The results imply that people are willing to pay more for eating more humane meat over non-meat substitutes even when it doesn’t taste any better and is equally healthy. My guess is that a big part of this is people not interpreting the question literally: they don’t actually believe the “animal-free (plant-based or vegan) meat substitutes on the market that have the same nutritional value as meat and are about as tasty and cheap as meat” premise. Many people are familiar with existing substitutes and with animal advocate claims that they’re “about as tasty” which are inconsistent with their experience eating them.
For example, I predict that if you asked omnivores “Imagine you were at a friend’s house and were served a meal containing animal-free (plant-based or vegan) meat substitutes that had the same nutritional value as meat and were about as tasty as meat. If they didn’t tell you that these were animal-free, would you enjoy eating them (a) more, (b) less, or (c) about the same than if your friend had served meat?” you’ll get aggregate results (b) > (a)> (c) even though interpreting the question literally you pretty much have to put (c).
The results imply that people are willing to pay more for eating more humane meat over non-meat substitutes even when it doesn’t taste any better and is equally healthy. My guess is that a big part of this is people not interpreting the question literally: they don’t actually believe the “animal-free (plant-based or vegan) meat substitutes on the market that have the same nutritional value as meat and are about as tasty and cheap as meat” premise. Many people are familiar with existing substitutes and with animal advocate claims that they’re “about as tasty” which are inconsistent with their experience eating them.
For example, I predict that if you asked omnivores “Imagine you were at a friend’s house and were served a meal containing animal-free (plant-based or vegan) meat substitutes that had the same nutritional value as meat and were about as tasty as meat. If they didn’t tell you that these were animal-free, would you enjoy eating them (a) more, (b) less, or (c) about the same than if your friend had served meat?” you’ll get aggregate results (b) > (a)> (c) even though interpreting the question literally you pretty much have to put (c).