Veggies by Force...

[Monica]

Actually it is higher than that at 2.8 to 10% depending on where you live in the USA... World wide it is much higher in some countries as haigh as 40%... But what is a Vegetarian... so many definitions make it challenging to correlate and quantify the data..

From one of the sources you cited:

In the United States, an 2003 Harris Poll conducted for a vegetarian
organisation, found that 4-10% of the American population calls itself
"vegetarian". However, only 2.8% of the population never eats meat,
poultry, or fish/seafood.

The consensually accepted definition is one who never eats any meat, and this includes poultry and seafood. By this accepted definition, the reported number is 2.8% in the US.

This is a huge increase in the last 3 decades, when it was less than 1%. (I guess we're making a dent, heh. )

I don't think anyplace in the world has a 40% vegetarian rate. That sounds much too high. Even India, which has the highest % of vegetarians, is only 30% veg. at most, according to your sources:

The most concentrated population of vegetarians (and vegans) is in
India, where many avoid meat of religious reasons. However, because of
the nature of statistical information about India, it is not clear how
many really avoid meat, and how many do that out of principle
(religious or ideological) reasons, as opposed to those who cannot
afford meat. Because of the religious nature of vegetarianism, it is
also possible that people ?beautify? their answers at polls, and
occasional meat-eaters claim to be vegetarians. Most Indian
vegetarians are lacto-vegetarians (who drink milk but avoid eggs), and
this counts, according to U.S. Dept. of Agriculture data, to 20-30% of
the population. Large parts of the remaining 70% are only occasional
meat-eaters, and don?t eat animal products regularly (See: Wikipedia,
Vegetarianism, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism>).

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I don't know about Texas!

Texas can be a difficult place to live for vegetarians, especially in some areas. Austin is an oasis for vegetarians, and the other large cities have growing vegetarian communities. But it's very beef-oriented for the most part.