But we’re a meat-eating family”: Engaging environmentally concerned but politically distrustful groups on reducing meat and dairy

Using climate change as the main message to encourage dietary changes may not be effective. Participants related more to messages around reducing food waste, community food growing, and improving health and wellbeing.
Our food and dietary choices are associated with certain personal and cultural values. Family traditions and cultural roots in particular are strongly linked to people’s decisions to eat meat and dairy. From our workshops and interviews, some of our participants were uncomfortable
with the idea of cutting out meat from their diets completely.
Participants trusted people like them most of all, rather than outsiders, on meat and dairy.
With this group, we found a low level of trust in ‘elites’ (e.g., politicians, academics).
Terms such as ‘plant-based alternatives’ or ‘sustainable diets’ did not widely resonate. These were referred to as ‘middle class’, and participants felt like these terms do not acknowledge food cultures that already rely on vegetables. Using more straightforward language (e.g., ‘eat
more vegetables’) was more acceptable.