---
title: Only 5% of Americans Never Eat Meat, but Two Thirds Eat Meatless Meals
description: A Harris Poll for the Vegetarian Resource Group puts US vegetarians at 5% of adults and vegans at 3%, while two thirds of adults eat meatless meals.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-26T21:21:50.506Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/us-adults-vegetarian-vegan-harris-poll-2026
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/us-vegetarian-vegan-poll-plates-38738.webp
categories: Markets
content_type: News
region: United States
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

Five percent of American adults never eat meat, fish, seafood or poultry, and 3% of all adults avoid dairy and eggs as well. Two thirds of adults, 67%, eat vegetarian meals always, sometimes or usually, and 33% do the same with fully vegan meals.

Those figures come from a nationally representative online poll of 2,096 adults aged 18 and over, conducted by The Harris Poll between 6 and 8 January 2026. It was commissioned by the Vegetarian Resource Group, a nonprofit in Baltimore that publishes Vegan Journal and has polled on the question since 1994. The group says it ordered the survey because food companies, marketers, researchers and students keep asking it for a number.

The two sets of figures describe different markets. One is a few percent of adults who have taken meat out of their diet permanently. The other is most of the country, eating a meal without meat when it suits them and eating meat the rest of the time.

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