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. Share on Pinterest As veganism becomes more popular, we need to ask why some find it so distasteful. 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. Share on Pinterest The media’s take on veganism is often unfavorable. 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.

A subliminal attack Part of the issue, some argue, is that nonvegans feel that their identity is under attack. When a vegan mentions their dietary choice, a meat eater might infer, perhaps subliminally, that the vegan must consider them a supporter of animal cruelty. People give up meat for a wide range of reasons, with health and environmental concerns being two significant motivations. However, the primary reason is animal cruelty. People perceive the act of being a vegan as a moral stance, and often, of course, it is. Vegans and vegetarians are generally against harming animals to provide food. As a meat eater, it is easy to consider that a vegan person — without saying a word — defines you as morally wrong. In short, we are aware that this group of people has chosen to show more care toward animals and that, by extension, we have chosen to continue not caring for animals. Acknowledging this can feel unpleasant.

Challenging norms Some researchers believe that malice toward people who follow a plant-based diet might hinge on “symbolic threats” to the status quo. Intergroup threat theory, also called integrated threat theory, attempts to explain how a perceived threat — as opposed to a real threat — can lead to prejudice between social groups. Proponents of this theory think that meat eaters who respond negatively to vegans believe that a vegan’s dietary choices pose a symbolic threat to their beliefs, attitudes, or morals. The authors of the 2015 study that we mentioned above write: “[V]egetarians’ and vegans’ voluntary abstention from meat eating, which conflicts with the omnivore majority’s values, represents a symbolic threat in ways that contribute to negative attitudes toward these targets.” Also, vegetarians and vegans are resisting cultural norms, which people might subliminally consider to be an existential threat. People may see vegetarians and vegans as undermining the current way of life, even if this current way of life exploits animals. For instance, Medical News Today spoke with a vegan who grew up in a relatively small community, and they said that “food figures heavily in culture and tradition, so rejecting food comes across as insulting or rebellious.” A study from 2018 looked at the attitudes toward vegans and vegetarians in New Zealand. The authors found that “attitudes toward vegans were significantly less positive than attitudes toward vegetarians, and male participants expressed significantly less positive attitudes toward both outgroups than female participants.” The authors write that “vegans could be viewed as threatening social stability by challenging social norms regarding dietary practices and also challenging normative moral beliefs about the status of nonhuman animals.” The authors believe that society prizes meat for more than its nutritional value, arguing that it has “symbolic associations with human dominance over nature.” When they dug into the psychological profiles of those who were most prone to have negative feelings toward veganism, the researchers found that these individuals were more likely to view the world as a dangerous place. As a result, they theorize that vegans represent “a perceived symbolic threat to social and cultural norms.”

Right-wing authoritarians The New Zealand study above also found that individuals with more right-wing political leanings had the highest tendency to view vegans unfavorably. This finding crops up in other similar studies. People who are more left-leaning are more likely to look favorably or neutrally on vegans. At the same time, people who follow a plant-based diet are more likely to be left-leaning. Vegans and vegetarians are also more likely to be middle-class, atheist or agnostic, white, educated, and female. A 2018 Gallup poll found that self-proclaimed liberals were more than five times as likely to be vegetarian as those who identified as conservative. Similarly, liberals were more than twice as likely as conservatives to be vegan. This finding implies that, at least in part, more right-wing people may see veganism as a sign that someone is ideologically different beyond their dietary choices, which could certainly play a role in the generation of negative feelings. A paper in the journal Personality and Individual Differences used two questionnaires to examine the relationship between right-wing adherents, meat consumption, and the treatment of animals. They concluded that “right-wing ideology predicts acceptance of animal exploitation and meat consumption.” Negativity toward vegetarians and vegans might extend far beyond dietary choice. Someone’s meal choice paints a picture of their likely political outlook and ideology. As the authors of one paper conclude: “Eating animals is not only a gustatory behavior, as widely believed, but also an ideological one.”