{"id":778308,"date":"2025-05-15T08:09:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=778308"},"modified":"2025-05-15T08:47:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:47:20","slug":"study-disgust-not-taste-drives-vegns-meat-avoidance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=778308","title":{"rendered":"STUDY: Disgust, not taste, drives veg*ns meat avoidance"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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A new study found veg*ns reject meat with the emotion of disgust, rather than simple distaste, mirroring the strong aversion meat-eaters feel toward taboo foods like human flesh or feces. In contrast, disliked vegetables like beets or sprouts are typically rejected due to distaste, an aversion based on taste or texture. This suggests that meat rejection involves deeper psychological mechanisms. The researchers also believe this emotional response strengthens with intentional meat avoidance, such as during Veganuary.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

NEUROSCIENCE NEWS:<\/strong> A study led by the University of Exeter set out to investigate whether there is a difference in the psychological mechanisms by which people reject meat compared to vegetables…<\/em><\/p>\n

The study<\/a>, published in Appetite, recruited 252 people who reject meat and 57 omnivores who eat meat. Researchers tested responses to images of 11 different substances (palatable meat; vegetables which are commonly disliked, such olives, sprouts, raw aubergine, and beetroot. Participants were asked several questions about how eating each of the foods would make them feel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Each question was linked to either disgust (e.g. \u2018I would dislike any dish which contained even the tiniest amount of this food, even if I could not taste, smell, feel, or see it.\u2019) or distaste (e.g. \u2019I would dislike the taste, smell, or texture of this food.\u2019) which allowed the researchers to make a distinction between what people felt (disgust or distaste) when they rejected different foods….<\/em><\/p>\n

The study found vegetarians reject meat with the emotion of disgust, rather than simple distaste, mirroring the strong aversion meat-eaters feel toward taboo foods like human flesh or feces. In contrast, disliked vegetables like beets or sprouts are typically rejected due to distaste, an aversion based on taste or texture.<\/em><\/p>\n

This suggests that meat rejection involves deeper psychological and evolutionary mechanisms, possibly linked to avoiding pathogens. Researchers believe this emotional response strengthens with intentional meat avoidance, such as during Veganuary.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lead author Dr Elisa Becker, who conducted the work at the University of Exeter and has since moved to Oxford University, said: \u201cMeat eaters responded to the idea of eating these truly disgusting substances like faeces in the same way that vegetarians responded to images of meat that they didn\u2019t want to eat, and this was very different from the way they responded to vegetables they rejected.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we may think we\u2019re rejecting a food simply because we don\u2019t want to eat it, we showed that the basis for this rejection is quite different \u2013 and we think that\u2019s evolved to protect us from pathogens that can lie undetected in meat.\u201d <\/em>SOURCE…<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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