More than a third of children in the US (aged 4-7) think cheese, bacon, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, shrimp, and hamburgers come from plants, a new study found. Researchers who asked children to categorize food items into ‘animal-based’ and ‘plant-based’ for the study, also found that nearly half of the children in this age-group think French fries come from animals.
According to the researchers, one reason for poor knowledge among children about the origins of common food items could be that “so many of them have very little exposure to how food is grown”. They cite at least two datasets supporting this hypothesis. Firstly, the number of children living on farms has dwindled in the US (U.S. Department of Agriculture data). Secondly, schools focus on teaching children what to eat, and don’t teach them enough about where food comes from.
“Parents may deliberately withhold information about animal slaughter in an attempt to safeguard children’s innocence, viewing the realities of meat production as too gruesome for children to know at a young age.”
The paper also proposes another reason why children may be ignorant about the source of animal-based food items – their parents are reluctant to have an honest conversation with them about how animal products are obtained. According to the researchers, this is especially likely since as adults, omnivores have a complex relationship with meat. While they are well aware of the animal-suffering that entails meat consumption, and may feel that the way animals are treated is unethical, they rationalize eating animals as “natural, normal, necessary, or nice” (often referred to as the “meat paradox”).
“Parents may be especially likely to misrepresent meat to children given their own complex relationship to animal foods.”
Apart from the sorting task mentioned before, children in the study also participated in an ‘eligibility task’. In this task, children indicated whether an item was OK to eat or NOT OK to eat. Items included animals normally eaten in the US (cow, pig, chicken, fish), ones not eaten normally (cat, horse, monkey, dog, caterpillar), edible plant-products (tomato, orange), and non-edibles (dirt, sand, grass).
A clear majority classified all except three items correctly. For example, most children classified animals not eaten in the U.S. and non-edibles correctly as NOT OK to eat. The majority also identified edible plant-products as OK to eat. However, more than two-thirds of the children classified cow, pig, and chicken as NOT OK to eat.
“The vast majority of young children’s errors (85%) represented times when children sorted food source animals as not OK to eat. Errors of this type were highest for mammals (e.g., cow, pig).”
Results of the sorting task suggests that not only children’s knowledge, but also attitudes regarding meat-consumption diverge markedly from those of adults. Specifically, they are less likely to condone eating the meat of cow or pig. It seems many children eat beef or pork but do not realize beef comes from cows or pork from pigs.
“One interpretation is that the value that children place on animals’ lives starts out high, but then wanes over the course of development as they acquire socially-held beliefs that prioritize humans and downplay the moral standing of non-humans.”
Current practices in farming and meat consumption contribute substantially to climate change. The findings suggest that children can act as “agents of change in the climate crisis” due to their innate concern for animal welfare, according to the researchers. But for this to happen, they insist children cannot be kept in the dark about how we obtain meat.
Read more about the study published in Journal of Environmental Psychology by Erin Hahn, Meghan Gillogly, and Bailey Bradford here.
