Meat Eaters Live a Lie

[flashl]

While a big, juicy steak may indeed be culinary nirvana for many, your taste for beef could be based in part on expectation rather than reality.

On the assumption that meat is associated with social power in some peoples' minds, researchers rated study participants on what they call a Social Power Value Endorsement measure, to determine their preferences for meat and their cultural perceptions of it. Participants were then told they would taste either a beef sausage roll or a vegetarian roll. You can guess where this is headed.

Of course the researchers used one of the oldest tricks in the social scientist's toolbox: They lied.

Some participants got what they were told was coming, and others unknowingly ate the other type of roll. Then they all filled out questionnaires about how they like the food.

"Participants who ate the vegetarian alternative did not rate the taste and aroma less favorably than those who ate the beef product," the researchers report in August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. "Instead, what influenced taste evaluation was what they thought they had eaten and whether that food symbolized values that they personally supported."

Yahoo

[dbackjon]

1. Of course, you realize this cuts both ways

You may think that Tofu Burger is just as tasty as the real thing because your MIND wnats it to.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

2. I don't evangelize about eating meat

and you shouldn't about vegetarianism or veganism.

Further, Yahoo's story title is itself a lie, since one study (the one you quote) mentions meat, but the rest of the story goes on about soft drinks and the color of orange juice.

You have incisors. It is up to you to use them or not.

[Warpy]

9. Incisors???

They're made for tearing into fruit.

Try chewing through a deer hide to get to the raw meat below and get back to me.

[ingac70]

3. I'm off for some pork BBQ...

I expect it will taste really, really good.

[kestrel91316]

4. Humans are omnivores and not herbivores.

Meat may be optional, but it is not foreign to us.

Just talkin' about cold, hard biological reality here........

[varkam]

5. Okay, so what?

Even if there's social expectation playing into why I like meat, it doesn't mean that I like it any less. :shrug:

[China_cat]

6. My husband recently tried sneaking in some of those

veggie "burgers" without telling me. (I have no idea of why)

The only thing I like less is fried okra. Hell, the dogs wouldn't even eat them.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Morningstar Farms Mushroom Lovers' Burgers are the Best Veggie Burgers I Have Found

They make a lot of other kinds too, varying from OK to excellent.

I'm not vegetarian or even close, but I find some of the Morningstar Farms burgers to be an improvement over the "real thing".

[jody]

14. Now you've gone too far disparaging "fried okra", I love it with heirloom speckled butter beans

and vintage variety tomatoes. :rofl:

[AndyTiedye]

7. The Only Liars In This Piece are the "Researchers"

Aside from lying to their subjects, they musta told some whoppers to get a grant for this "research".

What do they think it proves, if someone can make a veggie roll that tastes better than some other roll they made with meat in it?

Morningstar Farms makes some veggie burgers that taste better than most real hamburgers.
But that isn't really setting the bar very high, is it?

It certainly doesn't prove squat about "big, juicy steaks".

Nor does it make a "Tofurky®" taste as good as a fresh turkey that I roasted over charcoal in the weber.

They want to claim that expectations are everything.
I'd like to offer them a nice big bar of carob.
Looks like chocolate, your tastebuds are ready for chocolate,
bite into it and it tastes like slightly choclatatey chalk. Bleah!

[varkam]

10. Well, lying to subjects is fairly common.

In this instance, it was necessary to get at what they were trying to study.

[AndyTiedye]

11. Their "Study" Only Shows That the Best Veggie Food Can Taste Better than The Worst Meat-Based Food

I don't think we need a study to figure that out.

[Evoman]

12. They've never had an argentine-style barbeque.

I wish I could be vegetarian, I support vegatarianism, and I hate eating animals.

But goddamn it, the bastards taste good.

[trotsky]

15. If Gawd didn't want us to eat animals...

he wouldn't have made them out of meat. :evilgrin:

[cosmik debris]

16. Do you think cows know that they are made out of meat?

Do you think pigs know how tasty they are?

[trotsky]

17. Classic Simpsons moment

Homer: Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Lisa honey, are you saying you're *never* going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

[flashl]

13. This 'study' interest me because of the number of times I've heard "X no longer tastes the same".

I was curious if someone noticed their favorite meat product's 'taste' changed over the years.