Based on my blogpost here
Change the main ask from veganism to IMPACTarianism to do the most good for animals.
IMPACTarianism: Boycott animal bodies, eggs, and dairy at least 6 out of 7 days on average and don’t publicly check ingredient lists.
It upholds veganism's "as far as possible and practicable" caveat, just recast in a different tradition that emphasises the outcomes (total number of animals in the system) and the impact at the group level of society more than a human individual.
Practical benefits:
Lower barrier to entry; decrease in outreach dismissal.
More accessible, viral, and sticky.
An easy impact and movement multiplier.
We live in this universe with a moral impediment: the permanent structural impossibility of acting in the world without harming or manipulating someone.
Every day we make trade-offs between direct and indirect death, enslavement and suffering in our choices.
Every vegan's lifestyle is not superior to every non-vegan's, regarding animal suffering or deaths caused.
Investigated further, veganism is not completely well-defined and any true vegan limit is always "However far I go".
A truly holistic ethics would be far from simple; exploitation is a vague predicate and no-one can be consistent. For all its talk of rights, veganism has no substantive theory of them, their origins and conditions of overriding.
Veganism as a tradition/practice misaligns with its anti- ‘killing, exploitation/injustice, and suffering’ aims, for example in cases of freeganism or commissioning indirect harms.
Veganism is not cruelty free (eg crop deaths, palm oil, coltan, pesticides) and is an arbitrary “moral baseline” (why not Jainism, minimal plastic waste, minimal travel and activism too?)
One should be drawn to veganism in youth but renounce its particular puritanism upon later examination.
Vegans need to stop believing some of their own most extreme propaganda about “cruelty-free” or “minimising cruelty” (both trivially false).
This variant of deontic puritanism is the dominant ask merely because of the historical accident of first mover advantage and seldom-challenged marketing mythology.
For many of its adherents, veganism can become an end-in-itself / the only thing that matters (a form of value capture).
However, turning away from veganism is asking people to give up an identity that they have derived status from and invested esteem and effort into, not just some mere point in argument.
Opportunity cost* of promoting Prohibition instead of Reducetarianism:
▷ Resistance from threatened masculinity, cultural identity, or those who wont otherwise consider full abstinence.
▷ Misplaced effort, time, money and bad PR on diminishing returns, eg instead of checking ingredient lists for minutiae or expend resources procuring alternative products, one could pick litter, do street outreach, work paid overtime, or campaign for systemic change.
*These costs are paid by the suffering and deaths that we fail to avert.
Demarcation of animal “use” and “product” across the whole supply chain; the tradition results in a myopic focus on a contrived notion of participation rather than difference-making, insensitive to indirect killing and suffering
▷ Corollary: Reconciling deontic and consequentialistic reasons, whileaccounting for possible Logic of the Logger, wild animal hunting as suffering reduction, and cluelessness arguments
Demarcation of slavery from welfare issues. Do deontic purists prohibiting exploitation need a theory of what is unjust use of power and a position on keeping pets?
Demarcation matters because veganism is often thought to be sharply-defined and that it has correspondingly sharply-defined obligations.
There is also the empirical issue that vegan movement growth has plateaued.
The vast amount of people (43%-81%) would never even consider going vegan.
Veganism chooses personal purity over effective advocacy; its present dominance is an opportunity cost to helping animals.
We should displace veganism as the tentpole advocacy ask and identity.
If someone says “I could never give up Christmas dinner”
Then the advocate should reply “Then don’t worry about that day; focus on the other 364 days and why you are doing it!”
For many people, animal products will be a chronic relapsing condition.
Shun the naïve “I could go vegan, therefore you can too” mindset.
You are not your audience.
Although one size never fits all, some strategies will meet people where they are better than others.
The cost of the vegan ask is too high for most people. Dismissively high. Because of this immediate turning off, we lose a person’s potentially lifelong lifestyle actions and we lose them giving any headspace to animal protection.
A less stringent ask can increase the basic reproduction number R₀ and reduce the total number of animal victims in the system more than veganism.
Quantity matters and we can and must realign veganism's "as far as possible and practicable" stipulation to the more holistic perspective - doing good at the level of society as a whole.
Readjust our lenses.
Rethink “Just go vegan”
Enter a strong reducetarianism.
Existing reducetarianisms:
Existing vague terms:
Reducetarianism is often associated with only mild or “anything goes” reductions of meat only.
Thus far, no well-defined near-vegan reducetarianism has been coined.
Other existing interventions:
Possible names:
Aspirational vegan
Semi-vegan
Near-vegan
Apparently vegan
Imperfect vegan
Impuretarian
Lazy veganism
Lite-veganism
Loose veganism
Vegan enough
Impact vegan
Impactarian
Vegan-lite
Flexigan
FTA diet
Effective Reducetarian
Welfaretarian
Meat rationer
Special occasionarian
Abolitionuary
Veganism++
Suffering reducer
Reduce weight purchased
Eat larger animals
Low-cruelty diet
Low-animal diet
Direct protein diet
Plant-rich diet
Animal product limiter
Avoider
Reducer
Avoidatarian
Compassionate consumer
Compassionarian
Compassionists
Careivores
Caregan
Kindarian
Coefficientarianism
Critical contextual veganism
Strong reducetarianism
Strict-
Stringent-
Demanding-
Major-
High-
Highly-restrictive-
Heavy-
What to measure? Possibilities:
How to track compliance? Possibilities:
Change the main ask – do the most good for animals!
Boycott animal bodies, eggs, and dairy at least 6 out of 7 days, on average.
…Judge food by general knowledge; don’t check ingredient lists for minutiae in public
Tiered identities for pledgers:
-IMPACTarian: ≤ 52 skips in the past 365 days & pledged > 100 days ago
-Aspiring IMPACTarian: ≤ 1-in-7 of your first 100 days are skips
-Aspiring Reducer: > 52 skips in the past 365 days
View a prototype webpage with tracker and pledge HERE (download and open the HTML file in a browser)
Sign the IMPACTarian pledge:
"I will boycott consumed animal products using general knowledge.
I will not check ingredient lists for minutiae in public.
Living is not perfectly harmless.
Quantity matters.
I will make this boycott accessible to multiply causing less harm"
This is a draft proposal, subject to refinement.
Q: Why a new ask?
A: Animal product consumption is rising, the number of vegans has plateaued and the vast number of people turn off from the veganism ask. Most reducetarian variants to date have been mild - maybe to avoid treading on veganism’s toes for social reasons. Anecdotally, many EAs already adopt their own veganish lifestyle.
Q: Isnt veganism a unique moral baseline?
A: The practice of veganism is an arbitrary line around a heap of suffering that includes some harms but excludes others. The idea that vegans have clean hands – or even the cleanest hands - is a myth.
More advocates are realising that some minutiae acts of veganism dont help animals and dont help humans to engage with or stick with other acts of substantial change necessary to build a mass movement that helps the most victims.
Q: Isnt this still celebrating abuse?
A: No. We have the unprecedented issue where nearly all of society are raised in performing and normalising industrial-scale animal abuse where victims cannot self-advocate. Because abstinence has not grown significantly, we are open to whatever works to decrease the number of victims. Promoting veganism is like promoting celibacy but for the diet. We put impact first over symbolism or performance. Consider “What if just one IMPACTarian can do as much good as ten vegans?” The victims care about the outcome, not our squeamishness about the path we take.
Increasing the number of plant-based meals will in turn grow the quantity and quality of PB foods - a snowball effect making deep boycotts easier.
Q: Do you force vegans to eat animal products if they don’t want to?
A: No. But the IMPACTarian ask is always categorically IMPACTarianism, not veganism.
Explaining IMPACTarianism to others is simple:
“I boycott meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy…
…at least 6 out of 7 days on average / …most of the time
…because of the torture breeding and mass misery of farmed individuals."
“I boycott torture farms that cage and torment sentient individuals on an industrial scale”
“We can avert more animal lives of suffering and avert more deaths with a strong structured reduction message/ reducetarian ask, instead of veganism”
“I’m massively reducing the total days of animal misery that I pay for”
“It’s to reduce massive industrial suffering occurring out of sight”
Boycott bodies, eggs, and dairy.
Make it accessible, viral, and sticky.
No demand for a progression to veganism.
End mass animal abuse.
An easy impact and movement multiplier.
Multiplies reducing suffering beyond veganism.
Compassionate, without obsession.
IMPACTarianism can do more good than veganism.
More holistic and inclusive.
Change the ask from veganism. Do the most good!
IMPACTarians never have to say “Im never again consuming xyz”.
No socio-cultural death/alienation, greater achievability, less outreach resistance. How much to weight this benefit?
IMPACTarianism upholds veganism's "as far as possible and practicable" caveat, just under a different tradition (and less marketing myth) that emphasises the outcomes (total number of animals) and the group level of society more than the human individual.
How to concisely qualify “Quantity matters” against small-bodying?
Add a caveat “Don’t replace beef with chicken and fish” at the cost of complexity?
Licensing non-abstinence might be a slippery slope into weaker reducetarianism.
Tracking accurately is effort.
Decision fatigue.
Sharing one’s skipcount still allows for proud identity and grandstanding, eg “I’m a 12-skip IMPACTarian” or a vegan could say “I’m a 0-skip IMPACTarian”. But should we discourage skip-announcing because it disunifies the IMPACTarian goal?
With cultivation, can the IMPACTarian feeling of social identity become as strong as the vegan one?
The vegan’s aim of living exploitation-free is motivating for some people, even if it is a fiction.
A higher barrier to entry strengthens identity and presumably stickiness for those who make it in. Is a lower barrier making a change less sticky?
Will enough people think in such raw, numerical terms of ‘Days of animal suffering saved/avoided’ and ‘I am doing more good than veganism’ to engage and stick with IMPACTarianism?
Emphasises talk about animal suffering not identity: “I wont eat that because…” not “I can’t eat that.”
Vegan backlash:
-Should IMPACTarianism replace or complement veganism messaging?
Should Impactarians taboo the V-words? Say PB/plant-rich/non-animal/animal-friendly/low-cruelty?
Veganism can remain an option but not the stated aim of IMPACTarianism.
Is there an initial proportion of vegans required to support IMPACTarianism for it to succeed longterm?
Must IMPACTarianism compete adversarially/zero-sum with veganism for space to exist?
Is it interpersonally unkind to erode a vegan worldview and belief in clean hands that many vegan humans find good for mental health?
Avoids potential humane-washing.
Undercover footage shows there is no expectation of humane animal treatment (akin to how one would treat a loved companion animal) during raising, transport and slaughter, at least for the foreseeable future.
Skips:
What unit to track? Timing (frequency, duration, period eg day, 12-hour, ‘meal’) or portion quantity?
How large a number of skips should disqualify someone from Impactarianism?
Initial thoughts on the skip threshold: roughly between 37 skip days (1/10 of the days) and 104 skip days (2/7 of the days) per year.
A skip is a day when one buys it or when they consume it? The latter seems better because the quantity is limited by the stomach.
Count skips (non- compliance) or successes (compliance)?
Having fewer skips mitigates possible Goodharting:
-Compensation (Loading up on skipped days)
-Changing consumption from
meat -> eggs/dairy, or
large body -> small bodied victims https://faunalytics.org/quantifying-the-small-body-problem
?
Are you disqualified as an Impactarian if you check ingredients in public?
Maybe you have to re-sign the pledge and start over another 100 days as an Aspiring IMPACTarian?
Is ingredient “general knowledge” sufficiently constrained? People will eat croissants etc but curiosity and discussion will spread knowledge.
Scope:
Which species?
Permit an alleged welfare level? eg humane, free range, grass-fed, Red Tractor, RSPCA, Happy Eggs
Include dairy? Perhaps the most ubiquitous and the least impactful.
Should we use the more colloquial carnist language of “meat and seafood” instead of “land and sea animal bodies” / “flesh” and thus also permit eating insects?
Should eggs include fish eggs?
Animal products rather than just foods?
Is it feasible to be sensitive to clothes, vivisection, commissioning non-vegan meals, harming insects, visiting farms, zoos, aqua-prisons, and safari parks, indirect harms like deforestation and pollution, or WAS (eg shifting land use)?
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds?
IMPACTarianism is arguably slightly more consistent than veganism by eliminating disproportionate attention and effort to minutiae.
Is it appropriately apportioned to sentience-normalised proportion of victim’s lifetime total product?
Is IMPACTarianism similarly well-defined to veganism? Pros and cons?
Any practical benefit in explicitly scoping IMPACTarianism to sentient individuals instead of the animalia heuristic?
Should IMPACTarianism take an explicit stance on bivalve mollusc consumption?
Should IMPACTarianism mandate a certain number of hours are spent on outreach?
Risk of vegan backsliding (vegan-> IMPACTarian -> reducetarian) and low non-vegan adoption yielding a net harm to animals
How much would systemically changing IMPACTarianism’s goalposts demotivate its pledgers and lead to dropout?
Should we encourage community variations on IMPACTarianism and let a thousand flowers bloom?
Anecdotally, there is already a shadowy battalion of “90% vegans” and Flexitarians are 19% according to one survey. What if vegan activism already maximises the size of the IMPACTarian demographic without needing to explicitly grow it?
Is the name too silly/pretentious? Or is it an advantage to be memorable?
Is it obvious that IMPACTarianism, like vegetarianism, is unrelated to:
Arianism, an early Christian religious belief about Jesus, and
Aryanism, a modern racial and political ideology about human groups.
?
Problems with consequentialism and the fundamental justification of any moral principles remain.
eg (The Logic of the Logger) Decreasing animal product demand could increase wild animal suffering. This also applies to veganism.
Step 1: Feedback and Share.
Discuss with your peers, experiment and iterate on this successor to veganism.
Develop your own elevator pitch.
Engage Dietician expertise for lasting behavioural change
Step 2: Scale.
Engage Marketing expertise
Buddy up or Mentor program like https://veganoutreach.org/vegan-mentorship-program
Videos
Community-building
Let’s make IMPACTarianism enormous!
There is support for IMPACTarianism in the animal protection community and literature, albeit not unanimous.
I list the following for ease of reference:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0405-8
Anthis - Institutional change and the limitations of consumer activism
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18OSHO8VzYFniWeTUfHj_bYtZNQzfyjec/view?usp=sharing
Bockman – Accomplishing the Most Good For Animals
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/steakholders
https://mercyforanimals.org/essays-effective-advocacy/
Friedrich - Effective Advocacy Stealing from the Corporate Playbook
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17XKHcm9OvmH5AC9ToxCYdp1LhIiVn4fI/view?usp=sharing
Ball and Friedrich - The Animal Activist’s Handbook
https://academic.oup.com/book/7741/chapter-abstract/152863524
Gruen and Jones - Veganism as an Aspiration
https://theanimalist.medium.com/vegan-no-more-89282c30a29c
EAF comment on the last 10%
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fWyFHfZiFKg3GGzNf/let-s-taboo-the-v-word
EAF comment on Taboo the v words
https://tobiasleenaert.substack.com/p/what-to-do-about-all-the-vegans-falling
“A 2025 poll conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG), among veg*ns (vegetarians & vegans) in the United States shows the following numbers:
2% of the US population is vegan
2% is vegetarian
5% were vegetarian for three or more years, but are today neither vegetarian nor vegan
1.37% were vegan for three or more years, but are today neither vegetarian nor vegan”
Effective Reducetarianism, MacAskill
“if you are only reducing the amount of meat you consume, rather than going entirely
vegetarian or vegan, the most effective way to reduce animal suffering is to stop eating
chicken, then eggs, then pork.
Targeting the animal products that cause the most suffering insures that your efforts as a reducetarian have the highest payoffs in terms of animal cruelty avoided. If you are not prepared to go vegetarian or vegan, but you still want to reduce the negative impact that your diet has on animals, it is crucial that you focus on the worst offenders.”
https://benthams.substack.com/p/if-youre-going-to-eat-animals-eat
If You're Going To Eat Animals, Eat Beef and Dairy, Adelstein
##
https://philpapers.org/archive/MAYEFA-2.pdf
Eating Fewer Animals: A Defense of Reducetarianism, Joshua May & Victor Kumar
Matt Ball:
I wonder what it would take for more people to care about lowering the number of animals being factory farmed, vs increasing the number of "vegans."
Decades of focusing on the number of vegans has correlated with an unfathomable increase in the number of animals suffering, even looking at per-capita.
Tobias Leenaert suggests we:
[be] pragmatic in what we ask of people
[be] pragmatic in the reasons we give people to change
create an environment that facilitates change
apply a more relaxed concept of veganism
…Many meat reducers together may change the system faster than a few vegans.
As a group, meat reducers save more animals than vegetarians and vegans.
…[present a] call to action that people are open to.
“100% purity…is unnecessary, counter-productive, impossible.”
“Health concerns are the main reasons reducers cut back on meat (Cooney 2014, p. 76). Others include the environment and a desire for variation and to try new things. Worries over animal welfare are not top of mind for reducers (Faunalytics 2007).”
Brian Kateman says:
“I do worry about sort of watering down the message, or even something called moral licensing (basically when you sort of do one thing that’s good and then you kind of ignore all the other things that still need to be done). Somebody participates in Meatless Monday and then they feel like they’ve done enough, for example. I think there’s a balance between celebrating the successes and providing people with the honest-to-God truth that there are billions of animals being tortured on factory farms and if we don’t make major changes to our diet, we’re gonna be in trouble.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLVgejyJxKk
Humane Hancock re veganism plateau https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dietary-choices-uk?tab=line&time=earliest..2026-01-01
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7350526/
Traditional Self-Reported Dietary Instruments Are Prone to Inaccuracies and New Approaches Are Needed, Ravelli and Schoeller
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01201-2/abstract
EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet
Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans, Birch et al
https://faunalytics.org/tactics-in-practice-the-science-of-making-and-keeping-vegans-and-vegetarians/
Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Making And Keeping Veg*ns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u2NFee1_p0&t=1202s Webinar
https://faunalytics.org/how-many-former-vegetarians-and-vegans-are-there/
How Many Former Vegetarians and Vegans Are There?
“43% of lapsed vegetarians/vegans say they found it too difficult to maintain a “pure” diet”
https://archive.org/details/motivationalmeth0000taft/page/n1/mode/2up
Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective, Casey Taft
Faunalytics’ Library of Interventions for Meat Elimination
https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-estimates/
Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Range Estimates
https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/lets-read-a-paper-how-to-convince
Let's Read A Paper: How To Convince People To Be Vegan
“People tend to respond better to messages about animal cruelty than messages related to environmentalism, health, the abolition of the use of animals entirely, or the value of animals as individuals. Further, beef tends to be the worst for health and the environment, so health and environment messages might encourage people to eat more chicken. “
1 kilogram of farmed fish leads to about 250 equivalent days of suffering
1 kilogram of battery-cage eggs leads to about 100 equivalent days of suffering
1 kilogram of chicken leads to about 60 equivalent days of suffering
1 kilogram of turkey leads to about 30 equivalent days of suffering
Everything else (other than cage-free eggs and some shellfish) is negligible
“… Shocking images are the most likely to change people’s minds.”
(source quote: “shocking images of animal cruelty are the most effective at inspiring change”
https://www.eating-better.org/better-by-half
“stimulate a 50% reduction in meat and dairy consumption in the UK by 2030, and for a transition to ‘better’ meat and dairy as standard”
https://eating-better.org/site/assets/files/13258/public_attitudes_survey_updated.pdf
66% of the public are willing to reduce their meat consumption
The psychology of veg*nism: why people become, continue or give up being veg*n
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950329321001403
Reducing meat consumption in meat-loving Denmark: Exploring willingness, behavior, barriers and drivers, Hielkema et al
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666315000926
Meat, beyond the plate. Data-driven hypotheses for understanding consumer willingness to adopt a more plant-based diet, Graça et al
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666315003189
Attached to meat? (Un)Willingness and intentions to adopt a more plant-based diet, Graça et al
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666319305549
The role of social identity motivation in dietary attitudes and behaviors among vegetarians, Plante et al
https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/02/two-thirds-of-brits-would-rather-die-early-than-give-up-meat-14507247
67% of people would rather reduce their life expectancy by 5-10 years than give up meat
54% of 25-34 year olds wouldn’t date a vegan
51% associate a lot of meat with masculinity
commissioned by No Meat May
Non-veg*n respondents:
65% would not consider becoming vegan or vegetarian,
19% don’t know
16% would consider it.
Vegans: 55% for environmental… 44% for health… 39% said for religious reasons and 34% for ethical …26% for taste
Vegetarians: 50% for ethical reasons…37% for environmental…36% for personal health.
19% said they would consider becoming vegan while the UK’s current vegan population is around 1% (2017).
https://www.luxuriousmagazine.com/most-people-dont-understand-veganism
43% of meat eaters would not consider becoming vegan, commissioned by ChewsyGum
46% would never consider becoming a vegan, even if they knew they would lose weight, improve their health and have a genuine impact on animal welfare.
https://www.vegansociety.com/news/news/seven-ten-willing-cut-meat-and-dairy-improve-food-security
Seven-in-Ten Willing to Cut Meat and Dairy to Improve Food Security | The Vegan Society
Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem: A meta-analysis, Green et al
https://magnusvinding.com/2020/05/04/animal-advocates-should-focus-on-antispeciesism-not-veganism
https://magnusvinding.com/2017/10/24/notes-on-the-utility-of-anti-speciesist-advocacy/
Vinding
https://veganuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Veganuary-2023-6-month-survey.pdf
What was the number 1 thing that influenced their decision not to stay vegan?
21% Difficulty when eating out at restaurants
20% Missing non-vegan foods
https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/evidence-behind-vegan-vegetarian-pledges/#fn1-39-44351
“Two studies suggest that a stricter ask (vegetarian or vegan) seems to be more effective than a flexitarian or reduction ask“
https://www.joshdmay.com/wp-content/media/may-kumar-defense-of-reducetarianism.pdf
Eating Fewer Animals: A Defense of Reducetarianism, May and Kumar 2018
“One survey of Americans suggests that the vast majority believes they usually eat
products “from animals that are treated humanely” (Anthis 2017). Yet globally an estimated 74%
of land animals used for food live on factory farms (Anthis & Anthis 2019). In the United States,
some 70% of cows live on factory farms, while the figure is about 99% for chickens, turkeys, and
pigs (Anthis 2019)” [https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-estimates]
“underlying health conditions or allergies can make a
healthy vegan diet extremely difficult to sustain if not strictly impossible. Imagine, for example,
how prohibitive a vegan diet would be for someone allergic to soy, gluten, or nuts (or all three).”
“80% are willing to at least cut back a few days per week (McCarthy & DeKoster 2020;
Zimmerman 2024).”
“it often qualifies this with “as far as is possible and practicable.” Some vegans thus consider their diet to be compatible with a reducetarian message (Leenaert 2017; Barrett & Raskoff 2023; Raskoff forthcoming; Schwarz forthcoming).”
“For many people, executing a well-planned vegan diet requires moving out of a food desert, learning new ways of eating and cooking, becoming alienated from friends and family, and all while working multiple jobs and struggling to feed children on a shoestring budget.”
“Although you can avoid one bad clothing company, it’s not feasible to boycott
them all. Compare the situation of Americans during the Civil War who opposed slavery but still
wore cotton clothing produced from slave labor. As Naomi Oreskes, the historian and philosopher
of science, put it in an interview with The Nation, Americans weren’t “hypocrites when they joined
the abolition movement” – rather this just meant that “they were also part of the slave economy,
and they knew it” (Stephenson 2015).”
“appeals to eating fewer animal products, as opposed to strict vegetarianism or veganism, are generally more effective at producing dietary change (Sparkman et al. 2021; Cameron et al. 2023; Ginn & Lickel 2023).”
“The number of people who are vegans or vegetarians seems to have plateaued in the past few decades—remaining around 5% in most countries (Reinhart 2018). Absolutist arguments seem to have hit a ceiling. It has been 50 years since Peter Singer first published Animal Liberation, and by his own lights his “call for a boycott of meat” has been “a dismal failure” (2023a: 179). Unfortunately, global meat consumption continues to rise (Blaustein-Rejto & Smith 2021).
Millions of people around the world are vegetarians only out of necessity and poised to become frequent meat eaters once they can afford it (Leahy et al. 2010).”
“rather than being a rationalization of moral mediocrity, reduction may require great sacrifice.”
https://faunalytics.org/study-of-current-and-former-vegetarians-and-vegans/#
Study of Current and Former Vegetarians and Vegans
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i5wnzz4uAgeF3ZRc5/meaningfully-reducing-meat-consumption-is-an-unsolved
Meaningfully reducing meat consumption is an unsolved problem: meta-analysis, Green et al
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ehehif6dmiQco7bJA/five-insights-from-farm-animal-economics
Five insights from farm animal economics, Lewis Bollard
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2PCQGzWJaCqguFRYA/the-vegan-trap-are-we-making-animal-advocacy-harder-than-it
The vegan trap - Are we making animal advocacy harder than it needs to be? Leenaert
Anita Krajnc
https://projectslingshotuk.substack.com/p/is-slingshot-working
Matthew Glover and Elliot Gregan
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/imoynWhpY5AqxcaDG/ea-should-invest-in-animal-liberation-and-diet-change
EA Should Invest in Animal Liberation and Diet Change Advocacy - Friedrich
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XjQr52eDkBPLrLHB3/my-ted-talk-how-to-end-factory-farming
“Cass Sunstein recently wrote about this challenge: “Many nonhuman animals are suffering for this reason: Countless human beings do not want to know that those animals are suffering, and countless human beings want not to know that they are suffering.
Sunstein explains that some people simply “do not want to know,” seeing no personal benefit to learning about animal suffering. Others go further and actively “want not to know,” fearing it will make them feel sad or guilty about eating animals.”
…But if you do just one thing, I’d ask this: talk about factory farming.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494421000451?via%3Dihub#sec7
Cut back or give it up? The effectiveness of reduce and eliminate appeals and dynamic norm messaging to curb meat consumption, Sparkman et al
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ae3ff1/meta#ercae3ff1s3
Why meat-eaters reject calls for a meat-free diet: Social norm and messenger effects in two meat-eating cultures, Thurmer et al
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33984401/
Interventions to reduce meat consumption by appealing to animal welfare: Meta-analysis and evidence-based recommendations - PubMed
https://faunalytics.org/chicken-and-fish-2-comparative/
Comparing Beliefs About Fishes And Chickens & Their Relation To Animal-Positive Behaviors Across Countries - Faunalytics
Motivations For Veg*n And Meat Reduction - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/do-wild-animal-videos-drive-meaningful-conservation-action/
Do Wild Animal Videos Drive Meaningful Conservation Action? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/does-the-identifiable-victim-effect-extend-to-animals/
Does The Identifiable Victim Effect Extend To Animals? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/faunalytics-index-october-2026/
Faunalytics Index – October 2026 - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/fish-farmings-false-promise-of-saving-the-oceans/
Fish Farming’s False Promise Of Saving The Oceans - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/global-animal-slaughter-statistics-and-charts/
Global Animal Slaughter Statistics & Charts - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/going-veg-barriers-and-strategies/
Going Vegan Or Vegetarian: Barriers And Strategies On The Path To Success - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/going-veg-many-paths/
Going Vegan Or Vegetarian: Many Paths To One Goal - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/how-much-will-consumers-pay-for-meat-alternatives/
How Much Will Consumers Pay For Meat Alternatives? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/how-pig-images-affect-willingness-to-reduce-pork-consumption/
How Pig Images Affect Willingness To Reduce Pork Consumption - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/is-a-vegan-diet-healthier-for-dogs-than-a-meat-based-one/
Is A Vegan Diet Healthier For Dogs Than A Meat-Based One? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/it-takes-a-village-to-reduce-meat-consumption/
It Takes A Village To Reduce Meat Consumption - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/its-time-to-stop-assuming-that-insects-dont-feel-pain/
It’s Time To Stop Assuming That Insects Don’t Feel Pain - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/perceptions-of-shrimp-welfare-in-brazil/
Perceptions Of Shrimp Welfare In Brazil - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/plant-based-economic-impacts/
The Economic Impacts Of A Plant-Based Transition: Exploring Two Growth Scenarios - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/rat-poison-widely-used-but-little-valued/
Rat Poison: Widely Used But Little Valued - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/reduce-eliminate-two-effective-messages-reducing-meat-consumption/
"Reduce" and "Eliminate": Two Effective Messages For Reducing Meat Consumption - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/reduce-or-go-veg/
“Reduce” Or “Go Veg”? Effects On Meal Choice - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/relative-effectiveness/
Planting Seeds: The Impact Of Diet & Different Animal Advocacy Tactics - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/sustainability-and-meat-consumption-is-reduction-realistic/
Sustainability and Meat Consumption: Is Reduction Realistic? - Faunalytics
Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Making And Keeping Veg*ns - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/tactics-in-practice-the-science-of-social-media-advocacy/
Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Social Media Advocacy - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/tactics-in-practice-the-science-of-vegan-challenges/
Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Vegan Challenges - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/the-effects-of-digital-advocacy/
The Effects Of Digital Advocacy: What A Single Exposure To Digital Animal Advocacy Can (And Can’t) Do - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/the-replacement-nobody-is-asking-for/
The Replacement Nobody Is Asking For - Faunalytics
To Eat Or Not To Eat That Is The Question - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/veg-obstacle-analysis/
Bringing Back Former Vegans And Vegetarians: An Obstacle Analysis - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/what-does-the-term-flexitarian-really-mean/
What Does The Term “Flexitarian” Really Mean? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/what-helps-humans-understand-animals-perspectives/
What Helps Humans Understand Animals’ Perspectives? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/what-to-call-plant-based-meat-alternatives-a-labelling-study/
What To Call Plant-Based Meat Alternatives: A Labeling Study - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/what-trade-offs-will-the-public-accept-in-predator-control-debates/
What Trade-Offs Will The Public Accept In Predator Control Debates? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/what-vegan-advocates-can-learn-from-the-social-spread-of-quitting-smoking/
What Vegan Advocates Can Learn From The Social Spread Of Quitting Smoking - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/who-are-the-flexitarians/
Who Are The Flexitarians? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/why-dont-more-animal-advocates-talk-about-ducks/
Why Don’t More Animal Advocates Talk About Ducks? - Faunalytics
https://faunalytics.org/why-some-people-stick-with-meat-free-monday-and-others-dont/
Why Some People Stick With Meat Free Monday And Others Don’t - Faunalytics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFoekIdcxrw
Faunalytics Explains: Using Graphic Images In Advocacy - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6NJNc2zL3U
Faunalytics Explains: Offering Veg Food Options - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUnvPHk0suc
Faunalytics Explains: Farmed Animal Images & Advocacy - YouTube
