The enjoyment of meat and simultaneous disapproval of hurting animals create an ambivalent relationship with meat consumption. Meat-eating justification strategies are a means of coping with such cognitive dissonance. We aimed to determine whether the use of such justification strategies to defend meat consumption is linked to the moral evaluation of diverse free-range, wild and conventional meat production systems (e.g. free-range chicken, wild fish and veal from conventional production). Moreover, we endeavoured to assess how these justification strategies are linked to the consumption of meat and consumers’ willingness to substitute (WTS) meat with alternatives. An online survey was conducted with 973 participants from Germany (49% men and 51% women) to assess meat-eating justification strategies (apologetic and unapologetic justification), moral evaluation of 12 meat (including fish) production systems, frequency of meat (including processed meat) consumption as well as WTS meat. All unapologetic justification strategies (e.g. denial of animals’ suffering, health justification) correlated positively with meat consumption (between r = 0.14 and r = 0.42, p < .001) and negatively with WTS meat (between r = −0.31 and r = −0.51, p < .001). Even though participants evaluated most of the conventional animal production systems to be morally not justifiable, they seemed not to behave accordingly with regard to meat consumption or WTS. Thus, it is unlikely that animal welfare in mass production systems can be a standalone motivation to initiate dietary changes, especially in those consumers who endorse unapologetic meat-eating justification strategies. Implications for policy and consumer behaviour are discussed.