Comparing meat abstainers with avid meat eaters and committed meat reducers

Shifting our eating patterns toward less animal-based and more plant-based
diets is urgently needed to counter climate change, address public health
issues, and protect animal welfare. Although most consumers agree that these
are important topics, many consumers are not particularly willing to decrease
the meat intensity of their diets. In supporting consumers to shift their diets, it
is important to understand consumers’ attitudes, motivations, and preferences
related to meat consumption and to take differences across consumers
on these aspects into account. This study aims to in-depth research meat
abstainers (vegetarians and vegans), and to explore how and to what extent
they differ from avid meat eaters and committed meat reducers in terms of
their (1) socio-demographic characteristics, (2) attitudes and norms, (3) food
choice motives, and (4) food preferences and behavior. A survey has been
conducted among a representative sample of Dutch adults. Comparisons
show that meat abstainers (N = 198) differ from committed meat reducers
(N = 171) and avid meat eaters (N = 344) on the four included categories
of variables. In terms of demographics, we largely confirm the stereotype
of vegans and vegetarians being highly educated females. In attitudes and
norms, large differences exist with meat abstainers being least pro-meat and
avid meat eaters being most pro-meat. Food choice motives confirm this,
with meat abstainers valuing animal welfare and a good feeling higher than
committed meat reducers and avid meat eaters. Finally, differences across
the groups are most pronounced in terms of their food preferences and
consumption, with a much higher appreciation of plant-based protein sources
among meat abstainers, a high appreciation of non-meat animal-based
proteins across committed meat reducers and a high appreciation of meat
products among avid meat eaters. This shows that although differences across
the groups are gradual and expected, in terms of reduction motivations and
preferences of protein sources the three groups (frequent meat consumption-
meat reduction-meat avoidance) are very distinct, which makes it unlikely to
expect big shifts from one group to another in the short term.