A meaty matter. Pet diet and the vegetarian’s dilemma

Highlights

• This paper examined a dilemma experienced by meat-abstainers who have pets.

• The dilemma involves whether to feed their pet a vegetarian diet.

• Feeding pets an animal-based diet may promote their well-being but at the expense of other animals.

• Vegans and ethical meat abstainers were more likely to feed their pet a vegetarian diet.

• These individuals also expressed the most negativity when they fed their pets an animal-based diet.

Abstract

The present research examined pet ownership, current pet diet, and guilt associated with pet diet among a fairly large sample of non-meat-eaters (n = 515). It specifically focused on the conflict that pits feeding one’s pet an animal-based diet that may be perceived as best promoting their well-being with concerns over animal welfare and environmental degradation threatened by such diets, here labeled the vegetarian’s dilemma. Questionnaire responses indicated that ethically motivated meat abstainers were more likely to own pets and owned more of them than those motivated by health concerns or a combination of ethical and health concerns. Vegans and those resisting meat on ethical grounds were more likely to feed their pet a vegetarian diet and expressed the greatest concerns over feeding their pet an animal-based diet. For vegans and ethical meat abstainers, it is suggested that questions concerning what to feed their pet approaches a tragic tradeoff contrasting two sacred values: protecting the well-being of their pets and protecting the well-being of other animals and the environment. For meat abstainers motivated by health concerns, this constitutes a relatively easy moral problem because the primary concern for such individuals is the health of their pet with less or no regard for other ramifications of the decision, i.e., harming other animals or the environment.

Introduction

As implied by a well-known bumper sticker, “If you love animals, stop eating them,” vegetarians are thought to have a particular affinity and regard for non-human animals. More than a myth of popular culture, there is empirical support for the notion that compared to omnivores, vegetarians have different cognitions and emotions about animals. For example, the more committed to vegetarianism respondents were, the more positive were their attitudes toward animals as assessed by Herzog’s Animal Attitudes Scale (Herzog, Betchart, & Pittman, 1991) and the greater their concern for animal suffering (Ruby, Cheng, & Heine, 2011). Relative to omnivores, vegetarians had higher brain activation of empathy-areas of the brain while viewing negative valence animal images (Fillipi & et al., 2010). Part of these differences in empathy may be related to vegetarians judging animals to share more similar emotional states to humans, especially secondary emotions (e.g., nostalgia, regret, etc.; Bilewicz, Imhoff, & Drogosz, 2011). In addition, one of the most common reasons for abandoning meat is to prevent cruelty to animals (Rothgerber, 2013a, Rozin et al., 1997); consistent with these motives, vegetarians held negative explicit and implicit attitudes toward meat associating it with disgust, the killing of animals, and cruelty (De Houwer and De Bruycker, 2007, Kenyon and Barker, 1998).

It seems reasonable, then, that pet ownership may be one vehicle among many for vegetarians to express their compassion and warmth toward animals. Consistent with this expectation, male vegetarians had significantly more positive attitudes toward pets than non-vegetarian males (Preylo & Arikawa, 2008).

However, an interesting quandary arises when considering vegetarians as pet owners, raised by Herzog (1991) in academic work and more recently on numerous internet message boards, often in the form of whether vegetarians or vegans should own pets at all.² The issue, in this case, involves pet diet. The most common pets in the US, dogs and cats, are carnivores³ and would typically eat a diet laden in animal protein sources. Given the relatively high, daily calorie demands of some common pets [e.g., Labrador Retrievers, 980–1300 calories; German Shepherds, 1300–1650 (Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, 2013)], that around half of pet dogs and cats are obese (Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, 2011), that the vast majority of pet owners feed their pets commercial diets (Willoughby & et al., 2005), and that the primary ingredients in most commercial pet food (besides water) are animal protein sources, it becomes apparent that pets are serious meat/fish consumers, in some cases consuming more meat/fish per day than would be expected of humans. As illustrated by the opening quote, then, pets may undo the positive gains brought on by their caretakers’ vegetarianism.

This, then, represents the vegetarian’s dilemma: how to reconcile feeding one’s pet an animal-based diet that may be perceived as best promoting their well-being with concerns over animal welfare and environmental degradation threatened by such diets? Ultimately, it is a question of how to make pet ownership, fueled by vegetarians’ positive attitudes and emotions toward animals, consistent with their own vegetarianism. The current research represents an initial investigation of this dilemma certain to generate more attention as vegetarians continue to examine the impact of their behaviors beyond their own diet. Several questions relating to the vegetarian’s dilemma were examined: (1) How likely are vegetarians to own pets and how many pets do they own? (2) What type of diet do vegetarians feed their pets? (3) For those vegetarians feeding their pets primarily a meat/fish-based diet, how much guilt do they experience as a result of this diet? (4) Finally, what might mediate this pet food guilt?

For some meat abstainers, this dilemma produced when living with meat eating pets may rise to what Tetlock (Tetlock, 2003, Tetlock et al., 2000) has called a tragic tradeoff. Tragic tradeoffs occur when individuals are forced to choose between two sacred values, values that possess transcendental significance without comparison and that cannot be compromised (Tetlock, 2003, Tetlock et al., 1996). If feeding one’s pet meat/fish is perceived as necessary for their good health and animal-based diets are perceived as unethical because they contribute to cruelty to animals and to environmental decay, the vegetarian’s dilemma pits harming one’s beloved pet with harming other animals and the environment, both of which may constitute absolute prohibitions offering no simple solution.

Tetlock’s (1986) value pluralism model (VPM) proposes that individuals will be motivated to think about and act effortfully to resolve tension between important and equally ranked values in order to counter the negative cognitive and emotional states produced by such conflicts. The basic premise of the present research, then, is that the more the question of pet diet represents a choice between two deeply held values – affection for animals and concern that animal-based diets unethically harm the animals used for food – the more likely the individual is to resolve the conflict, and the greater the guilt when failing to do so.

One’s sensitivity to the large number of animals that are slaughtered annually to satisfy the needs of pet owners should fundamentally be determined by an individual’s motives for meat abstention and commitment to the practice. The present study, then, examined whether the vegetarian’s dilemma depended on the type of vegetarian being studied, dividing respondents according to their diet (vegetarian vs. vegan) and on their motive for meat abstention (health vs. ethical vs. mixed).

In the case of diet, a chief distinction can be made between vegetarians, those who avoid meat and seafood, and vegans, those who avoid all animal products including dairy and eggs. Evidence suggests that vegans are more animal-friendly than vegetarians. Vegans believed that animals were more similar in their emotionality to humans (Rothgerber, 2013a), expressed greater concern over the impact of their diet on animal welfare (Ruby, 2008), scored higher on Herzog’s (1991) animal attitudes scale (Ruby et al., 2011), and offered more animal-related explanations for their diet than did vegetarians (Rothgerber, 2013a). On the extreme end of the vegetarian continuum, some vegans believe that animals should not be the property of humans at all. However, even these abolitionists generally believe in pet adoption and rescue as long as pets are not acquired from puppy mills, pet stores, and other breeders (Grindell, 2010).

With their relatively greater affection toward animals, it was expected that vegans would more likely be caretakers of pets than vegetarians and would have more pets than vegetarians. Because vegans are also particularly sensitive to concerns that their diet negatively harms other animals going so far as to avoid all animal by-products, it was expected that vegans would be less likely to feed their pets meat/fish and would express greater guilt when doing so.

In addition to diet, differences in motivation for meat abstention were considered. These motives are important in explaining attitudes between meat abstainers (Rothgerber, 2013b), with the two most common motives involving ethics (primarily the treatment of animals and to a lesser extent, the environment) and personal health. Ethical vegetarians resist meat largely because it increases animal suffering and because of their belief that modern-day factory farming is inhumane (Rothgerber, 2013a, Rozin et al., 1997). They frame their diet within a philosophical, ideological, or spiritual context (Fox & Ward, 2008) and are motivated by humanistic values (Lindeman & Sirelius, 2001), including strong feelings of affinity toward animals. This affinity is reflected in their belief that animals have primary and secondary emotions similar to humans (Rothgerber, 2013a). Ethical vegetarians displayed stronger opposition to foxhunting than other vegetarians (Hamilton, 2006) and compared to health vegetarians, reported being more disgusted by meat and expressed stronger emotional reactions to meat consumption (Rozin et al., 1997). In general, ethical vegetarians share more similarities with vegans than do other vegetarians and are more likely to transition to veganism than health vegetarians (Jabs, Devine, & Sobal, 1998).

In contrast, the focus within health vegetarians is internal, addressing desires to sustain good health and avoid illness. Personal health, fitness and energy are valued rather than other living creatures (Fox & Ward, 2008). Many health vegetarians traced their diet to personal experiences rather than ideology. Lindeman and Sirelius (2001) suggested that the ideology of health vegetarians is more conservative and normative value driven, concerned with personal safety and security. Health vegetarians tend to gradually eliminate meat from their diet and are less likely to eliminate all animal products from their diet (Jabs et al., 1998). As such, they appear to be closer to the mainstream than ethical vegetarians and seem less concerned with animal welfare. To the extent that meat-based pet diets are perceived as healthy, health motivated meat abstainers should experience little or no guilt from feeding their pets such diets as this group is less sensitive to the welfare of animals slaughtered for pet food.

However, because ethical vegetarians attach an “ought” to avoiding meat (i.e., it constitutes a sacred value in Tetlock’s terms) and show concern that others eat meat (Rozin et al., 1997), the vegetarian’s dilemma should resonate more strongly with them than with health vegetarians. That is, because of their greater affinity toward and concern with animals and belief that meat consumption harms animals, ethically-motivated meat abstainers should be more likely to be pet owners, feed their pets vegetarian diets, and feel more guilt when feeding their pets a diet based in animal protein sources than those meat abstainers motivated by health concerns. That those most sensitive to the ethical implications of eating meat experience the most guilt feeding their pet meat has been supported by Wakefield, Shofer, and Michel (2006), who found that ethical reasons were cited predominately among those feeding their cats vegetarian diets.

These predictions suggest that vegans and ethically motivated meat abstainers are most befuddled by the vegetarian’s dilemma primarily because of their greater sensitivity to animal welfare. One factor that is positively related to animal welfare sensitivity is the degree to which animals are perceived to be similar to humans in their emotionality (Rothgerber, 2013a; see also Bilewicz et al., 2011). Stated differently, Bastian, Loughnan, and colleagues have found that denying animal mental capacities – emotional and cognitive – reduces moral concern for them and thus, facilitates the consumption of animals. Eating animals, expecting to eat them, and even being made to think about certain animals as categories of food led to greater perceived human–animal differences (Bastian et al., 2012, Bratanova et al., 2011, Loughnan et al., 2010). The present work expanded this logic to motivated perceptions brought on not by what individuals eat for themselves but what they feed their pets. Based on the denial of animal mind phenomenon, it was expected that those who perceive animals and humans as being more similar in emotionality should particularly experience guilt when feeding their pets meat. In these instances, by failing to establish and maintain conceptions of human uniqueness, individuals would be unable to subjectively minimize the psychological costs of their actions. Specifically, it would seem difficult to justify killing animals that experience human-like feelings in order to feed one’s pet. After all, anthropocentric human preferences favor those viewed as more similar to humans and attach greater pain to their suffering. For those who do not perceive animals and humans as possessing similar emotions, concerns over animals used in pet food would be mitigated because as Bilewicz et al. (2011), Loughnan et al. (2010), and Bastian et al. (2012) have suggested, such a strategy of moral disengagement creates a wall of indifference between human and animal. This apathy may foster justifications that animals are here to serve human needs and that they do not experience pain and suffering in the same capacity as humans (see Rothgerber, 2012). This is all to suggest that belief in animal–human emotional similarity may mediate the relationship between meat abstention status and guilt from feeding one’s pet a meat/fish-based diet.

Alternatively, greater guilt among vegans and ethically motivated meat abstainers may result not from differences in perceptions about the animals used to compose pet food, but from perceptions that these diets are unhealthy and inappropriate for their pets. This alternative process account was also examined in a meditational analysis.

Participants were recruited primarily through the Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org). According to their website, “The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public on vegetarianism and the interrelated issues of health, nutrition, ecology, ethics, and world hunger.” A brief recruitment notice for a study on vegetarians and vegans was posted on the organization’s blog, facebook and twitter accounts, and in national and local newsletters along with a link to the survey monkey website hosting the survey. Participants were offered entry into a $50 lottery drawing in appreciation for their participation. The survey was accessible from October 29, 2012 to November 21, 2012.

During this period, 588 individuals responded to the survey. 73 respondents were excluded from data analysis because they indicated that they were neither vegetarian nor vegan or did not abstain from meat for reasons involving ethics, health, or a mix of the two. In the end, data from 515 participants were used. Some participants were excluded from selected analysis because they failed to answer question items or because their answers to prior questions disqualified them. Of the total sample, 83% were females. 81% listed the US as country of origin; 9% listed Australia, 6% Canada, 3% Europe and less than 1% another country. The mean age of participants was 39.1 (SD = 12.3). The sample was well-educated: 4% reported less than a high school education; 8% reported completing high school; 8% reported having an associate’s degree; 40% reported having a college degree; and 40% reported having a graduate degree.

Participants’ diet was assessed with a single-item question asking which diet applied to them: vegetarian, vegan, or none of the above. Participants who selected the last response were excluded from the analysis. After these omissions, 61% described themselves as vegan (n = 315) and 39% as vegetarian (n = 200).

To assess their motives for following their current diet, participants chose between one of the following options: “I avoid eating meat primarily for ethical reasons;” “I avoid eating meat primarily for health reasons;” “Ethical and health reasons are about equal in importance to me; or none of the above.” In total, 56% reported avoiding meat for ethical reasons (n = 286), 14% for health reasons (n = 70), and 31% for a combination of ethics and health (n = 159). Combining diet and motives, 6% of respondents were health vegetarians (n = 30), 12% were mixed-motive vegetarians (n = 61), 21% were ethical vegetarians (n = 109), 8% were health vegans (n = 40), 19% were mixed-motive vegans (n = 98), and 34% were ethical vegans (n = 177).

Participants were asked whether they had any “dogs or cats as pets.” 72% responded affirmatively. The other respondents were omitted from the following measures.

Participants were asked to indicate how many pets they had. As with the previous item, measures did not distinguish between cat and dog ownership.

Participants were asked to estimate what percent of their pet’s diet was from meat and fish by checking one of the following: above 90%; 75–90%; 50–75%; 25–50%; and below 25%. 23.4% of respondents (n = 86) chose one of the last two options and were excluded from the next set of questions.

To assess how much guilt they experienced from feeding their pets a predominately meat/fish-based pet diet, participants were asked five questions: “I have spent time thinking about how my pet’s diet is different from my own;” “It does not bother me that my pet eats a diet containing meat/fish;” “I feel like a hypocrite feeding my pet their current diet;” “I am satisfied with the diet of my pet;” and “I am interested in learning about alternatives to my pet’s current diet.” Answers were scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = disagree strongly; 7 = agree strongly), with the even items being reverse scored. Correlations between these five measures were high⁴ so they were also combined to form an overall measure of pet food guilt.

To assess the extent to which participants believed animals possessed emotional states similar to humans, a scale was derived from the work of Bilewicz et al. (2011). Specifically, participants were asked to indicate the human uniqueness of eight emotions on a scale ranging from 1 (animals and humans have this emotion to the same degree) to 7 (only humans have this emotion). The eight emotions were used by Bilewicz et al. (2011): fear; panic; excitement; happiness; melancholy; guilt; regret; and nostalgia. The items together displayed solid reliability (alpha = .83) and were combined to form a single measure.

Two items assessed whether participants perceived their current pet’s diet as healthy and appropriate: “It would be unhealthy to feed my pet a diet largely or completely vegetarian;” and “My pet is meant to eat their current diet.” Answers were scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = disagree strongly; 7 = agree strongly).