The reason why vegetarians are repelled by meat

Telegraph

13-05-2025

Many vegetarians feel disgust towards eating meat similar to the aversion widely felt towards cannibalism, research has found.
A study set out to investigate whether there is a difference in the psychological mechanisms by which people reject meat compared with vegetables.
In an online study involving 300 people, who were mostly vegetarians, researchers found people who reject vegetables they dislike do so because they feel distaste – a simple aversion to the taste, texture or smell of a food.
In contrast, when people dislike and reject meat that would be considered appetising by omnivores – such as roast chicken or beef steak – they feel the more complex emotion disgust, in a similar way meat-eaters were disgusted by the idea of eating human meat, faeces or dog meat.
Reaction helps people avoid eating meat
Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter, said: 'This is the most robust evidence to date that we reject meat and vegetables that we find repellent based on different underlying processes.
'Obviously, finding meat disgusting can help people avoid eating it, which has health and environmental benefits.
'Other research we've conducted suggests that these feelings of disgust may develop when people deliberately reduce or avoid eating meat, such as during Veganuary.'
The study recruited 252 people who reject meat and 57 omnivores who eat meat.
Researchers tested responses to images of 11 different foods, such as palatable meat, olives, sprouts, raw aubergine and beetroot.
Participants were asked several questions about how eating each of the foods would make them feel.
Each question was linked to either disgust or distaste, which allowed the researchers to make a distinction between what people felt when they rejected different foods.
Subjects also shown disgusting images
To compare reactions, the meat-eating participants were also shown images of substances overwhelmingly considered disgusting to eat, such as human flesh, dog meat and faeces.
The team recorded 557 rejections of meat and 670 rejections of vegetables.
Where participants said they would not eat the item pictured, they completed questions to investigate the grounds for rejection.
Consistently, people rejected vegetables they did not like based on distaste, and rejected meat and disgust elicitors in a strikingly similar disgust pattern.
Dr Elisa Becker, the study's lead author, said: 'Meat eaters responded to the idea of eating these truly disgusting substances like faeces in the same way that vegetarians responded to images of meat that they didn't want to eat, and this was very different from the way they responded to vegetables they rejected.
'Although we may think we're rejecting a food simply because we don't want to eat it, we showed that the basis for this rejection is quite different – and we think that's evolved to protect us from pathogens that can lie undetected in meat.'
The paper, Disgust And Distaste – Differential mechanisms for the rejection of plant- and animal-source foods, is published in the journal Appetite.