Many vegetarians eat dairy and eggs, despite the fact that these also contribute, in many cases, to the death of animals, just like consuming meat does. But how do they justify this? Here are some answers indicated by FoodNavigator, citing Apetite.

Ethical reasons?

Many vegetarians choose not to consume meat for ethical reasons, believing that harming and killing animals simply to provide food for humans is wrong. However, they still eat non-meat animal products (NMAP), which often have the same result. A new study in the journal Appetite explores the motivations behind this.

"The meat paradox" is the concept, first invented in 2010 by Steve Loughnan, Nick Haslam, and Brock Bastian, of the psychological conflict people feel between their moral disapproval of killing animals for meat and their still craving the taste of meat.

When we experience such a feeling, the study proposes, we face a dilemma between desired behavior and morality. When this happens, "reduction of dissonance strategies are considered on one of the three paths: changing values, changing behavior, or hiding the behavior-value contradiction."

However, the new study instead examines the cognitive dissonance that vegetarians experience between their rejection of consuming meat and their desire to eat NMAP, which often have the same result (suffering and indeed death of animals).

The study interviewed 12 vegetarians about their reasons for consuming eggs and dairy, even when they were aware that these practices often had similar outcomes for animals as consuming meat.

While there were some issues with the study - sample size, the possibility that subjects knew the researchers' ethical veganism, as they were extracted from acquaintances - it still presented a clear cognitive dissonance between the subjects' ethical attitudes towards animal-derived products and their consumption habits.

Cognitive dissonance

Many of the subjects had a strong aversion to NMAPs when they were more closely linked to animals, such as meat itself. For example, many were more comfortable eating cheese than drinking milk. This, the study suggests, is because milk is closer to the cow in production than cheese, whose processing made it harder to associate with their perception of cruelty in the dairy industry.

"I believe that because when it's in liquid form," one subject said, "you relate more to what you consume. When it's in a block, you don't really think, oh, this is cruelty because you don't see it right in front of you. So, I think the process it goes through to make cheese, for some reason in my mind, makes it more justified [...] when you see it in the form of milk, it just seems more wrong."

The study also found that people were aware that the production of these NMAPs often actually led to the death of the animal - male chicks are usually killed at birth, for example, and male calves are often shot or sold to the veal industry to be killed for their meat - but this did not discourage them from eating them.

The subjects often justified their consumption by referring to more ethical farming practices, such as free-range farms, although they admitted they did not know enough about these to make an informed decision.

"Hm, well, I don't like to make sure," one subject said, "but I just think that the place has the right regulations and things are done properly. And there are some places where things are very strict and done the best. I've been to such places."

Not natural

Many people justify meat consumption by appealing to how natural it is - being successful hunters contributed to human evolution, and many other species are carnivores and omnivores by nature. However, according to Devon Docherty, one of the authors of the paper, this is not used as a justification when it comes to NMAPs.

"From the research I've done," she told FoodNavigator, "I think those who eat only NMAPs tend to acknowledge that they are not absolutely necessary in their diet and see them as a pleasant, albeit important, addition, whereas those who eat meat tend to see it as fundamental to their diet.

"While people who eat meat tend to use the argument that it is natural to do so, we found a clear absence of 'natural' arguments for the consumption of NMAPs, perhaps because it is not natural to eat products like cheese, the coagulated secretions of another species."

Indeed, products like cheese - which was the NMAP consumed with the most enthusiasm among subjects - are intimately tied to humans and, most importantly, to civilization and innovation, rather than our "natural," prehistoric habits. Even milk is not as prevalent in the natural world as meat consumption.

"I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, but I believe people would have started consuming dairy during the agricultural revolution, when we began to domesticate animals," Docherty told us.

"Milk would have been a useful source of hydration and calories in areas where drought caused shortages, and in colder regions where crops are harder to grow. As for eggs, we probably would have been eating them much longer - they are commonly found in the wild and we would have eaten them raw from nests - and the domestication of chickens provided us with a ready supply.

"As society advanced and made these products tastier (such as by cooking them and creating cheese) and even more available, we developed a greater taste and possible cravings for them. However, that doesn't mean we still need these products for our survival."

Social survival

The study subjects did not focus on the idea of necessity (except when it came to egg consumption) but rather the pleasure associated with cheese, as well as social pressures related to meat consumption.

Contrary to popular belief, the study suggested, there is social pressure on vegans to justify their eating habits.

"I think I'll always hesitate to define, put someone in a box," one subject said, "because a vegetarian is not as stigmatized as a vegan, but as vegans are horribly abused, just because they are put in a box.

"As if there are different vegans who believe different things, and vegans for different reasons, but all are put in one box and avoided [...] I don't want to get into that because that comes with these preconceived notions of what it means to be 'that'."

So, while the argument for consuming NMAPs was not in favor of nutritional survival, when it came to social survival, it was a different story.

The future of animal-derived products

Docherty, herself an ethical vegan, doesn't believe that NMAPs can be produced ethically without technological innovation.

"The only scenario in which industrial production of NMAPs can continue without cruelty is if and when they are made through precision fermentation or other food technology that can produce these products almost exactly without harming an animal," she said.

"Food technology is the way to go when it comes to replacing traditional animal proteins."

(Source: Appetite - 'The cheese paradox: How do vegetarians justify consuming non-meat animal products?' Authors: D. Docherty, C. Jaspers)