Meat, Dairy, Egg Consumption

The most exciting project this new year, is the release of our latest study examining how easy it is for the average person to read and understand animal advocacy literature. Specifically, HRC partnered with VegFund and FARM to evaluate the readability of the most widely distributed vegan outreach pamphlets.

Advocates can use sociological theories to understand some of the social and cultural barriers to vegetarian maintenance. During the course of my interviews with ex-veg'ns I found six common reasons as to why they struggled with the practice. These include family relationships, identity, the ambiguity of the veg'n label, gender roles, the influence of peers, and the temporary nature of trends.

For my master's thesis I sought to answer a very simple but important question that may offer assistance to both the strength and future of vegetarianism: Why do vegetarians go back to meat? What I call "vegetarian recidivism" or "backsliding." To begin to answer this question I thought of “going veg” within the context of a social movement. Within this body of literature researchers have investigated both what mobilizes and stabilizes members of a social movement, but there is scant research addressing why people disengage from a social movement. Further, within the body of research addressing vegetarianism specifically, there were several reputable studies investigating the process of becoming vegan, but very little about the barriers and struggles to maintaining the practice.