Monday, September 6th marked the official beginning of the 21-day Vegan Kickstart campaign sponsored by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), in an effort to promote vegan diets and healthier lifestyles.

Day by day, evidence of the growing economic power of vegetarian food-seeking consumers continues to mount, telling us that “veg” is here to stay. What’s the evidence of this growing economic force, you ask? A quick scan of recent headlines gives the lowdown on the growth of “vegenomics.”

No matter where you stand on meat analogues, it’s been hard to miss the latest news that scientists at the University of Missouri have come up with a soy-based product that very closely imitates chicken flesh. This latest food breakthrough is featured in the upcoming issue of Time Magazine, which touts that this is the “first soy product that not only can be flavored to taste like chicken but also breaks apart in your mouth the way chicken does: not too soft, not too hard, but with that ineffable chew of real flesh.”

A newly published survey of nearly 6,000 vegetarians from the United Kingdom estimates that vegetarians make up about 6% of the adult U.K. population. Moreover, “lapsed vegetarians” (those who tried the diet and moved away) make up about one-tenth of the U.K. population.

The modern history of Meatless Monday as a public health campaign has taken the meat-reducing agenda to new heights. Now an international health movement to encourage consumers to go one meat-free day per week for better health and a better environment, Meatless Monday is making in-roads onto dining tables everywhere… in schools, restaurants, and in homes.