Veganism has moved well past its niche reputation. In 2026, it's a measurable slice of how people eat, shop, and think about health - and a growing body of clinical research backs up why. Here's where things stand, in numbers.
How Many People Are Actually Vegan in 2026?
Globally, an estimated 88 million people now identify as vegan - roughly 1.1% of the world's 8.3 billion population. That might sound small, but the trajectory tells the real story:
- United States: around 2-3% of adults identify as vegan today, up from just 1% a decade ago - nearly tripling in ten years.
- United Kingdom: about 6.3% of UK adults say they plan to follow a vegan diet in 2026, equal to roughly 3.5 million people, and 48% of Brits now regularly consume plant-based milk.
- China: Statista figures put the vegan/vegetarian population at around 4% of a 1.4 billion population - tens of millions of people.
- Veganuary 2026 alone drew a record 30 million participants worldwide trying vegan for the month, with 276 organizations joining the Workplace Challenge.
The demographic picture is shifting too. Around 8% of Black Americans now report being vegan or vegetarian - a higher share than any other ethnic group in the US - and women continue to make up the clear majority of vegans worldwide, at roughly two-thirds.
The Market Is Growing Faster Than the Population
Vegan identity is one number; vegan spending is another, and it's accelerating faster.
- The global vegan food market was valued at $14.2 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $31.4 billion by 2026 - more than doubling in under a decade.
- The plant-based protein market alone is expected to hit $22 billion in 2026 and climb to nearly $50 billion by 2036.
- Sales of plant milk are up 33% since 2018, and global consumption of plant-based milk has climbed from 3.7 billion kilograms in 2013 to 6.3 billion kilograms by 2020.
- In the UK specifically, the vegan food market is growing at roughly 9.6% a year, with 40% of consumers actively asking for more plant-based options on shelves and menus.
This is the flexitarian effect: most of this growth doesn't come from strict vegans, but from the much larger group of people quietly reducing meat and dairy without fully giving them up.
What the Clinical Research Actually Shows
This is the part that matters most, because it's no longer just anecdotal. A wave of randomized controlled trials and large meta-analyses over the past few years have quantified what a vegan diet does to measurable health markers.
Cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. A 2023 meta-analysis in the European Heart Journal, pooling 30 randomized controlled trials conducted between 1980 and 2022, found that vegetarian and vegan diets lowered total cholesterol by about 7%, LDL cholesterol by about 10%, and apolipoprotein B - a key marker of cardiovascular risk - by 14%, compared with omnivorous diets. Because apoB is increasingly seen as a more direct predictor of heart disease than LDL alone, that 14% figure is significant.
Head-to-head against the Mediterranean diet. A randomized cross-over trial comparing a low-fat vegan diet directly against a Mediterranean diet found the vegan diet produced significantly greater reductions in LDL cholesterol, largely because it cut saturated fat and dietary cholesterol intake more aggressively.
Blood sugar control. In a 12-week randomized clinical trial in patients with type 2 diabetes, a vegan diet reduced HbA1c (long-term blood sugar) by 0.5 percentage points, compared with 0.2 points on a conventional diabetic diet - and the gap widened further among participants who stuck closely to the diet.
Workplace intervention data. An 18-week multicenter randomized trial run inside a major US corporation found employees on a low-fat vegan diet lost an average of 2.9 kg more than controls, while also lowering total and LDL cholesterol and HbA1c - evidence the effects hold up outside a lab, in ordinary working life.
Environmental impact. Beyond personal health, an Oxford University analysis estimated that a global shift toward plant-based eating could cut agricultural land use by as much as 76% and reduce diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by roughly two-thirds if adopted widely by 2050.
The numbers tell a consistent story: veganism is still a minority choice - somewhere around 1–3% of most populations identify fully as vegan - but it's a minority backed by an unusually strong and growing evidence base, and surrounded by a much larger group of flexitarians pulling the market upward. The science on cholesterol, blood sugar, and cardiovascular risk has moved from promising to well-replicated across dozens of randomized trials.
Small, consistent changes compound. Just as clinical trials show measurable results from cutting animal products even partially, everyday swaps - like what's in your water, your kitchen, or your daily routine - add up over time. That's the same principle behind what we do at Milky Plant: making the small plant-friendly, everyday choices, like our ShowerT filter, an easy part of a lifestyle that's already moving in this direction for millions of people.
