The Vegan Festival 2022, which brought up the theme of "Wonderland Indonesia," is an international-scale event that aims to promote the vegan lifestyle or abstaining from eating meat, fish, dairy products, or eggs.
"Congratulations on the record achieved. This is the largest vegan festival in the world. We can beat big countries, like America and Australia, (by demonstrating) that Indonesia is holding the biggest Vegan Festival in terms of area and number of tenants and MSMEs. This shows our nation has lead, especially in the vegan culinary segment," he remarked while attending the 2022 Vegan Festival, as quoted from an official statement received here on Monday.
The event, which took place on December 8-11, 2022, became an initiative to reduce the greenhouse effect and global climate change.
The holding of the festival aligns with the ministry's program on sustainable tourism, as a vegan diet has a major impact on personal health and the environment.
The food is processed in a clean and organic manner, thereby reducing over-exploitation of animal products that compromise the balance of ecosystem.
"The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry always supports the development of the culinary industry. As a sub-sector of the creative economy, the culinary (sector) contributes 41 percent of the total GDP (gross domestic product) of the creative economy in 2020," he explained.
As one of the largest sub-sectors contributing to the creative economy GDP, vegan micro, small and medium enterprises must seize the opportunity to process and develop businesses that serve healthy food and support environmental sustainability.
Currently, the healthy food trend is being adopted all over the world, including in Indonesia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly when weather conditions are difficult to guess, thereby necessitating people to pay attention to the nutritional content and their diet pattern.
"According to research, titled 'Vegetarian, Vegan Diets and Multiple Health Outcomes,' it is shown that a vegan diet can reduce a person's risk of developing cancer by up to 15 percent, heart disease, stroke, and obesity," Minister Uno remarked
On the same occasion, Deputy Head of Belitung District and Advisor to Earth Festival Indonesia 2022 Isyak Meirobie remarked that the Vegan Festival 2022 is a form of commitment to positioning Indonesian culinary at the international scale.
"This Vegan Festival is a form of the Tourism and Creative Economy's commitment with volunteers and the Vegan Society of Indonesia, which from year to year (promotes) the very extensive local wisdom and Indonesian culture, so that it can place Indonesian cuisine in a higher position at the international level," he concluded.
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Translator: M Baqir I A, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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