Last week, we ranked European countries by their ‘veggie-friendliness’ and saw an obvious east/west divide. This week we turn our hand to the US.
To rank US states we’re going to look at:
- The number of vegan or vegetarian restaurants in each state (source: happycow)
- How many vegan and vegetarian restaurants there are per head of population (population source: wikipedia)
Using those figures I calculated the number of veggie restaurants per million people. The higher that number, the higher that state’s ‘veggie-friendliness’.
Green coasts with a red center
The map shows a clear divide between the coasts, whose states have lots of veggie restaurants per million, and the center, whose states have only a handful.
Out in front, we have Washington DC with 54 restaurants per million residents. Although, as DC isn’t technically a state we might have to give our top spot to Hawaii with a whopping 51.
At the bottom of the pile is South Dakota with slightly less than 1 restaurant per million residents.
See the map below:
America has a bigger divide than Europe
Comparing the US map to last week’s European map, it’s clear the US states are more divergent than European countries.
US states hit a higher number of ‘veggie’ restaurants per million at the top end and have a bigger concentration of states at the bottom.
In contrast, Europe has more countries in the middle.
Does that imply the central and coastal states are more divided than eastern and western Europe in other ways? Maybe. It depends on what you think the rate of veggie restaurants says about society more broadly. Which leads me on to the next thing that stood out when looking at the map.
Democrats are vegans, republicans eat meat
Looking at colored US maps and talking about divides naturally got me thinking about the recent US election.
After a quick scan, it was obvious that the most ‘veggie-friendly’ states had voted democrat. So I picked a rough halfway point and colored every state with 8 or more veggie restaurants per million blue and those with less than 8 red. You can see the outcome below:
Pretty similar to the November 2020 election map! Not quite the same but an uncanny resemblance.
So to win the next election do democrats have to just open more veggie restaurants? Or republicans find ways to close them down? It’s not likely that tactic will work for either side 🙂
It’s much more likely that being vegan or vegetarian is just correlated with voting democrat. If you are young and a woman, you are much more likely to be vegan for example. And being young and a woman are also two of the strongest predictors for voting democrat.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the numbers I’ve copied the full table below:
State Population No. of vegan & vegetarian restaurants Vegan & vegetarian restaurants per million Rank District of Columbia 705,749 38 54 1 Hawaii 1,415,872 72 51 2 Oregon 4,217,737 113 27 3 New York 19,453,561 375 19 4 California 39,512,223 697 18 5 Vermont 623,989 11 18 6 New Jersey 8,882,190 152 17 7 Massachusetts 6,892,503 114 17 8 Rhode Island 1,059,361 16 15 9 Nevada 3,080,156 43 14 10 Maine 1,344,212 16 12 11 Washington 7,614,893 89 12 12 Florida 21,477,737 228 11 13 Connecticut 3,565,287 35 10 14 Arizona 7,278,717 70 10 15 New Hampshire 1,359,711 12 9 16 Illinois 12,671,821 106 8 17 Delaware 973,764 8 8 18 Colorado 5,758,736 47 8 19 Maryland 6,045,680 48 8 20 Georgia 10,617,423 84 8 21 Pennsylvania 12,801,989 100 8 22 Utah 3,205,958 22 7 23 Michigan 9,986,857 68 7 24 Tennessee 6,829,174 46 7 25 Virginia 8,535,519 57 7 26 New Mexico 2,096,829 14 7 27 Ohio 11,689,100 76 7 28 Texas 28,995,881 188 6 29 North Carolina 10,488,084 62 6 30 West Virginia 1,792,147 10 6 31 South Carolina 5,148,714 25 5 32 Iowa 3,155,070 15 5 33 Missouri 6,137,428 29 5 34 Minnesota 5,639,632 26 5 35 Kentucky 4,467,673 20 4 36 Wisconsin 5,822,434 26 4 37 Montana 1,068,778 4 4 38 Nebraska 1,934,408 7 4 39 Louisiana 4,648,794 16 3 40 Indiana 6,732,219 23 3 41 Idaho 1,787,065 6 3 42 Alaska 731,545 2 3 43 North Dakota 762,062 2 3 44 Oklahoma 3,956,971 10 3 45 Arkansas 3,017,804 6 2 46 Wyoming 578,759 1 2 47 Kansas 2,913,314 5 2 48 Mississippi 2,976,149 5 2 49 Alabama 4,903,185 8 2 50 South Dakota 884,659 1 1 51
