What we talk about when we talk about vegetarian diets: Insights into vegetarian practices in China

Vegetarian practices in China are deeply embedded in local cultural traditions and are evolving alongside modern dietary trends. This study aims to profile individuals discussing vegetarian diets on social media and identify key characteristics of vegetarian practices from the discourse. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, we analyze vegetarian-related discussions on Weibo, supplemented by generational and sentiment analyses. Results show that 72.2 % of participants are female, with post volumes increasing by 18.6 % on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar calendar. The majority of posts exhibit positive sentiment, comprising 73.2 % of the total. Nine key topics are identified: everyday vegetarian experiences, wishes and prayers, ethical vegetarianism, vegetarian restaurant, vegetarian meals and snacks, holistic health vegetarianism, modern nutritional and vegetarianism, vegetarian recipes, and Buddhist vegetarianism. These topics depict Chinese vegetarian practice as an inclusive, depoliticized practice rooted in local cultural traditions, characterized by flexibility and integration into everyday life. Generational analyses show that younger generations (born in the 1990s and 2000s) see vegetarianism mainly as a practical dietary choice and adopt a more relaxed approach toward it, while older generations place greater emphasis on its spiritual and ethical dimensions. This study enhances the understanding of vegetarian practices in non-Western contexts, illustrating how Chinese vegetarian practices blend tradition with modernity, fostering a distinctive, non-confrontational, and accessible pathway to mainstream adoption.