Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds

A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.

Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.

More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.

“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.

“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”

The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.

To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.

A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.

Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.

When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.

In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”

The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.

The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.

Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.

“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.

“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”

The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.

“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”

As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.

There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.

“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.

“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”

To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.

“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”

The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.