Farm Animal Welfare on the Mind and Meat in the Diet: Who Are These Consumers?

We investigated the association between farm animal welfare (FAW) concern and self-classified meat consumption behavior and consumers' socio-demographic, animal-contact-related, and ideological background factors. Covariate analyses and a machine-learning algorithm, Random Forest, were used to analyze complex, non-linear relationships between the data from 2116 Dutch households. FAW concern often turns out to be moderate to strong but is not simply associated with reduced meat consumption. Political orientation showed the strongest association with FAW concern and diet. Left-wing orientation is positively associated with FAW concern and less frequent or no meat consumption. Christian affiliation does the opposite, while non-Christian religious affiliation is weakly associated with vegetarian or vegan diets. Men more likely report an omnivorous diet and less FAW concern, while women report a vegetarian or vegan diet and higher concern. Voting left or center, Christian affiliation, and higher education are linked to a flexitarian diet. Lower education is associated with an omnivorous diet. In both rural and urban regions, income and household composition have little to no associations with both dietary self-classification and FAW concern. Respondents with regular animal contact show relatively strong FAW concern but no association with self-identified diet. Our results suggest that reducing or abstaining from meat is most strongly associated with ideological orientations. FAW concern alone is not expressed in diet.