of meat is bad for our planet. T / F
4 People eat vegetarian food around the world. T / F
2 Read the magazine article and check your answers to
exercise 1.
The vegetarian option
In today’s food column, we look at vegetarian food. It’s a popular option in restaurants
around the world, but what exactly is a vegetarian?
Vegetarians, semi-vegetarians and vegans
Vegetarians don’t eat any meat or fish. That is clear, but there are different types of
vegetarian. Vegans, for example, don’t eat any animal products, so vegan food doesn’t
have any cheese, eggs or milk in it. Other people are semi-vegetarians and eat some fish
but don’t eat any meat.
Why be a vegetarian?
About 70% of the world’s vegetarians live in India, where about 30% of the population
are vegetarians. A lot of these people are Hindus, so religion is an important reason for
eating vegetarian food.
Other people eat vegetarian food to help our planet. We eat a lot of meat, and to make
the space to produce it, we need to cut down trees and plants, and that’s bad for the
environment. Also, to produce 1 kilo of meat, an animal needs 8 kilos of vegetarian
food. It’s better for the global population if we eat this food.
There are also vegetarians who think it’s wrong to eat animals, or who eat vegetarian
food because it’s healthy.
A global option
For all these reasons, vegetarian food has a good future. Between 3 and 7% of people
in the UK are vegetarian, and 86% of the population eat vegetarian food one or two
days a week. In Brazil the figure is between 5 and 10%. And Ghent, in Belgium, is the
first city in the world to have one official vegetarian day every week.
Glossary
- cut down (verb) – to make a tree fall to the ground
- Hindu (noun) – a person who follows Hinduism,
- the major religion in India
- produce (verb) – to make or grow
- religion (noun) – Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and
- Christianity are examples of a religion
- wrong (adjective) – bad, not good
Complete the questions with the correct option. Then
answer the questions.
1 How much / many reasons does the article mention for
eating vegetarian food?
2 How much / many food does an animal eat to produce a
kilo of meat?
3 How much / many people in the UK are vegetarians?
4 How much / often does Ghent have a vegetarian day?
5 Complete the description with any, some, much, many or
a lot of.
VEGETARIAN,NOT VEGETARIAN
‘I’m a flexitarian. I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t
eat (1)....................... meat, just one or two times
a week. I eat (2)....................... vegetarian food –
two or three times a day – , and I also eat
(3).............................. fish for lunch or dinner two
days a week. I don’t eat (4).......................... fruit
because I hate it.
I don’t have (5)......................... reasons for being
a flexitarian – just one, in fact. Vegetarian food is
good for the planet. There are (6).......................
people in the world who need more food – millions
of people – and vegetarian food is more economical
to produce.
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