Mean People Eat Meat

August 31, 2008


The Dexter intro links eggs and meat to serial killing.

More evidence of the links between oppressions. The oppression of women, people of color, animals, and everyone “different” from those in power:

The Social Power Symbolism of Beef Sausage Roll versus a Vegetarian Alternative

Individuals differ in how much they seek to control or dominate people and resources. Schwartz (1994) suggests that people who seek these outcomes as lifelong goals endorse a set of human values, termed social power, which include values such as seeking authority, wealth, social recognition, and preserving one’s public image. The social power domain has consistently emerged in cross-cultural studies of values, and people who support social power values exhibit related behaviors, such as pressuring others to go along with their preferences and opinions (Bardi and Schwartz 2003). Thus, we selected meat for the food taste test because a consensus exists among sociologists and anthropologists that meat symbolizes social power and related values [...]. Fruits, vegetables, and grains symbolize the opposite of red meat (i.e., social equality and rejection of power). Using a sample randomly selected from Australian telephone books, Allen and Ng (2003) found that red meat symbolized inequality more than the other food groups, and consumption of red meat was more strongly correlated with social power values than other value domains. Further, Lea and Worsley (2001) found that heavy meat eaters endorsed social power more than vegetarians. Meat is the central, preeminent food in Western culture (Douglas 1973). Moreover, heavy meat eaters claim that they eat so much meat because it tastes good [...] and thus it would be worthwhile to examine if this impression stems from the objective properties of the food or the cultural meanings it embodies. Given that the human values that vegetables and grains symbolize are the opposite of what red meat symbolizes, the food category that might best resemble red meat in taste but have a symbolism in direct opposition, is a vegetarian alternative to meat products (e.g., vegetarian hotdogs, sausages, burgers). To determine which vegetarian alternative most resembles meat, we performed a pilot study involving 19 volunteers (3 male, 16 female undergraduate students) willing to eat meat and without any food allergies. Each participant ate three types of leading, grain-based meat substitutes (Sanitarium Nutmeat Sauce, Sanitarium Vegetarian Sausage Roll Mix in Canola Puff Pastry, and Longa-life Vegetarian Hotdog in a bread roll). After consuming each product, participants rated the following items: flavorsome, pleasant aroma, tasty, tastes like meat, smells like meat, and looks like meat. Then participants were asked whether or not each food was real meat (yes or no). According to the results, the nutmeat sauce was perceived as looking more like meat than the vegetarian sausage roll and hotdog (M p 6.2 vs. 5.7 and 5.0), but the vegetarian sausage tasted more like meat than the nutmeat sauce and hotdog (M p 5.0 vs. 4.7 and 4.5), and the vegetarian sausage roll smelled more like meat than the nutmeat sauce and hotdog (M p 5.1 vs. 3.9 and 4.8). In addition, 69% of the participants believed that the vegetarian sausage roll was in fact meat, compared to 37% for the nutmeat sauce and 37% for the hotdog. These results indicated that the Sanitarium Vegetarian Sausage Roll Mix in Canola Puff Pastry was believable and credible as a meat product, and thus it was selected for the main study. As the other product in the taste test, we selected a beef sausage roll (Mrs. Quick Premium brand). In the main study, the two foods (Mrs. Quick Premium beef sausage roll and the Sanitarium Vegetarian Sausage Roll) were presented to participants without brand names, simply described as a “beef sausage roll” or a “vegetarian alternative roll.” Given that previous research found that meat symbolizes social power and related values (i.e., inequality) and that fruits, vegetables, and grains symbolize the rejection of power (Adams 1990; Allen and Ng 2003; Fiddes 1991; Heisley 1990; Lea and Worsley 2001; Twigg 1983), we surmised that the beef sausage roll symbolizes the endorsement of social power values (as it is made from red meat), and the vegetarian alternative roll symbolizes the rejection of social power (being made from cereals/grains and vegetables). To confirm this, we performed another pilot study involving 59 undergraduate students and university staff members (males p 27, females p 32). A common technique employed in market research to measure the image of a product is to ask participants to describe the values, traits, and characteristics of the typical product user (Belk, Bahn, and Mayer 1982; Grubb and Hupp 1968; Levy 1959; Rudmin 1991). Hence, participants were given the ingredients of both the sausage roll and the vegetarian alternative roll and then asked to indicate to what to extent they agreed or disagreed that people who prefer each product endorse social power (using a 7-point Likert scale and Schwartz’s [1994] definition of the social power value). As predicted, the beef sausage roll more strongly symbolized social power than did the vegetarian alternative (M p 3.7 vs. 3.2), ( F(1, 58) p 7.4, p ! .01). In short, the pilot studies showed that the beef sausage roll and the vegetarian alternative roll differ in social power symbolism and that the vegetarian alternative roll tastes like meat.

Emphasis added. Source: The Interactive Effect of Cultural Symbols and Human Values on Taste Evaluation

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Miscellaneous 

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