2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
"Since I read about the suffering of animals traveling to the slaughterhouse, and then to death, the desire to eat meat has passed. I can do without meat. And I will. We are talking about fantastic creatures. How do you kill them? How do you eat them? ".
These words do not come from very democratic parents who raise children with an open mind, preferably vegan.
No, these words come from the wonderful world of Silvio Berlusconi, which after almost eighty years spent on earth he would become a vegetarian, Corriere della Sera claims today.
Not easy to understand, if Berlusconi is involved, how much the unexpected conversion is due to a sincere respect for animals and not to Eurispes 2016 data, according to which Italian vegetarians and vegans they increase at the rate of 1600 per day.
They were 6% in 2013. They became 7, 1 in 2014. And 8% in 2015 (of these, 7, 1 per cent are vegetarian tout court while 0, 9 is vegan, and therefore also rejects foods that contain derivatives of animal origin). A trend that is turning into a mass phenomenon: in just 365 days, 2.3 percent more of Eurispes interviewees would have taken the same path as the force leader.
The alarm launched last October by the WHO, World Health Organization, on red meat and sausages weighs heavily, but apart from this, in Italy, meat consumption decreases at a rate of 5% every year, while at the same time sales of related products increase. to the vegetarian table.
Milk substitute drinks (soy, rice, almond) grew by 17% in 2015, and even companies synonymous with milk such as Granarolo launch lines of vegetable milk substitutes, but the double-digit increases also concern cheeses from soy (24%) or ready-to-use vegetable soups (38%).
The restaurant industry has also noticed the trend.
In franchising, chains such as Veggie Days and Universo Vegano are establishing themselves, vegan pastry shops are multiplying, in supermarkets the annual turnover generated by the sale of plant-based products is growing and is now worth 320 million euros.
Even Findus now has his own veggie burger. Coop has the ViviVerde, Pam Veg & Veg, Esselunga VeganOk, Despar Veggie lines.
Ultimately, whatever the reason why Berlusconi has become a vegetarian, sincere animalist drive or subtle political calculation (as if that weren't enough 43.3% of Italians live with at least one pet), the head of Forza Italia confirms himself as an inexhaustible trend setter.
He also gave instructions to the kitchen of his residence in Arcore, asking that it be "avoided making ragù using meat".