Researchers said changing packaging on meat and dairy-free products, which often proudly tout their vegan status, could result in more people selecting them.

People are more likely to pick a meat-free option if it’s not labelled vegan, a study suggests.

Foods described as “healthy”, “sustainable” or “plant-based” are all more appealing, according to the University of Southern California.

Its research saw more than 7,000 people asked to choose between a vegan food basket and one with meat and dairy.

The former was randomly labelled “vegan”, “plant-based”, “healthy”, “sustainable” or “healthy and sustainable”.

The experiment found people were more likely to select it when the focus was on its benefits (such as “sustainable”) rather than its content, though “plant-based” was still more popular than “vegan”.

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    1 year ago

    False dichotomy.

    There’s a number of other alternatives:

    reduction in global population has already been mentioned, but there’s also technology change (industrialised farming has kept us well ahead of the “we can’t feed that many people” curve for a century);

    and technology advances in what we eat (lab grown meat etc);

    there are also unexploited sources of protein such as insects.