AHC: Vegetarian Superpower

As the tin says, I'd really like to see some scenarios where a superpower (any/all) can be made to be almost entirely (let's say at least 3/4) vegetarian. NOT vegan, but vegetarian.
 
India seems like the obvious answer. And estimated 30-40% of the population practices vegetarianism. You could probably boost that number, and there are certainly points in India's history where you could turn it into a superpower. It is in the nuclear club ...

But that seems like too much work.

Allow me to go for an easier but probably less likely idea. I'm not exactly an expert on Buddhism, but I believe some forms of it require monks to be vegetarians. I believe also that some practicing Buddhists embrace vegetarianism and consider it a logical extension of their beliefs. If there was a Buddhist sect that encouraged vegetarianism that became the most popular, or if all sects encouraged vegetarianism more, then it's possible a country like China, Japan, or Korea with a high number of self-identified Buddhist adherents might easily become a superpower with a high percentage of vegetarians in its population.

Of course, the same could be done with Christianity or Islam. Somehow, though I find Buddhism a more likely candidate.
 
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How about not make it a social issue, change the conditions to make meat impractical, no one would want to eat their loyal oxen...

But, how are you going to keep them from, say, catching fish?


Yup, that'd do it.

Another thought: If vegetarianism became part of the temperance movement in America. It got enough people on board to pass Prohibition, if it included vegetarianism, maybe linked violence to red meat or something - maybe enough people in the US would be vegetarians by the WWI. It's the first time America starts to really play on the world stage. Maybe Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" would help turn people away from meat altogether and help the movement along?
 
I think you are running up against brute biological facts here. People are evolved to like meat. Plus stock raising, hunting, and fishing requires less labor per calory and use land that agriculture can't.

Maybe you can get a nation that is *officially* vegetarian, just like Christians were *officially* chaste until marriage and faithful thereafter, but I'm going to say that without a prehistorical biological POD this isn't possible.

Other possibilities--a future space-based superpower, where for resource and efficiency reasons all proteins come from fish and fungus.
 
Successful Cathars would do the trick.

My understanding is that only the Pure Ones were vegetarian. So successful Catharis would make a majority of the population vegetarian just like successful Catholicism made a majority of the population into celibate priests. :rolleyes:
 
@ModusViv: Prohibition didn't really manage to make Americans stop Drinking...

Point taken. Brings up an interesting mental picture: Meat Speakeasies (Meateasies?).

Maybe some weird mutation of the turn of the century health movement becomes more widespread? Dr. Kellogg managed to get everybody eating breakfast cereal, after all. (Although the yogurt enema idea didn't really catch on - thank goodness).
 
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