Meat Eaters Live A Lie

 By Eccentric Vegan on August 8th, 2008 Print This Post Print This Post

Meat Eaters Live A Lie

Researchers found that “meat eaters live a lie.”

[T]he researchers used one of the oldest tricks in the social scientist’s toolbox: They lied.

Some participants got what they were told was coming, and others unknowingly ate the other type of roll. Then they all filled out questionnaires about how they like the food.

“Participants who ate the vegetarian alternative did not rate the taste and aroma less favorably than those who ate the beef product,” the researchers report in August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. “Instead, what influenced taste evaluation was what they thought they had eaten and whether that food symbolized values that they personally supported.”

Put another way:

“When there is value-symbol congruency, [consumers] experience a better taste and aroma and develop a more favorable attitude and behavior intention; incongruence has the opposite effect.”

So, not only do meat-eaters lie to themselves when they say “meat tastes better,” but the admission from anyone that “meat tastes better” is actually a statement about that person’s ethical values. It’s not merely a matter of taste. It’s much, much deeper than that.

Meat is associated with power, control, aggression, violence, killing, and death. People who eat meat and claim it tastes better than the vegan alternatives are expressing their value preference for aggression, violence, killing, and death OVER cooperation, harmony, peace, kindness, health, and life. They are choosing, albeit likely subconsciously, to abide by and to promote a ethical values that include aggression and violence. When they say, “meat tastes better” they might as well say “I prefer violence to peace.”

For more information, read the news story and the journal article.

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5 Responses to Meat Eaters Live A Lie

  1.  Alex Melonas commented on Aug 9th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    That’s unbelievable. This insight seems to underlie what I’ve often wondered about people who select the meat option when given a vegan alternative that tastes either similar or the same. I would ask, “Do you insist that a creature suffer and die?” As opposed to the alternative, “Well, I don’t want that to happen but it is just a means to an end. That end is my taste.” I suppose not given this finding: Suffering is not an unfortunate means but perhaps the end being sought.

    ~ Recent blog post: The ’scorned bull’ of our delusions. at http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg ~

  2.  Eccentric Vegan commented on Aug 29th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    For reference, the news article is below:

    While a big, juicy steak may indeed be culinary nirvana for many, your taste for beef could be based in part on expectation rather than reality.

    On the assumption that meat is associated with social power in some peoples’ minds, researchers rated study participants on what they call a Social Power Value Endorsement measure, to determine their preferences for meat and their cultural perceptions of it. Participants were then told they would taste either a beef sausage roll or a vegetarian roll. You can guess where this is headed.

    Of course the researchers used one of the oldest tricks in the social scientist’s toolbox: They lied.

    Some participants got what they were told was coming, and others unknowingly ate the other type of roll. Then they all filled out questionnaires about how they like the food.

    “Participants who ate the vegetarian alternative did not rate the taste and aroma less favorably than those who ate the beef product,” the researchers report in August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. “Instead, what influenced taste evaluation was what they thought they had eaten and whether that food symbolized values that they personally supported.”

    The study was done by Michael W. Allen at the University of Sydney, Richa Gupta from the University of Nashville, and Arnaud Monnier of the National Engineer School for Food Industries and Management, France. A second test done with a popular, status-heavy soft drink and a dime-store brand yielded similar results.

    Other studies have found such perceptual biases in our taste buds. The color of orange juice, for example, influences what people say they taste, scientists found last year.

    In a classic example of how we deceive ourselves, a study in 2004 found people preferred Coke and Pepsi in equal numbers in blind taste tests. But when told that one of the cups they were drinking was Coke, these same people picked Coke as the more tasty one about 75 percent of the time — even though both cups in this round contained Coke.

    Found here: http://www.livescience.com/health/080717-meat-eaters.html

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