My guest on the podcast today is Piia Jallinoja, professor of health sociology at the University of Tampere.
I decided to contact Piia for the interview when I read her article on versuslehti.fi. The title was “What do surveys reveal about the popularity of vegetarian diets in Finland?” (you can read the article here).
Veganism and vegetarianism are rising in the world and Finland. There are many reasons for this, and people have different motivations. At first, veganism was solely focusing on animal rights issues. However, today with the increasing evidence from research showing that plant-based eating is better for the environment. So, many people are turning to part-time or full-time veganism or vegetarianism for environmental issues. “Following a healthy diet” is also one of the motivations for people turning to these diets. More and more research shows that meat-eating, especially red meat is not healthy. Even if some people have one of these motivations initially, they most likely add the other reasons as the motivations in the long run. Besides all this, we should not forget that veganism mainly is not just a diet but it is a lifestyle. Full-time vegans do not use any vegan products and are sensitive to many issues around animal rights.
In the episode, we talked about how veganism/vegetarianism is increasing in the world and Finland and the motivations I mentioned above. We discussed the changing cultural position of meat-eating. We also talked about an exciting Facebook group based in Finland, “sipsikaljavegaanit” (crisp and beer vegans), and how a new wave of veganism is changing the common perceptions of vegans. At the end of the episode, Piia asked you two exciting and challenging questions. We look forward to reading your answers as a comment!
The episode on Spotify:
The episode on Youtube:
The podcast link on Itunes: https://apple.co/34ibAxG
You can find more about Piia Jallinoja’s work on her university page: https://research.tuni.fi/piiajallinoja/
If you want to follow Piia on Twitter: @PiiaJallinojaX
What diet are you following and why? What do you think is a healthy and sustainable diet? Write in the comments!
Have a delicious week!
My Dear Kitchen in Helsinki 
Lovely article! We follow a mostly plant based diet, very limited local, organic dairy (a bit of cheese now and then), with a meal of fish and shellfish a couple of days a week, and holidays with extended family some locally grown organic duck or turkey on Thanksgiving. It was more of an adjustment for my husband, but as long as he has his fish, he is pretty happy because we have really delicious plant-based meals the rest of the time.
Sounds good! To have mostly plant-based diet is a good way to go and your overall diet seems rich in flavours!