Australians love eating meat and say limited vegetarian options when dining out is a key barrier to changing their diet, despite more meat-free choices than ever, new research has found.
Key points:
- A study shows Australians would rather take other actions to help the environment than give up meat
- Participants cite a lack of vegetarian options when dining out, despite Australia having more than ever, as a barrier to the diet
- Researchers hope the study will highlight reasons behind people’s reluctance to reduce meat consumption
A La Trobe University study asked more than 700 Facebook account users who lived in Australia about their beliefs on climate change, the impact of meat consumption on the environment, and their meat intake.
The report found respondents, who were aged between 18 and 84, believed reducing and eliminating meat intake were ineffective ways to address climate change.
They reported low willingness to engage in either action, despite participants showing increased awareness of meat-eating impacts on the environment.
“Although past research has shown that animal agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, our participants believed reducing and eliminating meat intake to be some of the least effective actions against climate change,” co-author and provisional psychologist from La Trobe University Ashley Rattenbury said.
‘I like eating meat’
Australians are among the biggest meat-eaters in the world, a trend the study highlighted.
In 2020, the World Economic Forum reported that Australia had the world’s second-highest annual meat consumption per capita in 2018, behind the United States.
Two thirds of the La Trobe University study participants said having limited options when eating out was a barrier to adopting a vegetarian diet.
“[The sentiment] ‘I like eating meat’ was the most common barrier,” co-author Matthew Ruby, from La Trobe’s School of Psychology, said.
“That maps on to many other past studies that [have found] most people eat meat because they like it.
“The perceived lack of [vegetarian] choice was what really surprised us given that choice is higher than ever before.”
The La Trobe research was compared to a similar study conducted in 2003 by Emma Lea and Anthony Worsley, from Deakin University, which asked hundreds of Australians for their beliefs about barriers and benefits to vegetarianism.
Only one third of Lea and Worsley’s participants agreed that limited options when eating out were a barrier, despite there being far fewer vegetarian options available 20 years ago.
Other ‘green’ actions favoured over vegetarianism
The La Trobe University study also asked participants about their perceptions of the effectiveness of stopping or reducing meat consumption, compared to how willing they would be to engage in other actions that benefited the environment.
“Participants thought that cutting back on meat and stopping eating meat were the least effective things they could do and as such were the least willing to do those, particularly to stop eating meat,” Dr Ruby said.
“They are very happy to get more energy from renewable resources, to recycle things more, to buy fewer new things — which all do have an impact.
“But considering the amount of meat that the average Aussie eats, cutting back on meat would have more of an impact than some of those in terms of emissions.”
Researchers hoped the findings would help organisations and campaigners better understand attitudes around environmental dietary behaviours.
