THIS ARTICLE IS Republished from Conversation under one Creative Commons License.
Humans have long wrestled with their consciences about killing and eating animals. the “meat paradox” (conflict between people's preference for meat and their concern for animals) may exist inspired cave paintings from 37,000 years ago. Since then, many leading thinker avoided eating meat, including Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Shelley and Mahatma Gandhi.
Today, half of all adults in the US And Three-quarters of adults in the UK protest against factory farming almost all Their meat, but only about one in 10 Follow a meat-free diet.
Plant-based diets are increasingly delicious and cheap in many countries. Adopting them will save more lives 80 billion animals a year and will cause 75 percent less environmental damage than a diet rich in meat.
Benefits of being plant-based health And longevity increasingly well established and has promoted an excellence cardiologist to comment, “There are two types of cardiologists: vegetarians and those who haven't read the data.”
Despite the proven benefits of a vegan diet, most people continue to eat meat, using strategies such as “defensive logic” or moral indulgence and evasion to reduce psychological insecurity.
Every January since 2014, vegetarian The campaign—which encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January—attempted to break down these psychological barriers with images of cute piglets, fluffy chicks, and invitations to participate. join the challenge. Last year, approx 25 million peopleIncludes approx 4% of the UK populationparticipated.
Veganuary's research found that more than 80% of participants maintained a major reduction in meat consumption, reducing their intake by half or even more, after six months.
At the University of Exeter, we independently conducted three online studies of people participating in Vegetarianism (a fourth study is underway) and found that when people reduce or avoid eating meat, they also began to view meat and themselves differently.
Disgusting meat
On average, people reported liking meat less, with some even enjoying eating it. disgusting. This complements us previous research found that 74% of vegetarians and 15% of flexitarians found meat disgusting.
Another study of ours (under review) shows that this “meat disgust” has profound effects. People who reported it (mostly vegetarians) responded to the idea of eating meat in a similar way to how meat eaters responded to the idea of eating meat. eat feces, human flesh or dog meat.
IMAGE
Note: Disgust with meat is profound.
Source: Filip Obr/Alamy Stock Photo
If such negative feelings arise when people avoid eating meat during fasting, then giving up meat in the long run may not be the sacrifice many people expect. We are currently collecting 12 months of data from 100 people who took part in last year's Veganuary study and will see whether negative feelings towards meat predict long-term changes in meat consumption.