Much like Brillat-Savarin, many of us believe we can divine information about another person from their tastes in food, entertainment, or whatever else. In the real world, this doesn't really hold water; any person can enjoy anything for any reason (including none), and it doesn't necessarily say anything meaningful about them.
In fiction, however, Brillat-Savarin's quote describes a truth deeply relevant to storytelling: food preferences and eating habits can and often do tell the reader quite a bit about a character. This is a small but effective means of characterization, though it can just as easily be used to mislead or trick the reader as the story demands.
Consider how vegetarianism is portrayed in fiction. It's not uncommon for characters who are being portrayed as particularly kind, gentle, pure, sensitive, innocent, enlightened, or morally upright to abstain from eating meat. The character's goodness isn't determined by their choice of diet — that's covered by a couple of different tropes. Rather, their abstinence from eating meat is merely indicative of their goodness. Whenever this happens, the Virtuous Vegetarianism trope is in play.
It's worth noting that the intent behind this trope is usually more symbolic than persuasive, and most works that use it aren't necessarily pro-vegetarian. The underlying idea is that regardless of where you stand on the morality of eating meat, it's undeniable that the acts of obtaining and eating meat are inherently violent: meat does not exist if a sentient being isn't first killed or grievously harmed in some way (ironically, eating meat that died from natural causes tends to be portrayed in a highly negative light). Virtuous Vegetarianism turns this truism into an element of characterization, such as a character's inner kindness leading them to resist eating food that necessarily involves the harm of another sentient creature.
However, even when played straight, not all uses of Virtuous Vegetarianism are unambiguously positive ones, especially in more cynical works. It's often lampooned with characters like the Granola Girl and the New-Age Retro Hippie, and the entire concept is just as easily subverted, parodied, or satirized as it is played straight.
Nevertheless, Virtuous Vegetarianism remains a fairly common trope, though many examples are fairly subtle and may not receive much focus in the narrative. There's good reason to avoid overplaying it: overt or clumsy usage of this trope can easily come off as overly sentimental and melodramatic, or reach Author Filibuster levels of preachiness.
Subtrope of Food as Characterization. When this trope applies to an entire culture, it's a Veganopia. For characters that subvert this trope's underlying idea, see Evil Vegetarian and Straw Vegetarian. See also Meat Versus Veggies, Herbivores Are Friendly, and Carnivores Are Mean for some loosely related concepts.
NOTE: This is a Characterization Trope, so all examples must indicate how a character's vegetarianism indicates or reinforces their goodness or other such traits. Without this information, examples will be considered Zero-Context Examples and should not be added, or removed if they have been already.
Examples:
- Enforced in Cells at Work: Bacteria!: The Bifidum bacteria, the only gut bacteria who are dedicated to protecting their host, are vegetarians who thrive when their host eats fruit and veggies. Conversely, the "bad" C. perfingens bacteria thrive when the host eats too much meat, though they're more generally antagonistic than genuinely evil. While these portrayals oversimplify things a bit from real-world fact, these designations were likely created in order to reinforce one of the key lessons of the series, which is that diets high in fiber, fruits, and vegetables help promote good digestive health.
- Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man had Buddy Baker quit eating meat and become more defensive of animal rights. Notably, the Animal Man story written by Jamie Delano for the Vertigo Jam one-shot had him flip off a turkey after the turkey expressed the sentiment that Humans Are Bastards and that Buddy's vegetarianism didn't do enough to make up for that.
- Zigzagged in Runaways. Karolina alludes to this trope when she points out that her parents can't be evil because they're vegetarian...but they really are both vegetarian and evil. However, Karolina is a straight example as she's also vegetarian, and she's very much The Heart of the team.
- Implicit in Superman: Birthright. Clark is vegetarian because he can see an animal's "life force", and his compassion for other living creatures — human or not — underlines the fact that he's the greatest superhero in the world.
- Discussed in Watchmen. Dan discusses Ozymandias, marveling at how such a great man could do something so evil. He even remarks that he's a vegetarian. Rorshach then points out that Hitler was as well.
- Wonder Woman is occasionally written as vegetarian. She is The Heart of the "Big Three" and is one of the most heroic and nice (though not necessarily gentle) superheroes in the DC universe. Superman is also stated to be a vegetarian in some continuities.
- The cat Tiger from Don Bluth's An American Tail frees the mouse Fievel Mousekewicz from his cage, explaining that he's a vegetarian that never eats mice. Tiger is the only feline character in this work to avert the Cats Are Mean trope, actually becoming Fievel's best friend and confidante.
- Quietly done in the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls series with Fluttershy; unlike some of her friends, she's consistently shown eating only vegetarian dishes, reinforcing her status as an Animal Lover, her key heroic trait that eventually becomes an outright superpower when she gains the ability to speak fluent animal.
- Babs is the protagonist of Oink (2022) and her introductory scene has her calling out a meat butcher who takes delight in turning animals into meat while her friend orders from him. She is given the titular pig that she grows fond of by her grandpa for her birthday and is horrified upon discovering he intends to slaughter the pig after searching for Oink after it disappears. She also helps her parents tend to a vegetable garden and they eventually use the vegetables they grew together to compete in the King Sausage contest by offering a plant-based alternative to the meat that's normally cooked up there.
- Shark Tale: Lenny's closet vegetarianism is an early indication that he's the White Sheep of his family, who are essentially an undersea version of The Mafia.
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Fred Rogers is a vegetarian, which contributes to his being considered nearly saintly by the film's protagonist. This is something of an Enforced Trope, as the real-life Mr. Rogers was a vegetarian as well.
- Subverted in S.W.A.T. (2003). Hondo, who has some Cowboy Cop tendencies, rejects a SWAT applicant with a perfect record partly because he doesn't seem to comprehend that he may have to compromise that perfect record to be a SWAT officer and partly because the guy orders a soy dog.
Hondo: [to Street] How can I trust a man won't eat a good old-fashioned American hot dog?
- In The BFG, BFG's diet consists primarily of snozzcumbers, a cucumber-like vegetable, and he is the only good giant in the setting. All the other giants are evil, and eat children.
- Judge Dee: Zigzagged. The Taoist monks in The Haunted Monastery are enlightened vegetarians. However, the particularly depraved villain is also a vegetarian — he's even noted as enjoying the food.
- Geoffrey in The Shepherd's Crown is one of the most saintly characters on the Discworld, and a big part of getting that across is his utter rejection of any animal cruelty. And unlike, say, Magrat, whose vegetarianism is mostly used to present her as a Soapbox Sadie, Geoffrey doesn't lecture anyone else about their diet (although he comes down heavily on Beastly Blood Sports), he just never eats meat himself.
- Invoked in The Good Place: Being a vegan gives you points to enter The Good Place. Not bragging about it gives you even more points.
- NCIS: Discussed. One episode had a vegan janitor as a suspect, and Abby invoked this trope to argue he had to be innocent.
- Star Trek: Spock does not eat meat, as Vulcans gave up the practice when they as a species renounced violence.
- Get Fuzzy: Despite eating meat products towards the beginning of the comic's run, Rob is a vegetarian on moral grounds. He has explained on more than one occasion that he doesn't eat meat because he finds the way animals are treated and butchered into food products to be too cruel. However, Rob's "virtue" mostly just serves to contrast with that of his cat Bucky, who wants to increase his meat intake just to spite Rob.
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Vegetarianism is optional but relatively common in the Cult of Shallya, a religious order of pacifistic healers that's almost universally loved in the Old World. Some cultists go so far as to limit themselves to fruit and vegetables that can be harvested without harm to the plant.
- Exaggerated to the Logical Extreme by PETA's parody of Cooking Mama called Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals. It portrays Mama as a knife-wielding psycho with Creepy Shadowed Undereyes who has you prepare a turkey in such a way that makes the process look much more gruesome than it really is. Should you finish the game, you're treated to a bonus screen that says "Thanks to you, Mama now loves animals!", with a now-perfectly pleasant Mama wearing an apron that says "Go Veg" and "Powered by Tofu".
- In Sunless Sea, the denizens of the Mirrored City of Varchas are all vegetarians who avoid causing death as part of their religious dogma: Their worst punishment is permanent is exile from the city into the Neath (which they consider A Fate Worse Than Death). Varchas is one of the safer ports in the game to visit as a captain (and one of the most profitable if you have Scintillack to trade with their priests), with no randomized story events and no dialogue options that will kill or harm you (outside some minor Terror gain), at least unless you're dumb enough to fall asleep in front of a mirror despite everyone in the city telling you not to (and even then it will only give you a Nightmare). Even if the city breaks out into a Civil War because the Player Character becomes an Unwitting Instigator of Doom, things do not go further than property damage and protesting — if you side with the city's priests and rat out the rebels' inner circle the conflict ends in a day, bloodlessly.
- Celia from The Order of the Stick is a Lawful Good Actual Pacifist and vegetarian. As an Outsider, she has a different perspective on death than most of the cast (she inherently knows that her soul will merge with the Elemental Plane of Air instead of going to one of the more typical afterlives), and as a result has a greater-than-average respect for life, both her own and those of creatures around her.
- Arthur. This becomes a major plot in the episode, "Sue Ellen Vegges Out," in which Sue Ellen becomes a vegetarian because her new "best friend" is a pig at a pig farm, and the idea of pigs being slaughtered for consumption horrifies her.
- Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender is the show's definitive example of an All-Loving Hero, and a vegetarian; it is implied that this is in part due to his monastic upbringing. The Air Nomads are based on Tibetan monks, who are sworn not to harm living beings, and as such subsist on a vegetarian diet.
- Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls and is the most innocent of the three girls by a fair margin, and is written as a vegetarian in some episodes. However, this portrayal isn't always consistent, as other episodes have her eating meat.
- In The Simpsons, Lisa is both the most intelligent and most idealistic member of the cast and has converted to vegetarianism. Originally her conversion was to teach An Aesop about accepting the differences of others, but since learning her lesson it's remained a part of her character note .
- In Teen Titans, Beast Boy is vegetarian because he has personally transformed into many creatures normally considered "meat" animals, and thus has gained empathy for them to a degree that eating them would feel vaguely cannibalistic. He isn't preachy about his diet nor does he feel the need to impose it on others, being understanding when they reject his offers to share his tofu-based alternatives, and being best friends with the meat-loving Cyborg.
- The eponymous Wander of Wander over Yonder is the All-Loving Hero who was explicitly stated to be a vegetarian in "The Battle Royale", though the series had hinted at it all along (he's never shown eating meat even when given the opportunity). Such a lifestyle reinforces Wander's lack of malice and desire for everyone to be happy, as though his obsession with helping and being friendly to everyone (with exceedingly rare exceptions) weren't enough.
