What’s Your Excuse to Not Change Your Diet?

I am (mostly) a weekday vegetarian. It took me a while to make the switch. I knew the harms of raising animals for meat, but I’m not a huge fan of cooking so finding vegetarian recipes was my excuse. During the pandemic, I signed up for a food box and selected the vegetarian option. This has been a game changer. Introducing me to so many different recipes with very little work on my part. These recipes have now become staples in my diet, making the switch to mostly vegetarian a lot easier. This is why a recent research paper by Skelly and Ditlevsen (2024) piqued my interest.

In the research, they conducted focus groups with Danish consumers. They tracked what people knew about the climate impacts of meat along with how they justify continued meat consumption. I have to say, the results don’t really surprise me. The focus group participants tended to cast vegans in extremist roles that were dependent on unnatural, highly processed, and problematic foods. For example, eating avocados, which can have high climate impacts depending on where you live, was seen as evidence that vegans were climate hypocrites. In this way, the participants were able to claim that they didn’t really know whether going vegan was really any better for climate and, therefore, they were justified in continuing to eat meat.

Other excuses that the participants used were scapegoating, where they said that they were willing to change, but someone in their household was not. That other factors, like the cost of food, prevented them from considering the climate-friendliness of their meals. And that either other diets failed to provide all the nutrients they needed or that they weren’t filled up by non-meat meals.

At the same time, they did argue that they engaged in climate-friendliness through other actions like reducing food waste, eating seasonal foods, and eating locally produced foods. Interestingly when choosing between different options regarding what will make the most climate-friendly eating, going vegan was the top choice in all focus groups. This shows that there is a disconnect. Participants knew that going vegan would have the most benefit but then came up with reasons to justify their individual behaviours.

My excuse was a lack of knowledge. By addressing that I have been able to switch much of my diet over. Which makes me wonder, how can we address these other excuses to make it easier for people to switch their diets? If you aren’t vegetarian or vegan, do any of these reasons ring true for you? What would have to happen to enable you to make the change?