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50 free Vegetarianism trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Vegetarianism is far older than the word for it, and this quiz covers both. It starts with the definitions (what a lacto-vegetarian will not eat, why vegans are stricter, where pescetarians got their name), then goes back to the Jain prince who walked out of his own wedding, the Pythagorean way of life, the near-disappearance of meatless eating in Christian Europe and its Renaissance revival with Leonardo da Vinci. From there it follows the modern movement: Alcott House on Ham Common, the Vegetarian Society of 1847, Shelley's Vindication, Tolstoy, Shaw, Gandhi and the Adventists of Battle Creek. There are questions on India, the most vegetarian country on Earth, with its meat-free holy towns, its 75% vegetarian state and its green and brown dots, and on the food itself: tofu, tempeh, seitan, the VegeBurger, Quorn's fungus, Kellogg's Protose and Linda McCartney's sausages. World Vegetarian Day, Meatless Monday and vitamin B12 round it out. Easy questions suit anyone who has ordered the veggie option; the expert tier asks about vegetarian rennet and a Paraguayan colony. For veganism specifically, try our Vegan quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on vegetarianism, its history and the foods and organisations involved, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A lacto-vegetarian diet includes dairy but excludes what?
Eggs
An ovo-vegetarian eats eggs but no dairy; lacto-ovo vegetarians eat both, and all of them include honey.
Q 02Which is described as the strictest of the vegetarian diets, excluding all animal products?
Vegan
Some vegans also refuse leather shoes and silk clothes.
Q 03In which year was the world's first Vegetarian Society founded, in England?
1847
It was formed at Ramsgate in Kent, and its founding popularised the word 'vegetarian' itself.
Q 04Which actress and abolitionist first wrote the word 'vegetarian', in an 1838–39 journal?
Fanny Kemble
Before that, the practice was called a 'vegetable regimen' or 'vegetable diet'.
Q 05Alcott House, linked to the earliest uses of 'vegetarian', opened in 1838 on which London common?
Ham
From 1841 it was known as the Concordium, and its pupils ate no animal products at all.
Q 06Which Salford sect, founded in 1809 by Reverend William Cowherd, made a meat-free diet part of its creed?
Bible Christians
Cowherd had split from the Swedenborgians; his followers saw abstaining from meat as a form of temperance.
Q 07The Vegetarian Society split in 1888 into branches in London and which other city?
Manchester
The reunited body became the Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom.
Q 08A 2025 study of nitrogen isotopes in fossil teeth found which early human ancestor was almost entirely vegetarian?
Australopithecus
The research was published in the journal Science.
Q 09Which Indian religion made strict vegetarianism mandatory for ascetics and laity alike?
Jainism
Its foundational story tells of the prince Neminatha abandoning his own wedding on hearing the cries of animals to be slaughtered for the feast.
Q 10What is the Indian principle of nonviolence towards all living beings called?
Ahimsa
Mahavira and Pārśvanātha, the 24th and 23rd Jain tirthankaras, revived and advocated it between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE.
Q 11Which Indian pilgrimage town banned the sale of meat, fish and eggs in 1956?
Rishikesh
Several other Indian pilgrimage towns have since followed with bans of their own.
Q 12Which ancient Indian holy city bans the sale of meat, fish, eggs and alcohol?
Pushkar
It is one of the world's oldest cities and a major temple centre.
Q 13India has the world's highest share of vegetarians. Which country is said to have the second highest?
Mexico
Even so, vegetarians remain a minority in almost every country.
Q 14According to a 2018 Indian government survey, which state has the highest share of vegetarians, at nearly 75%?
Q 21Which Romantic poet published the essay A Vindication of Natural Diet in 1813?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
He had been influenced by John Frank Newton's Return to Nature of 1811.
Q 22Which Russian novelist was one of the most prominent advocates of vegetarianism in his country?
Leo Tolstoy
Vegetarian restaurants and societies in Russia became symbols of intellectual opposition under his influence.
Q 23Which Irish playwright is named alongside Henry Salt as a famous vegetarian activist?
George Bernard Shaw
Salt, a friend of Gandhi, founded the Humanitarian League.
Rajasthan
Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat followed; Kerala, Bihar and Jharkhand had among the lowest.
Q 15Indian packaged food carries a green mark if vegetarian and what colour if non-vegetarian?
Brown
The marks became mandatory in 2011 and even apply to toothpaste.
Q 16Which town in Israel was founded in 1958 on vegetarian principles?
Amirim
It had 865 residents in 2022, was still meat-free, and offers vegetarian guest houses.
Q 17The Farm, a meat-free community founded in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin, is in which US state?
Tennessee
Loma Linda in California, with its Seventh-day Adventist population, is another heavily vegetarian US town.
Q 18In antiquity, abstaining from meat was a hallmark of the way of life named after which Greek philosopher?
Pythagoras
Whether he really banned all meat is unclear; he may only have prohibited certain kinds.
Q 19What happened to vegetarianism in Europe after the Christianization of the Roman Empire?
It nearly disappeared
It re-emerged only in the Renaissance.
Q 20Which Renaissance polymath was among the first to back vegetarianism's revival in Europe?
Leonardo da Vinci
The French philosopher Pierre Gassendi followed a century later.
Q 24Whose example of nonviolence towards animals helped popularise vegetarianism in the West?
Mahatma Gandhi
His spiritual mentor Shrimad Rajchandra had urged him to reject animal sacrifice.
Q 25In which country did Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and her husband found a vegetarian colony in 1886?
Paraguay
Nueva Germania's vegetarian aspect did not last long.
Q 26The International Vegetarian Union was founded in 1908 in which German city?
Dresden
The Vegetarian Society's secretary Albert Broadbent had invited societies worldwide to meet there on 18 August.
Q 27Who represented Jainism at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago and defended vegetarianism?
Virchand Gandhi
He dismantled the assumption that a meatless diet led to physical weakness.
Q 28On what date is World Vegetarian Day observed?
1 October
It opens Vegetarian Awareness Month, which closes on 1 November with the equivalent day for vegans.
Q 29Which organisation established the 1977 annual celebration promoting 'the joy... of vegetarianism'?
North American Vegetarian Society
The International Vegetarian Union endorsed it the following year.
Q 30Who is credited with coining the 'VegeBurger' in London in 1982?
Gregory Sams
He and his brother had run a natural food restaurant in Paddington since the 1960s; a Southampton hypermarket sold 2,000 packets in three weeks.