World Vegetarian Day is observed annually around the planet on October 1. It is a day of celebration established by the North American Vegetarian Society in 1977 and endorsed by the International Vegetarian Union in 1978, "To promote the joy, compassion and life-enhancing possibilities of vegetarianism." It brings awareness to the ethical, environmental, health, and humanitarian benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle. World Vegetarian Day initiates the month of October as Vegetarian Awareness Month, which ends with November 1, World Vegan Day, as the end of that month of celebration. Vegetarian Awareness Month has been known variously as "Reverence for Life" month, "Month of Vegetarian Food", and more.
Additional days
Several additional days of vegetarian significance are included in or on the edge of Vegetarian Awareness Month:
October 1–7 – International Vegetarian Week - in several nations across the planet, many public educational and celebratory events are organized to promote the vegetarian lifestyle.
First full week and additional 'straggler' days – World Week of Prayer for Animals
and World Animal Day. This may have been initiated by the now-defunct INRA, founded in 1985 by Virginia Bouraquardez, and later led by UCC minister, Rev. Marc Wessels.
November 1 – International Vegan Day, also known as World Vegan Day – a vegan holiday celebrated since 1994 on the anniversary of the creation of The Vegan Society
Month of November - Vegan Awareness Month or World Vegan Month.
World Meat Free Day is sponsored by a gathering of like-minded organisations - Eating Better Alliance, Compassion in World Farming, Friends of the Earth, and a few more - who want to spread the messaging regarding the impact meat consumption can have on sustainability and health.
The last Friday of September- International 'Hug a Vegetarian' Day
November 25 – International Vegetarian Day also known as SAK Meatless Day – the birthday of Sadhu T. L. Vaswani.
International Vegetarian Days
Meatless Monday – Every Week, go totally meatless on Monday – an international campaign that encourages people to cut out meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet. Reducing meat consumption by 15% lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness and has a strong positive impact on the environment. Meatless Monday offers weekly meat-free recipes, articles, tips and news. Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns Inc. in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The program follows the nutrition guidelines developed by the USDA.
Meatless Monday is part of the Healthy Monday initiative. Healthy Monday encourages Americans to make healthier decisions at the start of every week. Other Healthy Monday campaigns include: Do The Monday 2000, Quit and Stay Quit Monday, Move it Monday, Monday Mile and others.
Graphics
Various graphic and artistic representations are used; there is no one logo to represent World Vegetarian Day. Some of the other dates within Vegetarian Awareness Month have their own logos, or a series of logo representations, if they are sponsored in part or totally by identifiable organizations.
Chinese society vegetarian days
There is a common practice for some Chinese people to be vegetarian twice a lunar month. The first day and the 15th day of each lunar month. ﹑. The 15th day of each lunar month is the day/night with full moon. Local vegetarian restaurants are particularly busy on those 2 days. The origin of such practice is related to religious beliefs.
