2y ago

Meat-loving Australia has no appetite for vegetarian diet to help planet, study finds

www.abc.net.au

A study shows Australians would rather take other actions to help the environment than give up meat.
Participants cite a lack of vegetarian options when dining out, despite Australia having more than ever, as a barrier to the diet.
Researchers hope the study will highlight reasons behind people's reluctance to reduce meat consumption.

53 comments

This is such a bullshit response. There are plenty of vegetarian options when eating out in Australia. And the more vegetarians there are, the more options restaurants will offer.
- City? Yeah, if you pay a fair whack or live near one of the buddhist or hindu country diaspora hubs. Out bush? Yeah, nah. There will be one menu item, maybe two if you include the garden salad as being a meal.
  
  One of the few vegetarian meals I've been able to have back home is "& chips"
  Sometimes we make it fancy and have potato cakes too, but there are only so many ways you can deep fry a potato before throwing up
  
  Yeah that's true. I'm a city dweller and spoilt for choice. But I reckon if more people were asking for it out bush, the restaurants would update their menus.
  
  Also depends on the city I imagine. I now describe myself as an "omnivore who prefers to not eat the animals" due to desperate times when going out...
- I guess it varies. There are vegetarian options at a lot of places, but I often find it's only one or two options.
  It really depends on the venue of course. Some of my favourite places have tons of options, but most of my friends aren't interested in those. It also gets even harder when the few vegetarian options are often ruled out for you due to other dietary restrictions...
- That’s exactly what bullet point 2 is saying.
Most people aren’t going to voluntarily do anything that drastically changes their life. Big fuckin surprise.
- Honestly I wouldn't consider this a drastic change to life considering how easy it is to do lmao. My best friend/roommate is vegan while I'm a meat eater. Wherenever she's home at dinner time I'll cook for both of and make sure it's something we can both eat so it's more often than not vegan meals. You know what's happened since? I've just gotten noticeably healthier lmao. I'll still eat meat on occasion (more often than not poultry), but if I never had it for the rest of my life I honestly wouldn't mind much.
- Drastically change their life? Not buying meat is pretty drastic. Where do you even begin? Buy meat and throw it away? Help
Stop having children if you're that worried about it.
- I'm doing my part!
- Yes, let's not make life sustainable for future generations, let's... not have future generations at all?? What kind of logic is that
  
  Solid. Solid logic.
- Haha. That wasn't one of the options they gave. Nor was "Don't have a dog or cat"
A study shows Australians would rather take other actions to help the environment than give up meat.
So exactly the same as polling on alternatives to the Voice. Australians want vague solutions to problems they pretend to care about, but when you propose actual solutions: crickets.
- The list of options participants were given:
  Eat less meat (50% reduction)
  Stop eating meat
  Avoid food products imported by plane
  Use public transport
  Recycle things more
  Buy fewer new things
  More energy from renewable sources
  Some of it is a bit less actionable then "eat less meat", but they're still pretty concrete.
  
  Nothing short of totally abolishing the capitalist mode of production can be taken remotely seriously.
  
  The willingness seems pretty low on everything but "renewable sources" and recycling which requires the least effort from people.
  There being some willingness to reduce meat is nice, but I've heard that line before (people rarely follow through in practice).
  
  I have already done all these except #2. And yes - I mean that. I have changed my lifestyle over the past 10-15 years doing these things consciously.
Lol lmao. Everyone who is like "I'd give up meat if only there were more options at restaurants" should immediately give it up except at restaurants where there are no meatless options in order to fulfill their own stated values.
Of course, my bet is it's just a rationalisation. Our culture sucks and people are always looking for some reason why doing the bare minimum is unreasonable.
A very thick ribeye, cooked 5 mins each side then the ends.
A lamb rack, perfectly roasted in the oven.
Pork belly, crackling, Asian style.
Bacon.
- Thanks for your valuable contribution to !environment@aussie.zone 🫠
- This is what AI commenting will look like in the future (or perhaps the future is already here). It will detect the topic of the discussion and add descriptions of the top 4 images it picks up on Google.
  Sometimes it'll seem sort of relevant if you try really hard to make sense of it, but usually it's just gonna read like the above comment
  
  I'm training AI well.
  (I'm not a bot)
- Muh le epic bacon
- Are you an annoying bot or an annoying human?
  
  Human?
- Salt and pepper, 2 minutes each side for the good grill marks, down the hatch.
  
  Seems like we made them mad.
  Jealous cunts wish they ate meat
- Ok, and?
Participants cite a lack of vegetarian options when dining out
Well it's not a religion. Eat meat if you don't find anything else on the menu. Avoid it when cooking yourself. But it's not about that, people are addicted to meat and don't want to reduce their consumption.
Vegetarian diet to help planet
Cows are famously super good for the planet
Wait. You think Australians will take action. Hahahahaha
- If you believe the study enough to mock the outcome, then yes, apparently they'll take other actions:
  "They are very happy to get more energy from renewable resources, to recycle things more, to buy fewer new things — which all do have an impact."
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Australians love eating meat and say limited vegetarian options when dining out is a key barrier to changing their diet, despite more meat-free choices than ever, new research has found.
The report found respondents, who were aged between 18 and 84, believed reducing and eliminating meat intake were ineffective ways to address climate change.
"Although past research has shown that animal agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, our participants believed reducing and eliminating meat intake to be some of the least effective actions against climate change," co-author and provisional psychologist from La Trobe University Ashley Rattenbury said.
Two thirds of the La Trobe University study participants said having limited options when eating out was a barrier to adopting a vegetarian diet.
The La Trobe research was compared to a similar study conducted in 2003 by Emma Lea and Anthony Worsley, from Deakin University, which asked hundreds of Australians for their beliefs about barriers and benefits to vegetarianism.
The La Trobe University study also asked participants about their perceptions of the effectiveness of stopping or reducing meat consumption, compared to how willing they would be to engage in other actions that benefited the environment.
The original article contains 429 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

53 comments