THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Humans have long wrestled with their conscience about killing and eating animals. The “meat paradox” (the conflict between people’s preference for meat and their concern for animals) may have inspired cave paintings from 37,000 years ago. Since then, many leading thinkers have eschewed meat, including Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Shelley, and Mahatma Gandhi.
Today, half of US adults and three-quarters of UK adults oppose the factory farming that produces almost all of their meat, yet only about one in 10 follow a meat-free diet.
Plant-based diets are increasingly tasty and cheap in many countries. Adopting them would spare the lives of over 80 billion animals a year and would cause 75 percent less environmental damage than meaty diets.
The benefits of going plant-based on health and longevity are increasingly well established and have prompted an eminent cardiologist to remark, “There are two kinds of cardiologists: vegans and those who haven’t read the data.”
Despite these proven advantages of a vegan diet, most people continue to eat meat, using strategies like “defensive reasoning” or moral disengagement and avoidance to reduce any psychological unease.
Every January since 2014, the Veganuary campaign—which encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January—has attempted to break down these psychological defenses with pictures of cute piglets, fluffy chicks, and an invitation to give the challenge a go. Last year, around 25 million people, including about 4 percent of the UK population, joined in.
Research by Veganuary suggests that over 80 percent of participants maintain large reductions in meat consumption, reducing their intake to half or even more, after six months.
At the University of Exeter, we have independently conducted three online studies of Veganuary participants (a fourth is underway) and found that when people reduce or avoid meat they also start to see meat and themselves differently.
Meat Disgust
On average, people report liking meat less, with some even finding it disgusting. This complements our earlier research showing that 74 percent of vegetarians and 15 percent of flexitarians find meat disgusting.
Another of our studies (under peer review) suggests that this “meat disgust” runs deep. Those who report it (mainly vegetarians) respond to the idea of eating meat in a similar way to how meat eaters react to the idea of eating feces, or human or dog flesh.
PICTURE
Caption: Meat disgust runs deep.
Credit: Filip Obr/Alamy Stock Photo
If such negative feelings emerge when people avoid meat during Veganuary, giving up meat in the long term may not be quite the sacrifice that many would expect. We are now collecting data 12 months on from 100 people who participated in our Veganuary study last year and will see whether negative feelings toward meat predict longer-term changes in meat consumption.