“The results were very strong,” he said. Patricia Sleboda, the study’s principal investigator and assistant professor of psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York. “This finding held across all sociodemographic groups and was strongest among people who identified as red meat eaters.”
With this research, growing body of evidence Terms like “vegan” and “plant-based” are usually not very effective at convincing meat eaters to consume more foods that are not of animal origin. In addition to the health benefits, reducing your intake of animal products can reduce your diet’s impact on the environment and climate.
“Labels that highlight the benefits of a product can be better than labels that highlight the product’s contents, especially if we’re talking about vegan products,” Sreboda said.
In this study, a nationally representative sample of more than 7,000 Americans chose gift baskets with or without meat and dairy. Options that did not contain animal products were randomly labeled as “vegan,” “plant-based,” “healthy,” “sustainable,” or “healthy and sustainable.”
The study found that only 20% of participants chose a food basket that didn’t contain meat or dairy if it was labeled as “vegan.” When baskets were labeled “plant-based,” that number increased to 27 percent.
However, when the basket was labeled “healthy,” “sustainable,” or “healthy and sustainable,” the percentage of participants choosing it jumped to more than 40%.
“This is not a matter of concealing the contents,” he said. Wendy Bruyne de Bruyne, one of the study authors and a professor at the University of Southern California. “In fact, our study accounted for every item that was in the food basket, but we just didn’t call it vegan.”
Bruine de Bruin and other experts say the word vegan can have negative connotations among meat eaters. One reason for this, he says, is that it may highlight what is missing in the food.other Research on food labeling has repeatedly found that using vegan or vegetarian in a product description makes many people less likely to buy that product.
“Switching to something healthier or more sustainable emphasizes the benefits of choosing that option, making it more appealing,” said Bruin de Bruin. “Many people are concerned about their health and the health of the planet.”
The study did not test labels that emphasized taste, such as “delicious,” which other studies have shown to be effective in increasing people’s appetite for plant-rich foods.
Difficult to sell to meat eaters
The findings highlight the ongoing challenge of encouraging meat eaters to lose weight.
Even when gift baskets were labeled as healthy and sustainable, baskets containing meat and dairy products still seemed to be more popular.
“If we want to make big changes to improve the impact of people’s diets on their own health and the planet, we still have a long way to go.” jack hughesA psychology researcher at Durham University in the UK, he has studied food labeling but was not involved in the latest research.
But there appears to be value in providing people with easy-to-understand information when making food choices, said Hughes, who conducted the study. The impact of tobacco-style warning labels highlighting the harms of meat-eating. His study found that warning labels containing images about the health effects of meat, climate change and the risk of future pandemics could reduce participants’ desire to eat meat by up to 10 percent. did.
“It’s important to focus on the consequences of people’s actions, not the content of their choices,” he said. “But this information needs to be attention-grabbing, reliable, and easy to understand.”
Another way to sell more sustainable options might be to promote other qualities of the food, such as origin, flavor, and look and feel. Research conducted by the World Resources Institute. Edwina Hughes, director of the institute, said these types of explanations tend to appeal to consumers. Cool food initiatives.
“We want to know it tastes good,” she said. “We want to know if it tastes good, if we enjoy it, and if it’s filling.”