Korean Temple Food as Plant-Based Food Culture: A Social Big Data Analysis of Changing Online Food Discourse Across the COVID-19 Transition

This study examines how Korean-language online discourse surrounding Korean temple food evolved across the COVID-19 transition, with particular attention to its changing meanings as a traditional plant-based food culture. A cleaned corpus of 24,353 online documents was analyzed across three three-year periods: pre-COVID-19 (1 January 2017–31 December 2019), COVID-19 (1 January 2020–31 December 2022), and post-endemic (1 June 2023–31 May 2026). Sixty core keywords were selected for each period and examined using frequency analysis, normalized weighted strength (NWS), degree and closeness centrality, semantic network analysis, CONCOR, and Jaccard similarity. Before COVID-19, discourse centered on vegetarianism, cooking, ingredients, dining, and traditional Buddhist food culture. During the pandemic, veganism, nature, health, and healing became more prominent, strengthening associations with plant-based and health-oriented eating. In the post-endemic period, this food identity remained visible while experiential, wellness-related, and media-driven meanings became more distinct. Jaccard similarity was 0.739 for the pre-COVID-19 versus COVID-19 comparison, 0.600 for COVID-19 versus post-endemic, and 0.519 for pre-COVID-19 versus post-endemic, indicating substantial continuity alongside greater compositional differentiation across more temporally distant comparisons and supporting an interpretation of gradual reconfiguration rather than abrupt change. Overall, Korean temple food has been recontextualized as a broader plant-based food culture in which its traditional Buddhist culinary foundations coexist with health, wellness, experiential consumption, and cultural meanings within contemporary online food discourse.