OkCupid Teams with Veggie Brand Sweet Earth for Valentine’s Day

OkCupid has partnered with vegetarian food brand Sweet Earth to help vegetarians and vegans find love ahead of Valentine’s Day.

The companies will host a virtual event along with Outer Banks actor Chase Stokes, a “flexitarian” who is dating co-star and actress Madelyn Cline, who is vegan, about how to navigate dating when you and your match follow different diets. The Veggie Lovers Virtual Dating Event will take place online on Wednesday February 10th.

OkCupid’s Dating Expert Damona Hoffman will lead the Q&A session along with Stokes to discuss the challenges daters feel when it comes to navigating dietary preferences. Participants can also enter for a chance to win a spot in a private and exclusive speed dating event, according to Veg Times.

The partnership came about after Sweet Earth surveyed 1,000 Gen Z and Millennial singles based in the U.S. and found that diet preferences were a major factor in determining whether or not to date someone. Twenty-five percent ranked diet above sexual chemistry and physical appearance when it came to finding a partner, and over fifty percent said that diet was more important than sharing the same political views.  

The study also found that 66 percent of vegans said that a match who ate meat would “impact their perception of that person’s eligibility as a potential match” according to Veg Times, and about half of vegetarians said the same. Many expressed anxiety about sharing their diet preferences with potential matches, with nineteen percent of vegans and twenty percent of vegetarians admitting they changed their eating habits to avoid telling their partners. 

Meat-eaters felt similarly, with 66 percent saying that a vegan or vegetarian would more negatively impact their perception of a potential match than credit card debt, a history of divorce, or a gluten-free diet. Forty-two percent of meat eaters said they would still expect a vegan or vegetarian partner to cook meat for them.

“Finding someone to date can be tough enough without having the dreaded ‘what to eat for dinner’ question get in the way of a potential match,” Stokes said. “When Maddie and I started dating, I didn’t have any ambitions to adopt a plant-based diet, but I really started liking the food when I tried Sweet Earth products and realized there’s a ton of variety available if you want to eat less meat.” 

This is changing on dating app OkCupid, according to Communications and Public Relations Manager Michael Kaye. “Over the years, singles have become more open to dating someone with different food preferences,” Kaye told Veg News. “Last year, 73 percent of OkCupid respondents said they wouldn’t care what their partner eats, up from 63 percent two years prior.”