Vegan and Keto Are This Year’s Top Thanksgiving Trends

Google has recently published its annual Thanksgiving search trends report, which is based off of search queries made on its hugely popular search engine and YouTube platform.While the report is a fun read, most of the insights surfaced by Google’s analysts would fall between pretty obvious (i.e. searches for “how to cook turkey” spike in November) and easily predictable (i.e. most popular Thanksgiving recipes are for turkey, stuffing and green bean casserole).

We thought there should be more to it and dug deeper into Google’s search data. We uncovered some very interesting trends that are well worth sharing:

Vegan Thanksgiving recipes have become hugely popular and this year they are going head to head with turkey recipes (!).

Keto is having its first Thanksgiving hit.

Pumpkin pie is America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert, followed by cheesecake and apple pie.

Green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy are Google’s most-searched Thanksgiving side dishes.

Vegan Thanksgiving is 2018’s Top Thanksgiving Dinner Trend

Google data shows that last year vegan Thanksgiving menus has more than doubled (!) in popularity compared to a year ago. This year, vegan Thanksgiving recipes show up again in Google’s top rising queries and more extraordinary, at the time of writing this article, there are as many people searching for vegan Thanksgiving recipes as there are people searching for turkey Thanksgiving recipes.

While this ratio may change in the next few days in favor of turkey recipes, it doesn’t take away the huge growth in popularity of vegan Thanksgiving dinners.

States with the Highest and Lowest Searches for Vegan Recipes

Vermont, New York, Kansas, Oregon and Washington are the top 5 states with the highest density of vegan recipe searches. At the bottom of the table, we find a few vegan wastelands where there were not enough vegan recipe searches to even color-code the state areas. These vegan desert states are West Virginia, Mississippi, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Vegan Turkey is a Thing

More proof on this is the rising popularity of vegan turkey as over 4,000 searches for vegan turkey were made in the past twelve months in the US alone. Wait what? It seems like there are lots of different vegetarian turkey substitutes such as soy, though the Guardian thinks that Watermelon ‘ham’, served by Ducks Eatery, is definitely this year’s Thanksgiving vegan alternative.

What about vegan versus vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes? Vegan is the clear winner. There are more than double the searches for vegan Thanksgiving recipes compared to vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes.

It’s something that would make PETA very proud as the animal rights organization has fought for many years to deter Americans from buying turkey and chose a vegan diet. This year, PETA has launched a go vegan Thanksgiving campaign placing a suggestive billboard on a busy motorway in Boston.

Keto has its first Thanksgiving hit

Keto diets have been around for a few years, but Google data suggest keto is having its first Thanksgiving hit. Searches for keto Thanksgiving dinner are projected by Google to grow 6x compared to last year.

Keto diets can be vegan friendly, though meat is the primary ingredient for many keto recipes. However, vegan enthusiasts should remain unruffled as vegan remains 10x more popular than keto, in spite of the huge rise in popularity of the latter.

Pumpkin Pie, Cheesecake, Apple Pie are America’s Favorite Thanksgiving Deserts – in Exactly This Order

We compared side-by-side Google searches made during the Thanksgiving week for four highly popular Thanksgiving desserts: pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie, sweet potato pie and cheesecake. Searches for all of these desserts show enormous spikes in activity prior to Thanksgiving which makes us confident on relying on Google for determining America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert.

Data showed that Pumpkin pie is undoubtedly America’s most popular Thanksgiving dessert. While Reader’s Digest made headlines last year claiming that Apple pie would be America’s most favorite Thanksgiving desert, Google data shows this is far from the truth. Apple pie is a distant third among Thanksgiving desserts preferences. It’s actually cheesecake who’s battling pumpkin pie for the top spot.

When compared side-by-side, Google Trends provides a popularity score for each dessert which shows search interest relative to each other.

Pumpkin pie has an average score of 98.2 for the past 5 years, compared to 81.8 for cheesecake, 62 for apple pie, 51.2 for pecan pie and 34.6 for sweet potato pie.

Pumpkin pie (98.2) Cheesecake (81.8) Apple pie (62) Pecan pie (51.2) Sweet potato pie (34.6)

What’s the Absolute Must-Have Thanksgiving Side Dish According to Google

Mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, gravy, cornbread, butternut squash…there are so many popular side-choices for your Thanksgiving dinner. But which are America’s top Thanksgiving side dish choices?

According to Google Trends, green bean casserole is America’s favorite side-dish with a score of 87.8. It is followed by mashed potatoes with a score of 76, gravy with a popularity score of 72.2, mac and cheese was closely behind with a score of 70 and cranberry sauce with 56.8.

Google Trends provides a popularity score for each of these items when compared side-by-side and shows the search interest relative to each other. A score of 87.8 for green bean casserole compared to 72.2 for mashed potatoes shows that there were 21.5% more Google searches for green bean casserole than for mashed potatoes.

Green bean casserole (87.8) Mashed potatoes (76) Gravy (72.2) Mac and cheese (70) Cranberry sauce (56.8)

Cornbread, butternut squash, corn casserole, Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes casserole didn’t make it into the top five.



Photo Credit: Ella Olsson