Green food is the new black!

Dear readers,

 

Green food is the new black! Do you also want to eat less meat but don’t where to start?

 

For a long time, I have wanted to eat less meat – why? Three reasons:

1. Animal welfare: I always try my best buying products where animals have been living their most “natural life”. However, sometimes it can be a jungle to figure out!
2. Health concerns: Studies show that eating less meat is good for your health by for example reducing the risk of heart disease, improving gut health, and may protect against certain cancers (Streit, 2021)
3. Environment (most important): Eating less meat is not the answer of our world-wide environmental problems. However, did you know that meat accounts for 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production? (Milman, 2021)! 

Thus, my consumer behaviour mainly stems from internal influences. Due to my value system, I have the motivation to eat less meat (Hoyer et al., 2018). Furthermore, I don’t know about you, but I also see the trend of eating greener everywhere! The concept of social influence comes to play here when we are affected by seeing celebrities from Ellen DeGeneres to Beyonce jumping on the green wave (Hoyer et al., 2018)!

 

And now it is my turn. To actively change my eating habits, I have done a “cold turkey” and tried to be a temporarily vegetarian the last two weeks. In this way I have forced myself to think in new patterns – and I have documented every step of the way in a diary.

 

I have always had two main concerns about being a vegetarian. First, has been my ability in terms of cognitive resources to cook dishes without meat. I have very limited knowledge and not a lot of experience. However, in these weeks I found that there is SO much help to find! One page that I have found inspirational is: https://www.instagram.com/vegan_govegan/. Second, has been my mind telling me that due to lack of time I haven’t had the right opportunity. “It is very time-consuming and complex to be a vegetarian” – do you know this sentence too?

 

However, now I can tell you that this is wrong. Our confirmation bias leads us to only recall information that is consistent with our beliefs and ignore contrary information (Hoyer et al., 2018). Trying out being a vegetarian I have found that in the beginning yes, it will take some effort because you must get familiar with new recipes. But along the way it will get easier and shift from the high effort decision-making to low effort because it becomes the “new normal” (Hoyer et al., 2018)! Beside that cooking without meat is also wayyyyy cheaper - some days I have been cooking dinner for under 5 AUD! Summing up, I had many experiences during my “cold turkey” that went well.

 

But it also comes with challenges. Being a temporary vegetarian made me realize how affected we are of our associative reference groups (Hoyer et al., 2018). I have felt how it can be difficult wanting to eat less meat when others do not. A quote from my diary: “I wanted to accommodate my parents’ wishes now they only were in Sydney for a few days – so I got it too”. Thus, this was a more difficult episode where I ate meat because of others. However, I learned how my personality is susceptible because I’m willing to be guided in my decisions (Hoyer et al., 2018).

 

In total I have learned a LOT in these two weeks, and I have tried to sum my experiences up to two pieces of life advice of the green lifestyle:

1. Make changes at your own pace. You do not have to become a vegetarian tomorrow, but you can make gradually changes. E.g., one meat free day a week
2. Be open-minded and break old consumption patterns. Get inspired and try new recipes but also stick to what you know and replace the meat with alternatives as tofu and beans 

Even though it has been two exciting weeks I have acknowledged that a fully vegetarian life is not for me. Beside the ups and downs, I still love a steak or fried chicken. But it has surprised me how eating less meat has positively influenced me - especially because it is in alignment with my values.

 

Thus, I will definitively introduce meat free days from now on! What about you? 

 

I hope that you can get inspired by my journey!

 

XX