Animal rights, environment, or health? Effects of argument type and dissonance on the attitudes toward the consumption of animals

Developing messages to encourage healthy, sustainable dietary substitutions: A qualitative study with US emerging adults

Prior research shows that adopting simple dietary substitutions (e.g., replacing beef with poultry or plant-based entrees) can improve dietary quality and reduce the negative environmental consequences of food production, but little is known about how to encourage people to adopt these substitutions. This study aimed to examine reactions to messages encouraging healthy, sustainable dietary substitutions among emerging adults ages 18-25. We conducted four online focus groups with a diverse sample of US emerging adults (n = 28; 61% female). Focus groups explored emerging adults' reactions to messages encouraging them to adopt three target dietary substitutions: replacing beef and pork with poultry and plant-based entrees; replacing juice with whole fruit; and replacing dairy milk with non-dairy milk. We transcribed discussions verbatim and adopted a thematic approach to analyzing the transcripts. Results showed that participants perceived messages to be most effective at encouraging the target dietary substitutions when the messages: encouraged specific, achievable dietary changes; linked these dietary changes to clear consequences; included personally relevant content; included statistics; were succinct; and used a positive tone. Across the target dietary substitutions, two message topics (small changes, big benefits, which emphasized how small dietary changes can have large positive health and environmental impacts, and warning, which discussed the negative health and environmental impacts of dietary choices) were generally perceived to be most effective. A few participants expressed doubt that the target dietary substitutions would have meaningful environmental impacts. Results suggest that campaign messages to encourage healthy, sustainable dietary substitutions may be more effective if the messages make the target dietary substitutions seem achievable and use statistics to clearly describe the positive impacts of making these changes.

The Ethics of Veganism

In this article, we discuss the ethics of veganism by looking at the moral implications of having a vegan diet or plant-based diet. Veganism is a way of diet that forbids or avoids consuming any animal products. It has drawn a lot of interest recently due to awareness or trends of vegan diet, human health, and ethical behavior benefits. The aim of the research is to look into the moral values that talk about veganism, such as animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and human welfare. In this study, we conduct a thorough assessment of ethical theories and actual evidence in an effort to know about the ethical reasons for veganism and its larger societal impacts. Through an analysis of existing literature and clinical studies, we discuss the various challenges, advantages, lifestyle modification, and nutritional concerns related to a vegan diet.

Impact of Health, Environmental, and Animal Welfare Messages Discouraging Red Meat Consumption: An Online Randomized Experiment

BACKGROUND

Reducing red meat consumption is a key strategy for curbing diet-related chronic diseases and mitigating environmental harms from livestock farming. Messaging interventions aiming to reduce red meat consumption have focused on communicating the animal welfare, health, or environmental harms of red meat. Despite the popularity of these 3 approaches, it remains unknown which is most effective, as limited studies have compared them side by side.

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to evaluate responses to red-meat-reduction messages describing animal welfare, health, or environmental harms.

DESIGN

This was an online randomized experiment.

PARTICIPANTS

In August 2021, a convenience sample of US adults was recruited via an online panel to complete a survey (n = 2,773 nonvegetarians and vegans were included in primary analyses).

INTERVENTION

Participants were randomly assigned to view 1 of the 4 following messages: control (neutral, non-red meat message), animal welfare, health, or environmental red-meat-reduction messages.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

After viewing their assigned message, participants ordered hypothetical meals from 2 restaurants (1 full service and 1 quick service) and rated message reactions, perceptions, and intentions.

STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED

Logistic and linear regressions were performed.

RESULTS

Compared with the control message, exposure to the health and environmental red-meat-reduction messages reduced red meat selection from the full-service restaurant by 6.0 and 8.8 percentage points, respectively (P = .02 and P < .001, respectively), while the animal welfare message did not (reduction of 3.3 percentage points, P = .20). None of the red-meat-reduction messages affected red meat selection from the quick-service restaurant. All 3 red-meat-reduction messages elicited beneficial effects on key predictors of behavior change, including emotions and thinking about harms.

CONCLUSIONS

Red-meat-reduction messages, especially those describing health or environmental harms, hold promise for reducing red meat selection in some types of restaurants. Additional interventions may be needed to discourage red meat selection across a wider variety of restaurants, for example, by making salient which menu items contain red meat.

Consumers' Attitudes towards Animal Suffering: A Systematic Review on Awareness, Willingness and Dietary Change

Planetary and human health depend on Westerners' ability to reduce meat consumption. Meat production degrades the environment while excessive meat intake is associated with cancer and cardiovascular disease, among others. Effective reasons and motivations are needed for consumers to change their diet. The fact that modern animal agriculture inflicts a great deal of pain on animals from their birth to their slaughter, animal welfare/suffering may drive consumers to curtail their meat consumption. This systematic review examined a total of 90 papers to ascertain consumers' awareness of the pain animals experience in animal agriculture, as well as consumer attitudes towards meat reduction due to animal welfare. Results show that consumers have low awareness of animal agriculture. Awareness of animal agricultural practices and animal sentience is associated with increased negative attitudes towards animal suffering. Animal suffering due to farming practices, transportation, slaughter, and animal sentience are factors that may encourage a reduction in meat consumption, and even dietary change in the short term. There is also evidence that animal suffering may be a more compelling motivation for consumers' willingness to change their diet than for health or environmental reasons. Therefore, increasing consumers' awareness of animal suffering in meat production is paramount to contributing to reduced pressure on the environment and improved human health.

Ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy: An identity-based motivational account

Animal-based diets in Western countries are increasingly regarded as unsustainable because of their impact on human health, environmental and animal welfare. Promoting shifts toward more plant-based diets seems an effective way to avoid these harms in practice. Nevertheless, claims against the consumption of animal products contradict the ideology of the omnivorous majority known as carnism. Carnism supports animal-product consumption as a cherished social habit that is harmless and unavoidable and invalidates minorities with plant-based diets: vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns). In this theoretical review, we integrate socio-psychological and empirical literature to provide an identity-based motivational account of ideological resistance to veg*n advocacy. Advocates who argue against the consumption of animal products often make claims that it is harmful, and avoidable by making dietary changes toward veg*n diets. In response, omnivores are likely to experience a simultaneous threat to their moral identity and their identity as consumer of animal products, which may arouse motivations to rationalize animal-product consumption and to obscure harms. If omnivores engage in such motivated reasoning and motivated ignorance, this may also inform negative stereotyping and stigmatization of veg*n advocates. These "pro-carnist" and "counter-veg*n" defenses can be linked with various personal and social motivations to eat animal products (e.g., meat attachment, gender, speciesism) and reinforce commitment to and ambivalence about eating animal products. This does not mean, however, that veg*n advocates cannot exert any influence. An apparent resistance may mask indirect and private acceptance of advocates' claims, priming commitment to change behavior toward veg*n diets often at a later point in time. Based on our theoretical account, we provide directions for future research.