Italiano
Do you like meat? Yes?
And do you like animals? Is this also a “yes”?
So… how do you overcome this internal conflict?
Let me guess: you try not to think about the suffering they go through before being slaughtered and arriving on your plate?
Well… yes. You’re a hypocrite.
And myself, I love both animals and eating meat.
You and I, “we are both part of the same hypocrisy” as Michael Corleone said to the Senator of Nevada.
This is called Meat paradox: a person tends, even sincerely, to care about animals; neverthless, this does not mean they are willing to stop eating them (an atavistic habit of humans: not wanting to give up a caloric meal).
So, what do we try to do to avoid this cognitive dissonance?
Several papers have scientifically proven this.Among all, one with a very eloquent title: “Meat eaters by dissociation: How we present, prepare and talk about meat increases willingness to eat meat by reducing empathy and disgust” (J.R. Kunst and S.M. Hohle, University of Oslo, Norway).
There are various “tricks“: from using different names for the animal itself and the slaughtered piece (the cow becomes “beef“, the pig becomes “pork“). And then, describing industrial meat production as “harvesting” versus “killing” or “slaughtering”.
Cle(a)ver, isn’t it?…
And then, processed meat (cold cuts, beef jerky, meatballs…) is always less impressive than seeing an anatomical piece.
Or, if there really has to be the anatomical piece, well, at least the head shouldn’t be seen.
Because the head probably reminds us that that animal had a brain and a face, and it bleated/grunted/mooed.
And we don’t like to think so.
“People may escape the conflict between enjoying meat and concern for animal welfare by perceiving animals as unworthy and unfeeling” as was written in another article on the topic (“The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals “, S.Loughnan, N.Haslam, B.Bastian, from University of Melbourne, Australia).
Mind-blowing, right?
Anyway: if you work in catering or hospitality industry, and you are interested in my copywriting and/or content writing services, just drop me a message!
