Correspondent
NewsBits.in
BHOPAL: It may come as a surprise to many but Madhya Pradesh is evenly divided among non-vegetarians and vegetarians.
Though the general feeling is that MP is a 'vegetarian' state, nearly 50% people eat non-vegetarian food.
The figures suggest that 49.4% are non-vegetarian while 50.6% are vegetarians in the central Indian state.
But when it comes to gender-wise division, majority of men are non-vegetarian. The figures suggest that 51.1% men eat non-vegetarian food in Madhya Pradesh. 47.7% women are non-vegetarians.
The State is mainly populated by people belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Castes. Most of them are non-vegetarians.
The minority communities like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs are also predominantly non-vegetarian. But vegetarianism is more prevalent in urban areas of the State and among Upper Castes, say experts.
Also, figures of non-vegetarians are under-reported as many don't admit to consume non-vegetarian food and avoid telling family members about their eating habits, because they consume the food outside homes.
The Registrar General of India (GRI) has released the figures of food habits from the sample registration system (SRS) baseline survey recently.
It suggests that MP is far ahead of Rajasthan, the most 'vegetarian state' in India, which has just 25% non-vegetarians. Even Gujarat has 40% non-vegetarians, the figures show.
