While it may feel like you’re making rational personal choices, the fact is that there is a myriad of triggers outside of your left brain control centre that impact on your decisions on biological, psychological, economic, social, cultural, physical, and political factors.
So, you might have an awareness that you possibly could be eating less meat and dairy – knowing it doesn’t really align with the things you believe in – but your practical reaction to this is…perhaps rather limited.
A basic understanding of what’s actually influencing you might not have a light-switch effect, but it could help you to take more control of the situation. By no means an exhaustive analysis, here are a few things to consider.
“…there is a myriad of triggers outside of your left brain control centre that impact on your decision making”
Evolution Gone Bad
You are hard wired with an evolutionary instinct to search out food sources that are high in calories and fat – the human mind continues to house a cognitive system optimized for energy-efficient foraging within the erratic food habitats of the past (1) – and all meats and dairy foods are higher in both than virtually any type of vegetable. The junk food industry has been spectacularly successful in using this to their advantage.
But this internal drive is essentially a biological legacy code, and obsolete in modern society. It made total sense back in the day, when food supply was far from regular – when you came across something high in calories and fat you took as much of it as you could, as there was no guarantee of future supply. Your tribe have finally made a kill, and you’re not going to pass up on the resulting calorific intake when it might be weeks before you succeed again. Your internal systems think you’re still there. Bless them for playing on the safe side.
Does this look like you on a day out?
Make no mistake, in a survival situation I’ll be killing anything that moves that I can, or, more likely given I’m a bit out of practice, scavenging on a more successful hunter’s kill, and gorging myself on its calorific-rich flesh to ensure, well, my survival. But in the developed world, for example here in Fulham, when I have 3 supermarkets within a 10-minute walk and a number of convenience stores even closer, the chances of me not being able to gain enough calories to survive are rather limited. In fact, it’s pretty conclusive looking at obesity rates, that we’re really not struggling in this regard at all.
Once you recognize this, you become armed with the power to move beyond this old code, essentially be an early adopter, evolve and live a better life on the new operating system – welcome to Human 2.0!
“…this internal drive is essentially a biological legacy code, and obsolete in modern society”
Blame your Parents!
Food practices are learned mainly through transmission from parents to children (2), as parents substantially shape the context in which children encounter food. This is not surprising when we consider that research indicates that the first few years of life are most important for development. Where we eat, how we eat and importantly what we eat are all heavily influenced by our upbringing and we learn habits and norms in this period that take a strong hold.
The source of all wisdom
For example, drinking cows’ milk is seen as totally normal in most developed Western societies. But in actual fact it’s no more natural to us than horse milk. But if you offered horse milk to most people they’d treat it with extreme scepticism at best. These early habits also inform taste. A lot of people will state they won’t use plant-based milks as they taste weird – but once I’d come off dairy milk for a good while it started to smell to me what I can best describe as a bit ‘funky’. Certainly not appetizing. Probably why most milk is drunk cold.
Early human adults were all lactose intolerant in fact (the enzyme lactase is needed to digest milk, but it turned off in adults), but we soldiered through it for a few thousand years so that many of us developed the ability to produce lactase in adulthood (again, scarcity of high calorie foods in this time is thought to be a likely reason for persisting with consuming something we had problems digesting). And there’s a big clue there in how natural this food source is – lactose production turned off in adults. Even now, around 65% of the worldwide population has a reduced ability to absorb lactose, and humans are the only mammal to continue drinking milk in adulthood.
And then there’s all the subconscious connections to meat and dairy you’ve formed over years with your family. Roast dinner on a Sunday (lamb or chicken was always my preference), Christmas dinner, Thanksgiving, BBQs, Chinese New Year etc, and for me the mother of all, the bacon sandwich (ideally toasted bread, back bacon and brown sauce – not that I miss it). Meat and dairy is heavily imprinted on you, and importantly normalized, so that it’s a big shift to consider something different.
Finally we have the romanticization of the farm. Who wasn’t read picture books as a kid, featuring a rosy-cheeked farmer, with one of each a happy pig, cow and chicken? I did exactly that to my kids. Seemed totally normal and I didn’t consider it at all at the time, but these early experiences leave a deeply-held false impression of what an animal husbandry farm is. Subconsciously, you still go back to that non-existent halcyonic ideal when thinking about a farm. I don’t remember vegetables being given leading roles. Admittedly, the concept doesn’t seem quite as appealing featuring a broccoli, potato and carrot. Damn you, inanimate objects!
“Who wasn’t read picture books as a kid, featuring a rosy-cheeked farmer, with one of each a happy pig, cow and chicken?”
Don’t Expect Much Help from your Friends Either
Dietary choices are also further shaped, or in a meat-and-dairy heavy world perhaps fixed would be more apt, by social identity and interaction including with your friends, wider social circle and work colleagues. Food choices are felt to reflect identity, so consumption (or reducing it) can feel a highly value-laden choice (3).
Do I look like I want to share your tofu dish?!
Bear that in mind then consider this. Veganism, for many, is one of the most ‘identifying’ dietary choices, and often carries mildly or starkly negative connotations for meat and dairy eaters. People tend to associate veganism with a wide range of political views far outside the realm of dietary choice - on sexism and racism, anti-capitalism, trans rights, wokeism etc. Let’s face it, veganism could have done with a better PR consultant over the years, and it’s not hard to see how someone that links their social identity to diet and has a very negative view of vegans might struggle to reduce meat and dairy consumption.
“People tend to associate veganism with a wide range of political views far outside the realm of dietary choice”
A Pioneer in a Meat and Dairy-Centric World
There are also simple logistical issues to contend with, with society still appallingly set up for a meat and dairy free or reduced diet.
Sure, it’s a lot easier to be vegan at home these days. Although even then if you’re cooking for others you’ve got to have their buy in. You decide the menu, and to vary things the availability of plant-based meat and dairy substitutes has recently grown a lot. Some of them amazing, some not so good, some dreadful, so a bit of trial and error or research is required.
In answer to that often-heard meat eaters’ sneer, “If you’re vegan why do you all like fake meat so much!”, the majority of vegans were brought up in meat and dairy eating environments, so as we’ve discussed still have very strong emotional and cultural attachments to meat and dairy. To prove my point and the strength and effect of this influence, I’d bet a pretty sum that vegans in Japan aren’t all going, “if only I could have a bacon sandwich”! They’re all, “where’s the fake sashimi?!”. You miss what you’ve been brought up with and normalised. Anyway, I digress.
Sarah ventured out for her dinner date
But when you go out to eat, as a vegan you enter a parched and dusty landscape pretty much devoid of life, where you forage for scraps to survive. Yes, there are a few more vegan restaurants these days, but I’ve noticed that they tend to be more café, casual dining affairs; if you’re looking for fine dining or somewhere relaxed to sit and eat with a few bottles of wine followed by half a bottle of Diplomatico (for example), your options thin considerably.
And vegan options in most regular restaurants are generally: one or none at all. Mostly prepared by a non-vegan experienced chef, many are unimaginative or really just a meat dish sans the meat. So you’re often botching together a dish from the side menu, eating something bland, or perhaps just focusing on the drinks menu! Perhaps a virtually vegan diet at home with more meat and dairy when eating out might be attractive to a large proportion of the population that have not yet considered it?
I should add here that this isn’t an unchangeable law of physics like the speed of light; vegan food doesn’t have to be limited and dull. I’ve had some incredible vegan dishes and entire tasting menus, but right now there’s no getting away from the fact the world is understandably (given demand) very well set up only for meat and dairy eating.
In fact there’s evidence to suggest that simple availability could have a much bigger impact than we imagined. The city of Ghent, Belgium, launched an inspirationally-named campaign called Thursday Veggieday (probably sounds better in Belgian), within which the default option for school meals was vegetarian, though meat could still be ordered. It resulted in about 95% of students eating vegetarian on that day (4).
“…when you go out to eat, as a vegan you enter a parched and dusty landscape pretty much devoid of life, where you forage for scraps to survive”
The Government-Meat & Dairy Bromance
An entire book could be written on governments’ collusion with and favouritism for the meat and dairy industry, but suffice to say, around 50% of EU government subsidies go to meat and dairy, with less than 20% reserved for vegetables and fruit (5). Meanwhile, looking to the future, a 2023 paper (6) states that, “the animal farming system is still heavily supported by public policies, public finances, and dietary guidelines, both in the United States and the European Union”. Further it reveals that public funding for novel technologies (meat and dairy alternatives) is smaller than that for animal products by factors of 1,200 in the EU and 800 in the US.
Carrots, unable to make it to Whitehall, were always doomed to be short changed
Adding to this already unfair playing field is the meat and dairy industry’s heavyweight and effective strategies to stymy the plant and lab-grown alternative industry. Examples include, through extensive lobbying, plant-based milks not being able to use the word “milk” in the EU or UK, as that word has been reserved for, I kid you not, “mammary secretions”. Nice!
Also, in 2023 the Italian government implemented a ban on lab-grown meat, restricting both its production and marketing. Apparently, agribusinesses are concerned that the growing focus on the environmental consequences of consuming meat will affect their profits. Well, we can’t have that. Plant-based alternatives have also been banned from using terms such as “salami” or “steak”, no doubt for similar reasons.
What’s the result of all this? Meat and dairy is not properly priced, government guidelines don’t recommend a scientifically proven healthy diet, it’s hard to develop alternatives and if you do, hard to sell them. Without wanting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, there are powerful forces that don’t want you to change what you are eating.
“the animal farming system is still heavily supported by public policies, public finances, and dietary guidelines, both in the United States and the European Union”
Summary
In cutting out or drastically reducing meat and dairy the cards are very much stacked against you, with many factors in play besides the obvious. But the stakes are high, with the range of harms caused by the industry well documented. People may become vegan overnight, but the logical and emotional wrangling to make the decision often takes years and many people actually start with reducing.
By growing your awareness of the various forces at play detailed in this post, rather than blocking any internal dialogue, you’re more likely to move along a path to a diet that’s more in tune with your core self and actually in your own self-interest.
(1) de Vries, R., Morquecho-Campos, P., de Vet, E. et al. Human spatial memory implicitly prioritizes high-calorie foods. Sci Rep 10, 15174 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72570-x
(2) Monterrosa, E., Frongillo, E., Drewnowski, A. et al. Sociocultural Influences on Food Choices and Implications for Sustainable Healthy Diets. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Vol. 41(2S) S59-S73 (2020). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0379572120975874
(3) Connors, C., Cohen, M., Saint-Warrens, S., et al. Psychologies of Food Choice: Public views and experiences around meat and dairy consumption. https://doi.org/10.46756/sci.fsa.zoc432
(4) Leenaert, T. Why Do We Love and Exploit Animals, Chapter 15, P.254. Published by Routledge.
(5) Springmann, M., Freund, F. Options for reforming agricultural subsidies from health, climate, and economic perspectives. Nat Commun 13, 82 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27645-2
(6) Vallone, S., Lambin, E. Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs. One Earth, Volume 6, Issue 9, 1213 – 1226.
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