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Abstract
Introduction
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Studies of vegetarianism
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per cent, compared with 8.5 per cent in 1988, and 4.0 per cent in
1984.
There also appears to be a significant gender element in the
results, in that women are more likely to be meat avoiders. Thus in
the 1990 survey 12.8 per cent of female respondents claimed to eat
meat rarely or not at all (the 1984 figure was 4.8 per cent) whereas
7.1 per cent of male respondents made this claim (the 1984 figure
being 3.3 per cent). The class dimension of the results is by no
means consistent. The Cl group in the 1990 results showed the
highest rate of vegetarianism (5.5 per cent), followed by the AB
group (4.5 per cent), then the DE group (2.9 per cent) and finally
the CE group at 2.5 per cent.
Gallup estimates of the percentage of vegetarians in the
population are supported by the results of a study carried out by
MORI in 1989. A representative quota sample of 1,997 adults aged
eighteen and over in 204 constituency points around Britain was
interviewed. This study produced an estimate of 3 per cent for the
proportion of respondents currently vegetarian. When questioned
concerning motives, 61 per cent of vegetarians mentioned dislike
of intensive animal rearing methods, 58 per cent indicated they
found animal slaughter for food morally unacceptable, 49 per cent
mentioned health reasons, and 38 per cent indieated a dislike of
the taste or texture of meat products (MORVSunday Times 1989).
Given the above estimates, it seems likely that there are over
one million practising adult vegetarians in Britain. Little detailed
knowledge is available conceming their motives, tastes and
experiences, despite the fact that there is a substantial body of
literature on the psychological and nutritional dimensions of
vegetarianism (see Kuffner, 1988). Numerous polemical works
presenting the case for vegetarianism have been published (e.g.
Wynne-Tyson, 1975). Indeed, as Thomas (1983) points out,
virtually all the standard arguments in favour of vegetarianism
have been in circulation in Britain since the end of the eighteenth
century. One of the few relevant academic studies is Simoons
(1961), which provides a wide ranging analysis of flesh food
prohibitions such as the rejection of pork by Islam and Judaism,
taboos relating to the slaughter of cattle and the consumption of
beef among Hindus in India, and the strict vegetarianism
associated with Jainism. In addition, Barkas (1975) discusses not
only the bases of Indian beef prohibitions in Buddhism, Hinduism
and Jainism, but also the vegetarian elements in the thought of
Ancient Greece and in Judeo-Christian ethics. In addition, she
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The fmdings discussed below are organized under the topic areas
used in the analysis, although constraints on space dictate that only
a limited selection of these topics and a small fraction of the
transcript data can be presented here.
Respondents' characteristics
Given that the response group does not constitute a sample in any
statistical sense, but rather an amalgam of a number of clusters of
interlinked respondents, some overall summary of its actual
composition is required. Although this could not be aimed for
specifically, in fact the response group exhibits a vey even balance
between the sexes, with 39 female and 37 male interviewees. The
age distribution of the group showed a marked clustering in the
categories 26-30 years (19 respondents) and 31-35 years (17
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Types of vegetarianism
In nutritional terms the notion of vegetarianism covers a very
varied set of dietary practices. Figure 1 lays out a typology of
forms of vegetarianism ranged along a scale from least strict to
most strict, and indicates the number of respondents adhering to
each type. At the least strict end, some individuals may on
occasions consume meat (usually white, more unusually red) and
yet still think of themselves as vegetarian. As we move along the
scale, those who occasionally or routinely eat fish may also be self-
defined vegetarians. The next category, the consumption of eggs,
is a common feature of vegetarian diets, as is the one following
that, the consumption of dairy products like milk, cheese and
yogurt. The next step allows only the consumption of dairy
products which do not contain ingredients derived from slaughtered
animals (eg rennet free cheese), and the final step, equated with
veganism, permits the consumption of no animal products (although
this prohibition in itself may be applied with varying degrees of
strictness). It should be noted that, in general, individuals will feel
263
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that 1 was eating less meat anyway, and it was sort of a gradual
process, and the two things came together, and I found myself
almost entirely eating non-meat food all the time . . . ' (Male,
Type 3)
In several instances, moving out of the family home meant that the
individual could break with the foodways imposed by parents, and
make the move towards vegetarianism they may have aspired to
for some time.
However, in the case of the second type of conversion the
change was clearly a much more abrupt one, and frequently
triggered by a 'conversion experience' which respondents could
usually recall in considerable detail. Such experiences were
commonly associated with distress or disgust, and could lead to a
sudden change in eating patterns. For example, one respondent's
first step on the road to vegetarianism involved a graphically
recalled experience of revulsion on eating bacon;
'I was cooking breakfast which was a cup of tea and a bacon cob
. . . And that morning the smell of bacon was quite off-putting...
And then, I was eating the cob, and I'd just taken a bite of i t . . .
and then, the next bite, the rind wasn't cooked properly. And
the rind stayed in my mouth, and came off the meat, and sort of
dangled from - from the corner of my mouth. And I - heaved,
and put the cob down, and that was the end'. (Male. Type 4)
'I'd slowly, slowly, and slowly got it into my head that it was
fiesh that I was eating, and it was more off-putting by the week,
or the month . . . that I was chewing fiesh . . . I was beginning to
recognise what it was I was eating. And - it was fiesh . . . it was
something that had been living, and it had blood running
through it, and - and a heart pumping it round . . . '
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the interviewee's own body and the contents of his breakfast. Such
experiences may lead to relatively rapid changes in eating
patterns, sometimes literally from one day to the next, although
sometimes spread over a few weeks or months. However, for
other respondents, vividly recalled experiences of revulsion that
occurred much earlier in life may have had a rather more subtle
effect, creating or reinforcing attitudes which later set the scene
for a move into vegetarianism. For example, one respondent
graphically described how seeing the remnants of animal slaughter
on a friend's farm initiated the rethinking her attitude to meat.
If witnessing at first hand some of the normally concealed
aspects of animal husbandry can affect attitudes, then witnessing
such realities indirectly, througli the mass media, can also have a
dramatic effect. Television appears to be a particularly powerful
medium in this connection, and several respondents were able to
identify specific documentary programmes that had infiuenced
them. For example;
'It was my daughter, when she was much younger; she went by
the abattoir at . She was just amazed. She didn't know what
she was eating before. When she saw the animals going in, 1
couldn't lie. I had to tell her that they were - you know - it's
lamb . . . and she started then. She wouldn't eat. I must admit, 1
used to say you ought to eat that, and then I thought; why?
because I do agree with her . . . so it started like that'. (Female,
Type 3).
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Motivations
For the purposes of the present discussion it is convenient to
identify four broad types of motivation which are embedded in the
transcript data; moral, health-related, gustatory and ecological. In
the great majority of instances, respondents had no hesitation in
identifying their primary motivation in ways which could be
classified quite readily under these headings. A total of 43
interviewees indicated that moral motivations for them were
primary, health-related motivations were given priority by 13,
gustatory preferences (related to the taste or texture of meat) were
given priority by 9, and for one respondent ecological concerns
were paramount. Only 10 respondents weighted two or more
motivations equally. Interestingly, although it had been assumed
that cost might be an important factor behind the adoption of a
vegetarian diet, this did not appear to be a particularly significant
motivation in itself. Indeed, respondents were divided as to
whether a vegetarian diet was necessarily cheaper than one which
includes meat, since so much depended upon the actual food items
purchased and the dishes prepared.
Certainly for this group of respondents moral motives, in
various guises, appeared to be the primary ones. Not surprisingly,
such concems were usually related to issues of animal welfare and
animal suffering, often closely linked to the idea that the
exploitation of animals for food is ethically unacceptable;
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'. . . the reason that people are starving is because we feed the
food to intensively reared animals rather than human beings. 1
mean, if that isn't wickedness, I don't know what wickedness is'.
(Male, Type 6).
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'You see, I'm not sort of vegetarian in terms of, not to exploit
the poor children, or the poor animal. I look at it in terms of
how harmful, and how good, is it for our bodies'. (Male, Type 2)
'I've just told myself that I don't really like meat, so what's the
point of eating it? . . . I remember thinking, if I go for a meal,
and I tell them that I don't like pork chops, and I don't like roast
beef, I could go through quite a lot of food I don't like, and it
makes me sound ridiculous . . . If I say I'm vegetarian, it makes
life a lot easier, so I think because I didn't want to sound really
faddy, then I decided I would say I was vegetarian' (Female
Type 2)
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Nutritional beliefs
As might reasonably be anticipated given the diversity of forms of
vegetarianism and motivations present within the response group,
attitudes towards food, and patterns of nuturitional belief or
knowledge, varied enormously between respondents. While some
speakers expressed a high level of interest in food, deriving great
enjoyment from eating, others regarded it simply as 'fuel' for the
body and had little interest in gustatory pleasures. Concern about
the safety or purily of food was also variable, ranging from high
levels of reported anxiety concerning additives, bacteria etc., to a
robust indifference to such issues, although the latter position does
represent a minority view in this group. Similarly, while many
individuals saw themselves as knowledgeable on nutritional topics,
and cleariy went to considerable lengths to seek out information,
others admitted to knowing relatively little about the technicalities
of nutrition. However, from this diversity, three clear and coherent
themes did emerge, which for the purposes of presentation can be
labelled conveniently as the anti-meat theme, the pro-meat theme,
and the pro-vegetarian theme.
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' . . . I heard something about the fact that the human body isn't
physically built to eat meat, with the length of the intestines and
that. But, you know on meat eaters the . . . intestinal tract is that
much shorter... it passes straight the way through . . . And I
don't think we were ever really meant to eat meat in the first
place . . . ' (Male, Type 5)
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'Meat to me means just slaughter and blood and all the rest of it.
I mean, it's all dressed up to look so beautiful with all roast
potatoes around it, but people don't see it, or don't want to see
what it really is . . . it is a misery'. (Male, Type 6)
'I call it dead fiesh! I mean, when I'm having little jokes with
people . . . I tend to call it dead fiesh. - 1 just think it's, it's like
carcasses, and 1 hate the smell of dried blood and 1 really, I just
hate the thought of cleavers like being smashed into bodies'.
(Female, Type 2)
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Social relations
Eating patterns are such a fundamentally important part of
everyday life, in symbolic and expressive as well as nuturitional
terms, that changing them may have significant effects on social
relationships. This applies most obviously to the relationships
within the elementarj' family, for example between parents and
children. Relations with wider kin and in-laws may also be
affected, as indeed may relations with friends and colleagues. The
changes in dietary choice and nutritional beliefs associated with a
move to vegetarianism may elicit sympathy and support on the one
hand, or on the other criticism, bewilderment or even outright
hostility. Nowhere was this contrast between acceptance and
hostility more marked than in the evidence which emerged
concerning parents' reactions to an individual's adoption of
vegetarian beliefs and practices. For some parents, their offspring's
conversion to vegetarianism was simply something that was to be
accepted, although not necessarily actively supported and encour-
aged. In other instances, parents did not simply accept the
decision, bul went some way in supporting it and accommodating
to it;
'My mum never cooks meat, and she never does anything that's
got animal fat in. And she always goes out of her way to prepare
a vegetarian m e a l . . . If it's a Sunday, we have Sunday lunch but
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'My father i s . . . a very good cook, and he feels that, you know,
it's just his way of showing affection is to give people food. He
just can't conceive of the possibility of not eating meat. He gets
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'I had some trouble with room-mates in the first y e a r . . . the first
couple of days you have to keep reminding people not to put
milk in the tea and things like that, and they just settle down -
but with these people it was just an absolute crescendo. And
after about a term with them, there was hardly a day that could
go by and they'd say, why don't you [drink] milk, and why don't
you eat meat? And I'd just keep explaining and explaining - but
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'They always seem to try and make you eat [meat]. .. It's like if
they've won something. If they could get you to eat a ham
sandwich, it would be like they'd won a victory .. . and it puts
me on the defensive, so, of course, I dig my heels in'. (Female,
Type 2)
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'I think it's a bit like banging your head against a brick wall'.
(Male, Type 6)
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Dilemmas
For the majority of those who took part in the study the moral
dimension of vegetarianism was its most important aspect. Indeed
some morally motivated respondents had gone as far as direct
involvement in animal rights activism, although the majority of
respondents were clearly opposed to such methods. Although
moving along the vegetarian scale can be seen as one way to make
a contribution to the reduction of animal suffering, some cmcial
moral dilemmas do persist. One obvious problem for the morally
sensitive consumer of dairy products is that the dairy industry itself
involves animal slaughter, of elderiy and unproductive cows, and
of surplus males. Similarly, egg production entails the slaughter of
unproductive hens, and unwanted males. Indeed, the use of a
broad range of products which are derived from animals poses
problems for the morally aware, a range which goes beyond food
items;
'I'm not aware that any of these would think that their way of
life was logical, but they seem to want my shoes to be logical! I
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' . . . you cannot be perfectly vegan if you take into account all
the ways that the human race uses animals. It's impossible to be
perfectly harmless... But I try not to wear leather, and I don't
wear fur or w o o l . . . and I try to steer clear of dmgs, anything
that could have been tested on animals . . . Well, the longer you
live the more things youfindout aren't vegan, like E numbers . . .
a lot of them come from animal sources . . . and then there are
lots of other products that are used in everyday life that come
from slaughterhouses'. (Female, Type 6)
The fmdings which have been presented above reveal the dynamic
and multi-dimensional nature of the motivations which propel
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POSITIVE NEGAIIVE
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Conclusions
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which can draw upon a vast array of food items, freed by the
channels of international trade from the narrow limits of locality,
climate and season.
If the practices of vegetarianism and veganism are indeed
formed in part by the need for food to be good to think, there are
factors here which go beyond the semiotic concems of, for
example, Ldvi-Strauss and Douglas. Such perspectives see food
related beliefs and practices as encoding and enshrining wider
pattems of social relations, and yet food can be good (or bad) to
think in another, equally significant fashion. Eating is a process
charged with tantalizing ambivalence; it provides life, but at the
expense of the death of other living organisms; it provides vigour,
but may lead to disease; it provides pleasure, but may lead to
disgust or nausea. As has been argued above, each of these three
paradoxes gives rise to its own characteristic form of nutritional
anxiety.
For the study's respondents, the adoption of vegetarianism, in
whatever form is appropriate to each individual's unique concerns
and predicament, would seem to be at root an exercise in the
management of anxiety. To present such an argument is not to
.suggest that this is the sole import of the contemporary vegetarian
option. However, for a significant segment of the population it
appears to represent a viable device for re-establishing some
degree of peace of mind when contemplating some of the darker
implications of the carefully arranged message on the dinner plate.
Department of Social Sciences Received 10 January 1991
Loughborough University Accepted 23 April 1991
Acknowledgement
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