Against this background, SRUC supported Nourish Scotland to run focus group discussions with 15 diverse people who eat meat as part of their normal diet, as a pilot study to shaping a larger upcoming research project. We recruited participants via an online form, paid £25 for them to join a 2-hour online session and to take a record of their meals in the week or so in the run up to it. We ran two sessions that took place in the last week of June 2024. People’s ages ranged from 25 to over 60, they were from various cultural backgrounds, they had no specific dietary requirements (except for one person), they were male and female, and based in Central Scotland.
We started by reflecting on the records they had kept of what meat they ate in the week before the session and what role it took in these meals. We then asked them what they cared about when they eat meat, how they might have swapped meat out of these meals (how easy it would have been for them to do so, how they would have felt about doing so), and ended with their thoughts about eating various meat substitutes.
Participants’ talk about what meats they had eaten during the previous week showed great complexity around what influenced their food choices. The discussion quickly became very personal and revealing.
They talked about who they normally eat their meals with, and these housemates’ likes, dislikes and dietary needs. Whether their housemates were present/absent that week and who did the cooking on the different days. This conversation was often about their stage in the family lifecycle with its particular schedules, preferences and budgets (catering to young kids, fitting in busy teenagers’ activities, making do on a tight budget), personal health risks and those of family members, the presence of guests that week. They said a lot about the time and energy they had available to make meals that week, the routine options that were available to them at work and what happened on the days that they were not at their usual workplace. What their usual shops offered and the seasonal availability of particular foods at this time of the year (hens laying loads of eggs, fresh herring(!) at the market). They talked about the cost of foods and of meat/meat products in particular. One participant mentioned that the size of supermarket portions (too large) encouraged his small household to consume much more meat than they would ideally choose to eat.
There was a lot of talk about the sorts of things they know how to cook. That led to people’s histories – of what they ‘were drawn to’ in terms of taste and routines (often to do with childhood /‘mum’s cooking’), what happened in their student years (budget, interest, political activism, peer pressures), and other life experience such as spending time in other food cultures or with people who had done so. There were comments about how meat-eating had changed over the years in other places (increased meat consumption in South India, white meat replacing fish in Japan), and how that had influenced what they chose to eat last week.
Some had a particular relationship with farming, animals and food production (past and current) and expressed concern about ethical issues around animal welfare that influenced their mealtimes to different degrees. Many felt they made compromises in terms of cost and availability. This also led to a discussion about their trust or mistrust in the suppliers they had sourced their meats from (supermarkets, independent butchers, farmers markets, friends with crofts), for some this was alongside their own animal rearing.
Their food choices had also strongly been influenced by society’s messaging around the health needs of different age groups (e.g. older people and young kids ‘need more protein’), and what foods are eaten at different times of the day, days of the week and special occasions. The role of meat in their lunches was different from dinners. There were bacon rolls and meat roasts on a Sunday. Celebrations and outings in that week involved eating more meat than if it had been a normal meal. These cultural habits also differed between the cultures that were represented in the session, with a Scottish evening meal featuring more meat than lunch, a Japanese preference for ‘lighter’ vegetable-based evening meals, Chinese eating similar foods for lunches and dinners.
We asked them to tell us what meats they might have been prepared to swap out of the particular meals they had eaten that week. Their limitations around swapping out had to do with lack of available options, and also options that met their taste- and health standards. So, most participants would have found this easier to do in their lunches (replacing the ham sandwich), or in those evening meals where meat took a smaller role (the peperoni pizza). However, they said that they would miss the flavour that comes from the small amounts of meat in these meals (the bacon in the pasta sauce). Some also ate meats (like frozen burgers, sausages and nuggets) that they said they would have found easy to replace with their veggie equivalents. They were easily available in the place they normally shopped and felt like an adequate straight swap. For some it was important that these foods were available at similar cost.
Some said they already ate fully vegetarian meals regularly (containing pulses, nuts, tofu, etc.) and were happy to make fully vegetarian meals more often. But others recognized that replacing the larger meat portions in their normal evening meals would be a much harder task for them. They were not going to substitute a pork chop or chicken leg with a bland lump of tofu or pile of chickpeas, and said they were not prepared to spend the additional time and energy that it would require of them to make up for the taste and texture of a tasty piece of meat. They also confessed to a limited cooking repertoire.
There were also a couple of participants who felt strongly that they would not swap meat out of their diets at any time. They could not see the point of doing so because in their view, the problem was not the meat itself but the flaws in the ways we manage animals. Besides, they were committed to eating meat as part of their balanced diet. For one person, their health required them to eat it.
We asked them how they felt about eating (more) plant-based meats, algae, insect protein, or lab-based meats. The issues they mentioned differed around these different products. As for plant-based meats, they were familiar with these products and had eaten them. However, some were reluctant to eat more of them. They said they much rather eat ‘proper’ vegetarian meals as compared with ‘fake meat’ which they saw as an unnecessary and inferior choice, in terms of taste and sustainability. Their limits were also around taste and texture. And additionally, these foods being ultra-processed, put them off in terms of their general health benefits. Some participants said that their cost put them off plant-based meat substitutes.
There was general hesitation around eating lab-based meats. And similarly, around eating insect protein. For most participants, this was mainly about health concerns and safety. Some felt they lacked information about what is in them but also recognised that their hesitation (around both) was ‘probably not rational’. Other participants were more familiar with some of these foods that were common in their culture but generally regarded as eaten by poorer or ‘other’ people and/or more commonly eaten in the past i.e. constituting further different reasons for not eating them as a normal part of their diet.
Most participants did not know where they could buy insect protein, lab-based meats or what algae-based foods looked like. Some had tried insects and algae on holiday in faraway places. Their limited local availability would obviously get in the way if they had wanted to increase their consumption of these. Protein shakes were commonly known by our participants as supplementary foods for (mostly male) sports practitioners. Those who were familiar with them, thought of them as expensive dietary supplements only, and felt that they were not up to standard in terms of taste, if anything. They could not think of these as replacing meat proteins in their diets.
They shared lots more about their lives. Someone confessed to having a soft spot for chicken nuggets that were the highlight of the Little Chef’s menu on their long childhood holiday journeys. Several people expressed concerns about the ‘mystery origins’ of pervasive obscure meat-based ingredients. They shared a link to The Insect Café. They acknowledged the lasting effects of being brought up during the BSE crisis and the scars of experimental ‘Meat-free Mondays’ school meals. They remembered times when The Bean Book, The Book of e-Numbers and the pressure cooker were key items in their kitchen, and most agreed that times had got better from when the only ‘vegetarian options’ in many places were an omelet or a fried egg.
The above is only a snapshot of the many themes we touched on. It felt like this group of diverse strangers did a deep dive into each other’s daily lives. Our discussions showed just how many spheres of life impacted their food /meat choices. It showed
- how most of the times that week, eating had been a social activity and therefore necessarily affected by other people and their relationships with them
- what kind of meat, how much of it, where it was sourced or cooked, was associated with their particular social identities. Their choices expressed how much they knew and cared about environmental sustainability and the food system, the ethics of meat production, their community, their health…
- their choices showed lots about their past and cultural preferences
- their concerns about cost and availability reflected where they lived, their stage in the life cycle and what they did for a living
If it were decided that reducing the amount of meat consumed in Scotland was a priority, tackling this would be a complex challenge for those in charge. Our discussions show that there would have to be action on at least some of the practicalities that get in the way of eating things other than meat, such as assistance with meal planning, recipes and perhaps other know-how and kitchen equipment. For sure, cost differentials, portion size and availability would have to be addressed. Increasing food and food system transparency (reassurance about ‘mystery’ ingredients, production and processing methods, especially where this involves animals/animal parts, where profits are made, nutrient values and safety, and more), is key to our participants as they decide where they put their (money and) trust when sourcing their foods, not least their meat. Transparency was also key to persuading them to try out less familiar alternatives. Cultural preferences, identity and social pressures around what is an acceptable meal were central to our discussions. For sure, shifting these cultural norms would be a slow and complex process.
They expressed a wish for a world in which they did not have to feel guilty about eating meat, whether this was about its alleged health effects, the ethics of its production methods, its climate emissions, or the exploitative nature of the food system in general. It was felt that improving on all, or any, of the above, surely would make this a better world, and not only for meat-eaters, whatever we are hoping for. On the positive side, most of them also agreed that their current world already offered them a much larger range of diverse food options than they had ever been offered before, including many more foods that can be considered to replace or reduce the meats in their meals, should anybody ever want to. It was a good place to end this discussion.
Miesbeth Knottenbelt, Pete Ritchie (Nourish Scotland) and Toritseju Beho (SRUC) (June 2024)
This pilot was funded by the UKRI AgriFood4NetZero Network+ for the scoping study “Harnessing insights from social and behavioural sciences to increase UK consumers’ awareness and acceptance of alternative proteins”. My deep thanks go to the participants in this pilot for their willingness to openly and honestly share their ideas thereby enabling these rich and interesting discussions.