The Role of Disgust in Meat Consumption and Avoidance

Abstract

Meat is consistently the most highly valued food across most cultures, and is overconsumed in high income countries, driving declines in planetary and human health. Simultaneously, meat is also frequently an object of food taboos and feelings of disgust. Meat disgust has been studied in vegetarians in the past but may not be limited to meat avoiders and could potentially be used as a basis for interventions to reduce meat consumption. However, meat disgust and the mechanisms that may link it to meat avoidance are not well understood. This thesis aims to further our understanding of meat disgust by offering contributions to theory, evidence, and methodology. The current state of meat disgust research is reviewed in Chapter One, followed by four studies that investigate the concept of meat disgust in meat-eating and meat-avoiding populations. Chapter Two presents findings from a cross-sectional and longitudinal study in a sample of vegetarians, flexitarians, and omnivores that assessed meat disgust and meat intake over time and found that many vegetarians, as well as some flexitarians and omnivores, experience meat disgust, and that this affects levels of meat intake in meat-eating groups. Chapter Three compares meat disgust to similar food rejection responses towards plant-based foods and finds that meat, as opposed to disliked plant foods is a potent elicitor of core disgust. In Chapter Four, a quasi-experimental longitudinal study is presented that observed increases in meat disgust in a small sample of meat eaters following their attempts to avoid meat for one month during ‘Veganuary’. Here, a new theory of the causal relationship between meat disgust and meat avoidance is presented, that proposes disgust as the default response to meat which can be suppressed to allow the consumption of some meat. This theory is further tested in Chapter Five which presents a mega analysis of data on general disgust sensitivity and meat consumption collected in the three previous chapters, showing that any differences in disgust sensitivity across diet groups or effects on meat intake can be explained by demographic covariates and thereby supporting the theory that meat intake and may be de-coupled from disgust sensitivity via a suppression mechanism. Chapter Six embeds the findings on meat disgust from within this thesis with others’ findings and tests the newly proposed ‘suppression theory’ against two other, existing theories with regards to how well all of the findings can Page 3 of 241 be explained. Additionally, the four different methodologies that were used in this thesis to study meat disgust are reviewed in Chapter Six, and recommendations for future studies in this field are made.