Study proposes ‘meat-shaming’ labels on products to reduce meat consumption

A study published this month and conducted by Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands proposes shaming consumers out of eating meat by placing cigarette-style warning labels on meat products.

The researchers base the study on the premise that “[e]ating meat can have detrimental effects on the environment, animal welfare, and a person’s health.” They argue that eating meat involves housing animals “in a way that limits their freedom” and that working conditions on farms and in slaughterhouses can “can be harsh and unhygienic and that wages can be low.”

But it is the environment with which the researchers are most concerned, saying that one of the main barriers to making “climate-friendly food choices” is disbelief in the climate change apocalypse.

However, there is a solution. The researchers note that “consumers’ willingness to engage in pro-environmental behaviors is driven by anticipated negative emotions.” Therefore, if consumers can be shamed and made to feel negative emotions — a technique called “meat-shaming” — it would likely change their behavior.

“Meat-shaming entails often drastic communication that publicly criticizes consumers for their meat consumption behavior with the goal to make them feel ashamed and ultimately change their behavior,” says the study.

Examples of meat-shaming by activist groups include a hostile slogan from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): “Shut up about the Amazon burning if your mouth is full of meat.” Independent activists in Melbourne have been known to slap stickers on meat products which read: “Warning. This package contains the dead body of someone who wanted to live.”

The researchers conducted three tests involving meat-shaming labels to evaluate their efficacy. In the first test, they showed 161 participants one of two packages of chicken breasts. One package contained a warning label featuring a chicken behind bars with the message “Eating meat makes animals suffer”, and one contained no label. 

The volunteers were then asked how likely they were to buy the package. Those who were shown the labeled package were less likely to purchase it than those who were shown the package without the label.

In the second test, six different messages were shown to 483 participants. Two of the messages related to environmental impact, two were related to animal welfare, and two were related to the impact on personal health. Some of the messages were more personalized and contained the word “you”, while others were more informational.

The researchers found that all messages were equally effective at repelling the volunteers.

For their final test, three messages, each from different sources, were shown to 583 participants: one, they were told, was from the United Nations; another was from the non-governmental organization Greenpeace, and the third was from the private nutritionist Green Eatz.

The results showed that all three messages were equally effective.

The findings are consistent with a 2021 study of 2,000 participants which found that half had reduced their meat consumption or cut it out altogether because of social pressure. Friends were found to be the most influential in causing reductions in meat-consumption, followed by partners, family and children.

60% of those who reduced their meat consumption reported doing so because of pressure from their partners, and 7 out of 10 said they would not even have considered adopting a plant-based lifestyle if not for their significant others.

Phasing out meat consumption for the sake of the weather is an agenda being heavily pushed by elite globalists such as the World Economic Forum, mainstream media and even large corporations.

German manufacturing giant Siemens Chairman Jim Hagemann Snabe told attendees at the World Economic Forum’s Davos 2023 summit last month that people must stop eating meat to save the weather.

“If a billion people stop eating meat, I tell you, it has a big impact. Not only does it have a big impact on the current food system, but it will also inspire innovation of food systems,” Snabe said, adding, “I predict we will have proteins not coming from meat in the future, they will probably taste even better.”

“They will be zero carbon and much healthier than the kind of food we eat today, that is the mission we need to get on,” he added.