Comments on: Meat Eaters Live A Lie

By: Should Vegans Soften Our Tone?

Should Vegans Soften Our Tone? — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:32:26 +0000

[...] This is evidenced by the fact that many people claim to continue eating meat because it tastes good, yet they same people can’t reliably and accurately distinguish the taste between real meat and faux meat. (source) [...]

By: Eccentric Vegan

Eccentric Vegan — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:54:54 +0000

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

By: “My taste buds overpower my moral intuition”

“My taste buds overpower my moral intuition” — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:12:22 +0000

[...] It isn’t often that meat-eaters admit they place a higher moral value upon their own unnecessary pleasure than they place upon animals’ lives. Ironically, though meat-eaters think meat tastes better than nonmeat alternatives, they’re actually lying to themselves. [...]

By: News Flash: Assholes Prefer Meat : Elaine Vigneault

News Flash: Assholes Prefer Meat : Elaine Vigneault — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:59:26 +0000

[...] Moreover, an accurate review depends upon a certain lack of bias. Meat eaters prefer meat because it fits with their worldview, not because it actually tastes better (source). [...]

By: Alex Melonas

Alex Melonas — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:26:31 +0000

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 ~