Veganism: Why food choice can spark rage
29 May, 2019
Vegetarianism and veganism are growing in popularity. In this Spotlight, we ask why these dietary choices can ignite rage in some meat eaters. The answer, it seems, is complex.
Currently, vegetarianism and veganism only account for 5% and 3% of the United States population, respectively.
However, as the public profiles of these diets increase, negative reactions are becoming more visible.
The question we are asking today is, "why should one person's dietary choice make anyone else angry?"
This question is complicated, and because it involves human emotions, the answer is likely to be multifaceted and vary wildly from case to case.
On the surface, anti-vegan outbursts are counterintuitive — by deciding to harm as few living creatures as possible, vegans become a focal point of anger.
Although I am a meat eater, I have often wondered why a more gentle approach to food appears to ruffle so many feathers.
The fault of zealots?
As with any subsection of humanity, some vegans and vegetarians are outspoken and, sometimes, militant. As the old joke goes: "How do you know if someone is a vegan? They'll tell you."
Of course, there are people like this in every section of society. The loudest voices grab a disproportionately large slice of public attention, while the vast majority of vegans simply eat their dinner in silence, not negatively affecting anyone at all.
Although the underbelly of vocal vegans certainly plays a part in some people's negativity toward vegans at large, this is not the whole story.
Tobias Leenaert, the author of "How to create a vegan world: A pragmatic approach," writes:
"Sure, at times we can be a little annoying. [...] But, this doesn't really explain the hostility and ridicule that we may encounter at times."
In this feature, we will try to unwrap some of the reasons why people may respond to vegans and vegetarians so negatively. Of course, there are no hard and fast answers, but we will cover some leading theories.
The role of the media
For better or worse, the media can shape society's opinions at large. Understanding whether the media is fueling a behavior or whether a behavior is fueling the media is another issue, but knowing how the media responds to vegans is informative.
A 2011 study looked at how the print media in the United Kingdom reported on veganism. Of the 397 articles that mentioned veganism, the researchers deemed 20.2% to be neutral and 5.5% to be positive, while they considered the remaining 74.3% to be negative.
The negativity in these articles came in a variety of different forms. Most commonly, the stories mocked veganism as being "self-evidently ridiculous" or characterized it as asceticism — a lifestyle practice that involves abstaining from pleasure to pursue spiritual goals.
The authors of the paper believe that this unbalanced representation of veganism demonstrates a "cultural reproduction of speciesism."
They believe that this unfair attack helps humans justify a subliminal, almost inherent, uncaring attitude toward animals whose destiny it is to become our food.
A 2015 study looked at attitudes toward vegans and vegetarians compared with those toward other groups of people who experience prejudice, such as gay people, immigrants, atheists, and black people. According to the authors:
"Only drug addicts were evaluated more negatively than vegetarians and vegans."
They found that across the board, people viewed vegetarians and vegans more negatively, especially those "motivated by animal rights or environmental concerns." The researchers also showed that individuals with more right-wing leanings had the least favorable opinion of vegans and vegetarians.
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