• Plant based eating

• Dr Helen Coulthard
• Learning objectives
• Outline changes in the incidence of people following plant-based diets

• Review some of the psychological factors associated with eating more plants and reducing meat

• Look at vegan-based advertising, identify and discuss some of the strategies used

• Interactive session- plan a media campaign for promoting plant based diets
• What different categories of diets exist that avoid the consumption of animal products
• Vegan
• Vegetarian
• Pescatarian
• Flexitarian
• Omnivore

• What is plant based eating?

• Trends and changes in vegan and plant based diets

• Global rates of animal slaughter 1961-2016

• Meat eating is a central part of cultures and celebration traditions

The cultural importance of meat eating

• Rationalisation of meat eating (Joy, 2010)
• Meat is Nice, natural, normal and necessary
• Nice: sensory pleasure
• Natural: humans are at the top of the food chain
• Normal: a normative part of society
• Necessary: essential for health

The EAT Lancet Report (Willett et al., 2019)

• We are consuming meat and dairy at a level that is unsustainable for the population of the planet
• There is a growing population (10 billion by 2050) that needs access to healthy sustainable food (820
million are food insecure, and many eat low-quality diets)
Recommend….
a greater than 50% reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar
a greater than 100% increase in consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and
legumes.
Model that this will lead 0·8–11·6 million fewer deaths
• Evidence of health benefits

• Diets rich in high quality plant foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts linked to
better heart health (Satjia and Hu, 2018)
• Really important to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy plant based diets (Hemler,  and Hu,
2019)
• Implicated in reduction of obesity, diabetes via reduced inflammation
• One issue is that we have only recently adopted ultra-processed meat-based diets, so we do not yet
know the long term effects of consumption (Moldinkska , 2018)

The Meat Paradox (Bastian & Loughnan, 2016 )

• The psychological conflict between peoples dietary preference for meat and their moral preference
to animal suffering
• Often feel discomfort when the meat on their plate is linked to the death of an animal
• Cognitive dissonance- an uncomfortable feeling when your actions do not match your behaviour
(how can I be a good person by avoiding harm to others and also eat meat)
• Society is organised to resolve and lessen dissonance (so removing the association between the
animal and the food)
• Habits, social influence and social norms all support meat consumption
• Critics of the meat paradox state that humane treatment and killing of animals for food means there
is no paradox (eg Ursin, 2016)

• The Meat Paradox

• Higher animal empathy leads to lower meat consumption
• Human and animal empathy are different
• But this is mediated by moral disengagement

• So the ability to morally disengage during meals enables people to overcome the meat paradox
• This effect is more pronounced in men and those with conservative beliefs

• Factors that influence animal empathy

(Kunst & Hohle, 2016)
• People less likely to feel empathy towards animals if
• Presented with ultra processed meat
• Pig with the head removed vs not
• Referring to meat production as harvesting vs slaughtering

• People felt more empathy towards animals if

• The word beef/pork was replaced with cow / pig
• An image of a living animal in an advertisement
• Speciesism
• Speciesism relates to moral favouritism to your own species
• The Principal of Equal Consideration (Singer, 1975)

Can they suffer? Can they enjoy life? If so, they have interests that we should take into account, and we
should give those interests equal weight with the interests of all other beings with similar interests. 
• Critiques: that we are not similar enough to warrant equality
• That we have a preference for species that we are in contact with, like ingroup preferences (Species
relativism, Hopster, 2019)
• Reasons behind shifts to vegan diets (Mussig et al., 2022)
• Assessed eating motivations in omnivores (n=406) and vegans (n=942)
• In omnivores, habits, traditional eating, sociability and social norms were more important than in
plant based
• In vegans Health, natural concerns, animal and environmental protection were more important
than for omnivores

• Both groups were highly motivated by liking, hunger and needs

• Stages of transitioning to meat free diets (McDonald, 2000)
1. Catalytic experience normally about animal cruelty
2. Becoming oriented- learning more, making a decision
3. Decision- the final change is a change in worldview
• However more recent researchers have seen transitioning as a dynamic process, and that some
people will transition to and from vegan diets
• Social support is important to maintaining meat-free diets
• Often vegans will have a partner who is also vegan (vegan sexuality)
• Social norms, dynamic norms and vegan and meat consumption
• Perceived social norms refer to beliefs that people hold about what other people do (descriptive
norms) and approve of (injunctive norms), and are associated with food intake. 
• National perceived meat eating norms, associated with higher meat eating (Nguyen & Platow, 2021)
• Meat and plant based eating is associated with social norms of others, particularly partners and
friends (Sharps et al., 2021)
• The use of dynamic norms, which represents a change in norm(eg People are eating more and more
vegan meals) has not worked in a supermarket study (Coker et al., 2022)
• Can veganism be a way to feel good? (Simons et al, 2021)
Veganism cannot just be identified as an absence of meat eating and difficulties going against cultural
norms
• Lack of disgust
• Liberation from being involved in the meat system
• Empowerment and enrichment
• Gaining attention and autonomy
• Creating vegan identity
• Attitudes towards veganism and vegetarianism
If I became vegan, my family and friends would hate me (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019. Carried out a
series of focus groups
• Non vegans anticipate stigma when considering adopting a vegan diet
• Eating and sharing food, esp. meat, is a core component of western culture (Wilk, 2010)
• Vegans are viewed as oversensitive, physically weak (Potts & Parry, 2010) and rejecting their own
culture (Boyle, 2011), and rude/opinionated and self-righteous
• Vegan Stigma Every time I've ever met a vegan, they've like tried to convince me to become a vegan.
They talk about how great it is, and if you meet somebody that is a vegan, the first thing they tell
you, they're like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ m a vegan.’ It's the first thing they say about themselves

• Social distancing:.  I avoid vegans, and when I hear about stuff being vegan, I walk away
• The vegan paradox (De Groeve & Rosenfield, 2022)
• Vegan advertising
• I am going to show you come adverts that promote plant based eating and vegan lifestyles
• For each, I want you to think about what the strategy of the campaign is
• Think about
• Anti speciesism
• Animal empathy
• Social influences and norms
• Ethical, health or environmental concerns
• Emotions- anxiety, disgust, vs positive emotions

• https://youtu.be/XX7Mg_BW4EA

Complaints to the advertising standards AGENCY

• “offensive and irresponsible as they used a child to promote a particular ethical viewpoint in an
emotionally manipulative way, and because they could encourage children to reject meat without a
full understanding of the implications of doing so”
• “implied eating meat was less healthy or moral than vegan or a plant-based diet”,
National Farmers’ Union (“NFU”) “has caused significant distress for British Farmers.”
• “is demonising meat as a food group, which not only has negative connotations for farmers but also
for the advocation of customers eating a healthy balanced diet.”
• Elsewhere animal-using farmers claimed they were being “victimised.”

• “The council considered that the ads were intended to show that family meals could be easily
adapted to accommodate plant-based diets.
• Council also considered that parents would likely have a range of views about how to
appropriately feed their children, and that the ads portrayed one example of that, without
denigrating other valid opinions on the matter.
• The Council added that the NHS has advised that sufficiently well-planned vegan diets are healthy
and “The ads did not suggest that meat-free sausages should comprise the entirety of a child’s
diet, nor did they endorse any other form of unhealthy dietary practice. Council therefore concluded
the ads were unlikely to be considered offensive, harmful or irresponsible.”
• A sensible decision recognising the qualified dietetics advice, that a vegan diet can be entirely
healthy.
• Whilst they acknowledged that some viewers might have found the use of a child expressing a point
of view on such diets to be distasteful, they noted that a contrasting view was featured with the
father expressing his love of meat.

• Group work: persuading people to change to more sustainable diets

1. How can we address the meat paradox?
2. If we want to get people to be more healthy as well, how do we encourage health plant based
diets

• Psychological techniques in mass media campaigns to encourage people to eat more plant-based
and reduce meat
• Framing- positive vs negative (outcomes, emotions)
• Social norms
• Social identification
• Information/education