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> most importantly college kids tend not to have money But if that's a very important factor and vegetarian was cheapest, anyone strapped for cash would always
by tom_mellior 7y ago
> most importantly college kids tend not to have money
But if that's a very important factor and vegetarian was cheapest, anyone strapped for cash would always have chosen the vegetarian option even before this experiment, so nothing would change.
Also, from the actual abstract (https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/24/1907207116 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/24/1907207116): "Linking sales data to participants’ previous meal purchases revealed that the largest effects were found in the quartile of diners with the lowest prior levels of vegetarian meal selection."
- 4ad 7y agoYou are assuming they would always chose the cheapest, not the best (by some criteria) they could afford. If suddently the sole meat option is more expensive than yesterdays cheaper meat, that might be too expensive for them, so they are forced onto the cheaper vegetarian options that they could avoid the day before.
- tom_mellior 7y ago> If suddently the sole meat option is more expensive than yesterdays cheaper meat My understanding was that they went from three meat options to two, and I saw no indication in the abstract that they changed pricing (but I haven't read the paper), but yes, there are possible scenarios in which they were "forced" to eat non-meat. More plausible, to me, is that most people who regularly eat meat are not that uptight about it, and willing to try other stuff without feeling victimized. But yes, I also know people who are the opposite.