Overview
Most of us eat meat because we were taught that it is a healthy food and we were raised with a taste for it. Vegans and vegetarians, on the other hand, have concluded that it is a harmful habit for individuals and the environment, and that it is immoral due to the animal suffering it entails. To understand how we develop a taste for meat, it is necessary to observe what children think about animal consumption. A recent study shed some light on this, with surprising results.
The science and other stuff to know
A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that almost half of the children surveyed think that bacon comes from plants, and not animals. The objective of the study was to study the behaviors, inclinations, and interpretations of children regarding food and meat intake.
Following a food origin classification task (animal and vegetable), it was found that of the 176 children surveyed, 41 percent stated that bacon comes from plants. Most of them indicated that eating animals is wrong, and a considerable number of children between 6 and 7 years old declared that cows, pigs, and chickens should not be eaten, but kept as pets. The study discovered that children generally have no idea where their food comes from.
These results demonstrate that children’s interpretation and conception of what they eat, especially concerning meat, is determined by cultural factors rather than by an instinctive desire. This plasticity in the transfer of eating behaviors makes it much simpler to raise awareness in children about animal agriculture’s environmental impacts and the suffering of animals.
So what?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock and the production of animals for human consumption. Reducing the amount of meat we eat is crucial in the fight against global warming. In fact, a University of Oxford study found that a plant-based diet can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by 73% demonstrating the sustainability potential of veganism.
The data obtained in this and other previous studies suggest that by educating children about ecological and planetary awareness, we will be able to reduce meat consumption and its consequent emissions in the coming decades.
What’s next?
The study concludes by discussing the urgency of a paradigm shift in food and food production. “Children will inevitably inherit the climate crisis perpetrated by previous generations,” the researchers wrote. “Research in developmental psychology is revealing that children and young people must be seen as agents of environmental change. […] Childhood can represent a unique opportunity to establish lifelong habits that help mitigate climate change.”
