Spheres of moral concern, moral engagement, and food choice in the USA and Germany

Social impediments to meat-eaters' adherence to critical calls for a meat-free diet: An experimental test of social norm and message source effects

Reducing meat consumption is highly effective for reducing personal carbon emissions, yet most people in Western nations still eat meat. We build on recent research highlighting that group boundaries may impede dietary change by (a) promoting pro-meat norms and (b) prohibiting critical calls for a veg* diet (vegetarian and vegan, i.e., meat-free). Past research relied on self-reports and behavioural measures of engagement, leaving open whether these effects extend to food consumption settings and ad-hoc meal choice. We conducted two pre-registered experiments in which meat-eaters read critical calls to adopt a veg* diet, either by a vegan (outgroup) or a meat-eater (ingroup). In Experiment 2, participants moreover read an article either highlighting a veg* or a meat-eating norm. We then assessed actual (Experiment 1) or hypothetical (Experiment 2) meal choice as dependent variables. As predicted, intergroup criticism (i.e., voiced by veg*s) consistently led to message rejection in comparison to the same criticism voiced by meat eaters, but we did not observe effects on meal choice. Norms neither had a main nor interaction effect on self-reports and behaviour. We discuss potential intermediary processes between engagement with and adoption of a vegan diet and derive evidence-based recommendations for constructive communication across group boundaries.

Consumer attitudes and behaviors toward more sustainable diets: a scoping review

There is an urgent need to move toward more sustainable diets. Although this will require radical and systemic changes across food systems, altering consumer ideologies and practices is essential to garner support for such actions. In this scoping review, the evidence on consumers' attitudes and behaviors toward more sustainable diets is synthesized and a range of factors, considerations, and proposed strategies are presented that can contribute to building the societal-level support for urgent and systems-level changes. The findings suggest that consumers, insofar as they are interested in sustainability and have the capacity to engage with the concept, primarily approach the concept of sustainable diet from a human health perspective. However, the interconnectedness of human health and well-being with environmental health is poorly understood and under-researched in the context of consumer behaviors and attitudes toward sustainable diets. This highlights the need for (1) sustained efforts from public health professionals to encourage a realignment of the term sustainable diet with its multidimensional meaning by championing an ecological public health approach in all efforts aimed at promoting more sustainable consumption, from awareness raising to policy development; (2) a broader research lens focused on the multidimensional concept of sustainability in the literature exploring consumer attitudes and behaviors; and (3) the development of multidisciplinary, clear, and evidence-based sustainable-eating messages, including holistic sustainable dietary guidance, to address knowledge gaps, minimize conflicting narratives, and build consumer agency. The findings contribute to understanding how support can be generated for the necessary structural and system-level changes required to support behavior change.

Sustainable Agri-Food Systems: Environment, Economy, Society, and Policy

Agri-food systems (AFS) have been central in the debate on sustainable development. Despite this growing interest in AFS, comprehensive analyses of the scholarly literature are hard to find. Therefore, the present systematic review delineated the contours of this growing research strand and analyzed how it relates to sustainability. A search performed on the Web of Science in January 2020 yielded 1389 documents, and 1289 were selected and underwent bibliometric and topical analyses. The topical analysis was informed by the SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems) approach of FAO and structured along four dimensions viz. environment, economy, society and culture, and policy and governance. The review shows an increasing interest in AFS with an exponential increase in publications number. However, the study field is north-biased and dominated by researchers and organizations from developed countries. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while environmental aspects are sufficiently addressed, social, economic, and political ones are generally overlooked. The paper ends by providing directions for future research and listing some topics to be integrated into a comprehensive, multidisciplinary agenda addressing the multifaceted (un)sustainability of AFS. It makes the case for adopting a holistic, 4-P (planet, people, profit, policy) approach in agri-food system studies.

Investigating the Role of Psychological, Social, Religious and Ethical Determinants on Consumers' Purchase Intention and Consumption of Convenience Food

Despite impressive market growth, increasing demand and economic importance of convenience food in emerging economies such as India, comprehensive research regarding the role of psychological and social determinants on convenience food choice is lacking. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the influence of convenience orientation, social status, moral attitude, mood, spiritual concern, religious beliefs and ethical values on purchase intention and consumption of convenience food. The non-probability purposive sampling method was adopted for recruitment of participants. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from 501 consumers. The descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were carried out to analyse the data. The factor loading, Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, average variance extracted, and correlations demonstrated good internal consistency and reliability of scale items as well as convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs. The model fit indices revealed that measurement and structural models fitted well with data. The path analysis of the structural model demonstrated that convenience orientation (β = 0.789 ***, t = 32.462), moral attitude (β = 0.594 ***, t = 20.984), mood (β = 0.586 ***, t = 18.683), spiritual concern (β = 0.145 ***, t = 3.23), religious beliefs (β = 0.451 ***, t = 14.787) and ethical values (β = 0.497 ***, t = 16.678) were positively related with purchase intention and consumption of convenience food (*** Significant at p ≤ 0.01). The path analysis of structural model also indicated that social status was not linked with purchase intention and consumption of convenience food. The convenience orientation was the key determinant influencing purchase intention and consumption of convenience food.