themselves, as advised by Bazeley. Searching for the dimensions of a theme greatly aided in finding the themes themselves, as well as meanings present in the data. The key task in this part of my analysis was to find the issues (related to my main themes and potential research question(s)) brought up in the discourse. The positions of the posters on these issues were not relevant as such, a key point for such qualitative analysis raised by Bazeley (2013).

To note, this type of thematic analysis is rather general with its aim being to get to know the data, and present it to others, although using the technique involving dimensions does make it more involved and detailed. Joffe (2011) advises against claiming that a superficial reading of a text — looking for themes — would be proper thematic analysis. Generally, thematic analysis is an extensive method of analysis of its own.

#### 4.3.3 The second and third levels of analysis — Focus on frames, values and ideologies

Unlike separating the first level from the rest of the analysis, it is harder to separate the second level from the third. This is because the frame analysis is more intertwined with ideological analysis, examining the more psychological aspects of the discourse and evaluating the societal dimensions. I will, therefore, discuss both levels in this same section. Most of the theory behind this stage of analysis has already been covered in Chapter 3, necessarily so, as discourses, and therefore concepts related to discourses, such as frames, are part of my conceptual structure. Further, Chapter 3 discussed the relevance of values, especially sustainability-facilitating values, and finally, the psychological concept of coping strategies concerning meat eating was also covered in Chapter 3.

My main aim with the frame analysis was to find the relevant dominant and counter frames and their implicit meanings and relations to ideologies, often expressed through values. For example, the following extract contains a counter frame to both carnism as an ideology and to an Absolute morality frame34 (whereby only absolute measures count). I call the counter frame associated with the extract a Solution frame, and in this case, it is further linked to sustainability-facilitating values:

*If more suffering is reduced by many people reducing their meat consumption, as opposed to a few people becoming vegan and the rest not wanting to go that far, then I support reducetarianism.*

*FLEX75, 25 Jun 2017*

34 Frames are often written with a capital initial letter.

In my frame analysis, I used analytical concepts and structure similar to Strydom (2000),35 whereby *cognitive framing devices* help construct frames in a discourse, as explained in Chapter 3. Moreover, a larger discourse can consist of various constructed frames. Many frames reflect ideologies, which in turn affect the manner and emphasis with which each of the three framing devices are applied, delimiting or defining an issue. Indeed, frame analysis is a frequently used method in critical discourse analysis, in particular, because of its ability to bring out hidden meanings, values and ideologies (Paltridge, 2006).

Although I did not initially intend to look for metaphors, I decided in the end to include two specific *conceptual metaphors* that rose implicitly, but relatively unambiguously from the data, as discussed in Chapter 5. In fact, they both became apparent already in the first stage of analysing and coding the data.

A conceptual metaphor (originally from Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) is "a way of knowing the world" (Foss, 2009:270), where one idea (target domain, e.g. time) is understood in terms of another (source domain, e.g. money). People's knowledge of the source domain (e.g. money is valuable, not to be wasted) carries over to explain the target domain.36 A conceptual metaphor can often make a point more efficiently and comprehensively than typical argumentative structures can. Further, metaphors play a key role in framing perceptions, and therefore also in framing action. Metaphor analysis is therefore frequently a part of frame analysis, as analysing metaphors can be very illuminating in identifying implicit frames, meanings, values, and so forth. Although the significance of conceptual metaphors is obvious, metaphor analysis is, however, sometimes criticized (see Box 4.2).

#### Box 4.2. Metaphors and criticism of metaphor analysis

Semino et al.(2004) are very critical of metaphor analysis. Their main issue, and a crucial one as such, is that decidingwhat exactly in a text is ametaphor, and further,what this particular metaphor means, is tricky, and depending on the answers (which may all be equally valid), different conclusions to the research itself may be drawn.

As regards the concepts, a *linguistic metaphor* is the way a metaphor is expressed in the actual language in use (e.g. "It's time to take stock of my life" or "You are wasting your time"), and a *conceptual metaphor* is the meaning at a more conceptual level (e.g.  The link between these

35 Strydom (2000) partly draws from work by Klaus Eder and William A. Gamson for his theory on frames.

36 So, for example, in the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY.

two, however, is often up to interpretation, in other words, the problematic issue is interpretative variability.

*Conventional metaphor* is part of a frequently occurring, systematic pattern of conceptual metaphors (i.e. not a single case, or a novel metaphor). TIME IS MONEY is a conventional conceptual metaphor.

Whether something is actually a metaphor (the *metaphoricity* of an expression), rather than a literal expression, is a matter of degree, and therefore the boundary between the literal and the metaphorical is fuzzy, and some expressions can be both literal and metaphorical.

Semino et al. (2004) emphasize that if one performs metaphor analysis, it is very important to be transparent and explicit about the criteria applied. Only rather careful and general conclusions can be made about the data, due to the challenges of metaphor analysis.

Partly due to such criticism, and even though metaphor analysis is often a considerable part of frame analysis, I decided not to do actual metaphor analysis with my discourse data.

During this stage, a notable element of my analysis was comparing the different discourse examples (of different new meatways) to each other, and interpreting their similarities or differences in light of the conceptual structure. My main aim was to widen the view on the different aspects of the discourses.37 For example, a frame I named Technological innovation frame was present in both the cultured meat and plant-based meats documents, whereas it was not present in the insect and flexitarianism documents. This frame among similar ones, however, can have an impact on the kinds of values the discourses invoke, and their connections to the larger discourses regarding how societies should approach sustainability.38

Moreover, and bordering on ideological analysis, I explored how the coping strategies regarding meat eating were reflected and employed in the discourses. This included a significant amount of meaning-based questioning (Bazeley, 2013), whereby the data is questioned in order to look for the implied meanings of statements. For example, when someone says "It's not a burger then",39 this implies certain things about the posters view on what meat is or should be, and what is important about meat or food to him/her. Additionally, it indicates that this poster may be trying to avoid information that would likely increase cognitive dissonance regarding the issues to do with eating meat.40

37 I did the comparisons mainly through iterative reading of the coded segments from the different documents within one Excel table.

38 This issue is discussed further in Chapter 5 and 6.

39 This is a comment to the plant-based burger article.

40 Avoiding information is one coping strategy, see Rothgerber (2014).

Similar to the two conceptual metaphors, a theme rose from the data that I eventually incorporated into the framework presented in Chapter 3, namely the issue of labels and labelling, including social labelling.41 During the analysis, this became significant enough of an issue to not ignore. Lastly, one more focus deserves to be mentioned. After looking for normalisation of the new meatways in the data, I decided to explore the extent to which narratives about the future, or narratives about the new meatways, are part of the discourse, as such an element can be critical for normalisation. This was not a question of an issue arising from the data, as much as of me deciding to add something potentially relevant to the range of focus.

As mentioned, the third level of analysis, the societal context, was interlinked with the other analysis. Yet, as Ruiz Ruiz (2009) notes (See Box 4.1), this is an essential level for any discourse analysis with a critical approach. In my research, this level mainly served to link the discourses more firmly to the conceptual structure and to interpret the findings for further discussion and evaluation. As a result, I ended up with several conclusions which could also be seen as hypotheses (Curry et al., 2009; Ruiz Ruiz, 2009),42 as answers to my research question. These are presented in the final Chapter 6.

#### **4.4 Quality criteria vs. methodological criticisms**

In this section, I will address general quality criteria for qualitative research, criticisms received, and my own reflections on ways of dealing with the issues.

Although there is no definite agreement on the necessary quality criteria for qualitative research (Bryman et al., 2008), the literature discussing such criteria, however, seems to more or less agree that the following issues are important to consider (see e.g. Bazeley, 2013; Taylor, 2001):

41 "Labelling" as such represents a conceptual metaphor, of course.  However, since there is a distinct theory attached to it — social labelling — I did not handle labelling as a metaphor in my analysis.

42 Or perhaps conjectures, still somewhat uncertain hypotheses.

I will address these criteria in the following sections. Although much of the following applies to qualitative analysis more broadly, I will generally refer to discourse analysis, or more specifically to critical discourse analysis.

#### 4.4.1 Objectivity vs. interpretation of data

One of the main criticisms of qualitative discourse analytic research is a lack of objectivity.

Firstly, this is related to discourse analysis being inherently interpretative. Therefore, its results are criticized for being less reliable. Indeed, in critical discourse analysis, "the analyst imposes her reading [on the data] which she must be aware is only one of countless possibilities" (Mautner, 2005:819). Generally, this criticism is addressed by the analysis and its results being grounded in detailed evidence and persuasive and well-supported arguments, through which the data is not open to any number of interpretations (Tonkiss, 2004).43 This is also related to the criteria of internal validity discussed more below.

Secondly, (critical) discourse analysis is challenged for researchers possibly taking sides, for example, by being politically committed (see e.g. Antaki et al., 2003; O'Halloran, 2010). Burman (2004) notes, however, that no researcher can help taking sides, and even trying not to is actually about taking sides, as the *status quo* is then maintained: "objectivity is not the absence of subjectivity, but a particular form of it" (idem:2). For Taylor (2001), the main point is about acknowledging that the research has an agenda.

Similarly, sustainability research (such as this research) often takes sides, as it usually aims to contribute to changing societies towards more sustainable ways of existence. Such research tends to be based on certain values and driven by a desire to do something good (Peattie, 2011). The criticism is, however, that *real* research should be value-free, objective and dispassionate. But Peattie notes, that most research is laden with the *dominant social paradigm* and with its associated values. As this paradigm is dominant, and therefore mostly invisible, researchers are usually not aware of it. One should not forget that in some areas of research, such as in health research, there is a clear and accepted societal goal, a desire to make populations healthier. In a similar vein, John Dewey (see e.g. in White, 1972) has argued that science in general should be directed at improving the world.

Specifically reflecting on critical discourse analysis, O'Halloran (2010) states that one way to address what he calls the "over-subjectivity" of critical discourse analysis is to incorporate corpus linguistics software, as then "it is the software which reveals salience and not the analyst" (idem:565). With software, he notes,

43 Hardy et al. (2004) note that differences in interpretation may, in fact, be a source of new data.

even larger data sets can be used for critical discourse analysis. Koenig (2004) also suggest using textual analysis software to aid qualitative frame analysis. Software could in principle add to the robustness of analysis (linking again to internal validity discussed below), and indeed the reliability of results. Apart from separate software packages, some of the claimed benefits could alternatively be reached by using certain advanced features of programs such as MAXQDA,44 often used to manage and code discourse data.

As regards my own methods of analysis, I did consider using both the more advanced features of MAXQDA and additional corpus linguistics software. As already mentioned in Section 4.2.3, I decided not to use the MAXQDA features for more advanced analysis, for example, because doing this would have taken the focus away from the context of the data and too much towards the (reliability of the) coding itself. These features also seemed to not be particularly useful to my analysis. The separate corpus linguistics software I considered included AntConc45 (freeware), with a concordance table feature where data can be compared to e.g. standard English corpora, and LIWC,46 able to do more advanced textual analysis. However, I did not find that the analyses the software provided would add anything significant to what I was already pursuing with the data. It may be that the situation would have been different with a much larger dataset, but with such data, I would have had to do a different kind of analysis in any case, as the level of detail in the analysis with a much larger dataset would have had to be different.47

#### 4.4.2 Internal validity

External validity is generally not considered a reasonable criterion for qualitative discourse analysis, whereas internal validity is (discussed e.g. by Georgaca & Avdi, 2011; Taylor, 2001; Tonkiss, 2004). Taylor (2001) presents several criteria for qualitative analysis such as critical discourse analysis. Those most relevant to this section are:

44 As a group, such software packages are called computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS) software.

45 See http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/.

46 Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. See http://liwc.wpengine.com.

47 One example from a test with LIWC worth mentioning is that, according to a basic analysis of my data with this software, the article on flexitarianism is more focused on the present, and the other articles are more focused on the future (the article on insects, however, was not yet included in this test run). Although this insight seems reasonable, it did not appear as something I could not have concluded from comparing the four article texts on my own.

In developing and working on my analysis, in theory development, in describing my methodology and specific methods, as well as in presenting results, I have applied such principles. In other words, I have aimed to be systematic and coherent and give enough detail of the data and the process of analysis. Having extensive notes has certainly assisted in this. My objective has been to make reasonable arguments as regards the data so that my conclusions could be tested in further research. In searching for the "counter data" (e.g. counter frames), I have also looked for diversity in the material.

Goodwin and Shoulders (2013) and Bazeley (2013) discuss peer debriefing as a validation strategy. In peer debriefing, the other person plays "devil's advocate" (Goodwin & Shoulders, 2013), questioning the theory and methods. This is a strategy I have used on occasion.

#### 4.4.3 Reflexivity

Reflexivity is particularly important for qualitative research. Hardy et al. (2004:21) argue that in discourse analysis, reflexivity is necessarily high, as the researcher "is part of the process whereby meaning is constructed". Reflexivity is about being critical and open about the data and its analysis, by questioning assumptions, critically examining the processes of the analysis, and evaluating how these processes affect the results (Tonkiss, 2004). Taylor (2001) asks for rich detail in explaining the process of analysis, and in presenting findings. The value of keeping an audit trail is clear for any research project, and its usefulness is probably most obvious for the criteria of reflexivity.

In my work, I have tried to be critical of my analysis, including assumptions and processes. Further, I have kept detailed notes about the developments, both in the form of an audit trail and in many other notes, as explained in Section 4.1.3. Chapter 6 will include a section on limitations where I will reflect more on what could have been done differently, but in the following criterion of transferability, I will also reflect on my choices for data.

#### 4.4.4 Transferability

Data for critical discourse research often just happens to be there. It is not random, or randomly selected, as it might be in quantitative media content analysis, for example, nor is it usually designed, as in surveys or interviews. It is frequently therefore not representative. Such is my data as well, reflecting some of the discourses around the new meatways. Taylor (2001) warns against assuming that any results from critical discourse analysis would describe the real world in a more general way. Instead, such results are partial (not general), contingent (not necessary, but possible), and situated (claims made can only refer to the specific situation). She maintains that *all* knowledge is such, as experienced reality is inevitably influenced by any research processes. This connects back to the critical realist position discussed in Section 4.1.1.

As said, external validity is not considered a criterion for qualitative discourse analysis. The results of critical discourse analysis, for example, are usually not representative, and therefore not generalisable to a larger population. However, results of discourse analysis can be *theoretically generalisable* (Bazeley, 2013; Tonkiss, 2004), or transferable to other situations, especially when such analysis focuses on processes and mechanisms.

Regarding the value and transferability of small-scale qualitative data, Bazeley argues that:

Each singular person or event embraces a degree of universality, reflecting dimensions of the social structures and order of their time. What is learned from individual cases or case studies reflects this: it is not that we can describe the characteristics of a larger population, survey style, but rather that we gain understanding of the way some aspect of society works — an understanding of processes and principles, theory rather than facts.

Bazeley (2013:411)

Critical discourse analysis frequently engages in abductive logic (discussed in Box 4.1) involving an interplay between existing theoretical understandings and empirical data, in which the data can generate new theoretical understandings (Bazeley, 2013). In other words, abductive logic can create theoretically generalisable data. I would suggest that the conclusions (or hypotheses) from my data may be theoretically generalisable, but they could also possibly be tested in further research.

#### 4.4.5 Usefulness

Last but not least, although the claims in discourse analysis tend to be modest, with an open approach to knowledge (Tonkiss, 2004), the usefulness of the findings, both theoretically and in terms of the real world is a general criterion for research. Georgaca and Avdi (2011) suggest that findings from discourse analysis can provide new insights, and generate new questions (or theory, as argued above), and they can deconstruct dominant assumptions and challenge practices. They note further that there are no direct strategies that discourse analysis can usually lead to, but such analysis can inform interventions, especially interventions challenging dominant understandings and practices.

In line with Georgaca and Avdi, I contend that, assuming the general relevance of discourses around meat (an argument in Chapters 2 and 3), findings from research such as mine can contribute to deconstructing dominant assumptions, and challenge unsustainable practices, for example those involved in producing animals for human consumption, as well as in eating such animals. I will address this "so what" question — a key motivation for this research – again in Chapter 6, but suffice it to say here that the discourses around meat are out there, and although my interpretation of the data I have collected is likely to be only a small part of the whole discourse universe, it is valid as a justified interpretation.

#### **4.5 Conclusion**

In the previous sections, I have covered the main points as regards philosophical arguments, aspects of my data, and its analysis, and issues to do with the quality of research. I have also described the ways I managed the data and the project itself. Critical discourse analysis was already introduced in Chapter 3, and in this chapter, I explored it further. Chapter 6 will still get back to some of the issues mentioned in this chapter, such as limitations to the research, alternative ways of pursuing it, and the relevance of the research. My objective has been to use a methodology and create methods that are suitable, interdisciplinary, adequately adopted, and openminded, while offering detail useful for discussion and further research.

A final point to this chapter: looking into Chapter 3 and its focus on expanded social practice theories, and the exploration of the relationship of practices and discourses, this approach to the data could be presented as a novel methodology. However, as Wiles et al. (2011) note, researchers have always adapted methods for their own purposes, and while this is good, it need not necessarily be presented as something new. Over-claiming in methods can lead to several issues: it "encourages a focus on the latest methodological fads", instead of furthering the development of well-established methodologies, it "encourages a view that the established social science methods of the past are 'old hat' and inappropriate", and it "risks losing credibility in the same way as over-claiming by academics of 'international' standing in research" (idem:601). In other words, new and different is not necessarily better than the old and familiar.

The following chapter will present the analysis of my discourse data.

### **5 Exploring discourses on the new meatways**

As Chapter 4 explained, my data analysis generally progresses from several different angles to the data.1 As an introduction to the data, Section 5.1 will explore the themes and dimensions of the discourse contained in the four documents,2 especially as regards the new meatways.

Further, in Section 5.2, I will first discuss some of the frames found, both more dominant as well as more *counter* frames, and explore in practice the three framing devices introduced in Chapter 3. I will argue that the new meatways have relevance to the frames in the discourse and that the discourse itself matters, also in terms of the ideologies it highlights. Following from discussion in Chapter 3 on values, this section reflects upon the potential of certain frames to activate certain values, in light of the data. Additionally, I will discuss two conceptual metaphors arising from the data, and linking to wider discourses and literature. I will argue that, as important framing tools, they both have implications for potential solutions to the meat crisis.

Next, in Section 5.3, I will first explore how the four Ns (Normal, Natural, Necessary and Nice) — in other words, the four most common justifications and coping strategies for meat eating — are reflected in the discourse, and what impact the new meatways might have on how the four Ns are used. Subsequently, I will explore other coping strategies, discussed in Chapter 3, as regards cognitive dissonance and strategic ignorance to do with eating animals. These strategies may not be as obvious, but nonetheless do exist, and seeing them *vis-à-vis* the new meatways may be useful, especially considering the potential of the new meatways to create discursive consciousness and allow for more ambivalence to be acknowledged. Moreover, I will explore in this section certain morality-related questions as one clear example of the new meatways making a difference, especially in terms of issues to do with vegetarianism or veganism, on the one hand, and flexitarianism, on the other.

1 Occasionally, this way causes the same data examples being used in different parts of the chapter, in order to demonstrate different issues, or the same issues, but from another angle.

2 "Document" refers to a Guardian article and the posts that follow it as one entity.

Before concluding the chapter in Section 5.5 with a look at my research question, I will discuss two more issues in Section 5.4 as reflected in the data, namely, labels and labelling, and the potential of narratives to normalise a future with new meatways, or without meat. Both topics may have some relevance for change.

I will still reflect upon my research question in the concluding Chapter 6, together with the related research task set for Chapter 3.

#### **5.1 Descriptions, themes and dimensions of the data**

The following sections contain descriptions of the four online newspaper articles, including some comments about the posts following them, as well as depictions of the themes and their dimensions found in the data (including both articles and posts), relevant to the old and new meatways, and in particular to my research question.3 I will discuss some topics, such as the relationship of the new meatways to vegetarianism and veganism, and the related issue of morality, however, mostly separately.

#### 5.1.1 Cultivated meat4

The CM (cultivated meat) article5 "Could lab-grown fish and meat feed the world without killing a single animal?" (written by Amy Fleming, published on 20 September 2017 in the online Guardian) is written in a narrative form, with the overarching story being the journalist visiting a San Francisco prototype tasting event of cultivated carp croquettes made by Finless Foods, a start-up. This is by far the longest of the four articles.6

3 See Chapter 4 for more on themes and dimensions. Note that I have not determined in detail the themes I looked for in the data prior to the analysis. The only requirement has been that they are related to my research themes and/or my research question.

4 I mostly refer to cultivated, plant-based and animal-based (conventional) meat in this book. However, the data usually refers to cultured meat, instead of cultivated meat, as "cultured meat" is a somewhat older and more established term than "cultivated meat". In fact, the term "cultivated meat" was not yet used in the wider discourses in 2017, the year for the latest data. See Chapter 3 for some more discussion on these terms.

5 I have used codenames CM, PBM, INS and FLEX in the data analysis itself, and for brevity, I also use them in this chapter when referring to the different articles, or their posts, as well as to the individual posts quoted (e.g. "CM20" would be the 20th included post for the CM article). The poster usernames are kept confidential in line with the policy of the Guardian newspaper.

6 Although the articles vary somewhat in length and style, the posts are all restricted to the first around 150 relevant posts within topic conversations (see Chapter 4 for more explanation).

Similar to the PBM (plant-based meat) article discussed later, there are several references in the CM article to the buzz in the new food high-tech start-ups,7 and with a similar personal touch from the journalist. Moreover, there are references to interviews with new food innovators and researchers, and overall, the article is quite detailed and combines personal stories with facts. Although the article focuses almost entirely on the new alternative industry (mainly cultivated meat and fish, while mentioning new plant-based meats), it frames the conventional meat industry and the new alternative meat industry in a fairly balanced way in terms of attributes such as "natural/not natural" and "disgusting", concerning the process of producing conventional animal-based meat (or farmed fish) on the one hand, or cultivated meat or fish on the other. The journalist also does not frame conventional animal-based meat as much other than a clear problem, except for the organic meat industry, whereas she frames the action in the article (visiting Finless Foods and tasting their cultivated fish croquettes) as a mainly positive experience. However, a message given in the article seems to be that humans' eating animal flesh in general is something that cannot be changed as such, even if conventional animal-based meat could be replaced with cultivated meat. As regards the posts to the CM article, there is a rather clear future orientation in the posts, imagining the future often in a positive way concerning cultivated meat and fish.8 Other than that, many different themes are touched upon, among them vegetarianism and veganism.

Table 5.1 shows some themes and dimensions — related to my main themes and my research question — from the CM document, with examples from the data.9

For the INS article, the first around 150 topic conversation posts include all relevant posts that exist for this article.

7 Examples of this include: "start-ups racing", "wonder food", "ideas to change the world", "dedicates every waking hour to their vocation", "exude confidence".

8 Regarding future orientation, I ran the articles through a simple corpus linguistics program (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, LIWC) which pointed to a future orientation in the CM and PBM articles, something also observable from reading them. I used this program more for experimental purposes. See also Chapter 4.

9 Since the examples from the posts in Tables 5.1 to 5.5 are not referenced to individual posts, they are also not entirely verbatim in that spelling mistakes have been corrected. Elsewhere in this chapter, when a particular post is referred to directly, the quotes may include spelling mistakes.

*Table 5.1: Themes and dimensions in the CM document*

Note: Cellular agriculture is a relatively new term preferred by the new industry. It refers to making animal-based products, such as meat, fish, eggs, etc. by culturing cells.

#### 5.1.2 New plant-based meat

Similar to the CM article, the PBM article "It looks like a burger, tastes like a burger — but it's a plant" (written by Nellie Bowles, published on 2 June 2016 in the online Guardian) is also written in a narrative form, with the main story being another California tasting event, this time of the plant-based Impossible Burgers by Impossible Meat, another start-up.

The article presents the new plant-based meat as technology not that far from processes involved in other, even basic foods like bread. The history of food is "nature combined with human ingenuity". This time, "through a deep, molecular investigation" into what makes meat meat, human ingenuity has managed to make a product that is plant-based, but so similar to meat that the company aims to "satiate a beef-hungry American population" with something so realistic that "even an 'uncompromising' meat eater" cannot tell the difference. After tasting Impossible Burgers at a special tasting event, the verdicts of the Guardian journalist and others are positive, and the burgers are "pretty good", or "as good as a bad [conventional meat] burger".

The posts to the article include some positive future orientation, somewhat less than in the CM posts, but more than in the INS (insect article) or FLEX (flexitarianism article) posts. There is a significant amount of discussion about vegetarianism in the comments, although the topic of the article is a meat replacement product intended for meat eaters. This may be partly because of some confusion regarding the main target group for the Impossible Burger (i.e. it is mainly aimed for meat eaters, not vegetarians), but vegetarianism and veganism come up as significant themes in all the data. In the PBM posts, it seems that especially people who do not seem to want to change their own meat-eating habits bring this topic up. Eating a plant-based burger as meat could feel like "giving in".

Several themes and their dimensions are shown in Table 5.2 with examples from the data.

*Table 5.2: Themes and dimensions in the PBM document*

Notes: Attitudes towards old and new PBM here refer to what can be called old plant-based meats, such as tempeh, Quorn etc., and the new generation of plant-based meats, i.e. the Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat products and other similar recent products from the last less than a decade, aiming to be completely meat-like (I count the time back to the first products from Beyond Meat which came out in the US in 2012).

#### 5.1.3 Insects

Unlike the CM and PBM articles, the INS article "Insects should be part of a sustainable diet in future, says report" (written by Emma Howard, published on 5 November 2015 in the online Guardian) includes no personal angle of the journalist, nor does it contain any interviews with a personal angle as in the FLEX article.

The key point of this article is about using insects as a partial solution for finding sustainable protein for the near future, focusing on both the United Kingdom and the world at large. It also mentions seaweed and cultivated meat as other potential options. Although little emotion is present in the writing (even regarding the yuck-factor), the message is urgent: by 2020, land "may be pushed to its limits". Similarly, "reining in the world's appetite for meat is essential to tackle climate change", and therefore, "insects should become a staple of people's diets around the world". At the same time, and in a contradictory way, insects are presented as a particularly important option as feed for meat animals. This may be because "the yuckfactor" is seen as a challenge as regards insects for human consumption, and because supposedly, "fears of consumer backlash are preventing change" in reducing or changing meat eating itself.

The INS article relies broadly on the UK Waste and Resources Action Programme report (WRAP, 2015) on food challenges in the next ten years. Having adequate sustainable protein for the UK population will be "one of the defining challenges of the coming decades", according to the WRAP report. The Guardian article stays quite fact-based, picking up arguments from both the WRAP report itself, from a representative of WRAP, and from older Guardian articles and another earlier report on meat consumption.

The posts to this article include a lot of humour. This is a specific feature of the posts in this document, as compared to the posts in the other three documents. The humour is more likely to come from the theme than the article itself and is probably typical for the theme of insects more generally in current, especially online discourse.10 There is a much smaller "imagining the future" orientation in the comments, as compared to the CM article.

Together with examples from the data, themes and dimensions in the INS document are shown in Table 5.3. The humour theme is, however, not included in the table.

10 More generally speaking, comments to articles in the online Guardian do contain such humour. However, the comments in the other three documents in the data mainly do not.

*Table 5.3: Themes and dimensions in the INS document*

#### 5.1.4 Flexitarianism

The main content of the FLEX article "Vegans, vegetarians and now… reducetarians" (written by Nell Frizzell, published on 25 June 2017 in online Guardian) consists of an interview of Brian Kateman, the co-founder of the "Reducetarian movement".11

The article is rather positive about flexitarianism, although the journalist questions the ethicalness of eating *some* meat when one tries to be ethical about meat eating in the first place. Indeed, the journalist focuses on ethics regarding meat animals and does not discuss the environment to the same extent, although Kateman in the included direct quotes talks about eating less meat for environmental or health reasons and not so much for the sake of the animals. According to him, the motivation, in fact, does not matter, the end result is what matters, whereas it seems that the journalist is more concerned with animal ethics, and the consistency of behaviour. The positivity from Kateman and the doubt from the journalist hold opposite ends of this dimension, with the positivity seemingly winning at the end of the article.

There is some double talk in the article about what flexitarianism actually is. On the one hand, even a small cut in meat eating is a "huge win", but on the other hand, the article (and Kateman in particular) talks about eating meat only occasionally as the flexitarian way. These two ways of eating are very different, in practice, and in terms of their impacts, something that the article does not discuss. Most likely for Kateman, flexitarianism denotes the second, more radical way, but he tries to present it as easy, and therefore, as the first way (i.e. where every small step counts). However, and as will be discussed later in Section 5.2.3, the first way can be a route into the second way, although Kateman does not talk about this. Again, it is an easier sell, when someone just has to think about a 10% reduction, and not the further implications of a more profound change.

The posts that follow the FLEX article reflect the article well in that they are quite focused on ethics, and vegetarianism vs. flexitarianism. However, there is a lot of criticism regarding labelling the act of "eating less meat" as something in particular, i.e. reducetarianism, or flexitarianism. The posts are overall less enthusiastic about flexitarianism as part of an identity, many of those who are in principle positive about the idea of eating less meat see it just as a sensible way of eating, not anything to fuss about. But others do see a point in the labelling itself. There is less positive future orientation in the posts than in CM or PBM posts, similar to the INS posts in that respect.

11 "Reducetarianism" is another name for flexitarianism. As mentioned in Chapter 2, this book will usually refer to flexitarianism. It is the most commonly used term.

With data examples, Table 5.4 presents some of the many themes and dimensions in the FLEX article. The morality theme will be discussed in more detail separately, as will labels, and the transformation process.

*Table 5.4: Themes and dimensions in the FLEX document*

Note: Veganism is included in these examples as the end point of the continuum discussed later in Section 5.2.3.

#### 5.1.5 Vegetarianism and veganism

Despite vegetarianism or veganism not being significant themes in any of the four articles contained in the data, all the documents do include some discussion, and the posts have often extensive and rather rich discussion on vegetarianism or veganism. This is, therefore, an important context, or a counter theme for all the other main themes, namely, cultivated meat, new plant-based meat, insects and flexitarianism. More specifically, in the CM document there is a considerable amount of criticism of, and defence for vegetarianism and veganism. In the PBM document, there is extensive discussion on vegetarians or vegans as regards meat replacements, and on whether the new plant-based meat products are meant for vegetarians and vegans, or for meat eaters. Further, in the INS article, there is somewhat less discussion on vegetarianism and veganism, but there are still two themes around it: eating a vegetarian or vegan diet being better than eating insects (if the two were the actual available choices), and the idea of vegetarians and vegans supplementing their diet with insects. Finally, the FLEX document includes extensive discussion of vegetarianism and veganism, from a moral point of view, and from a practical point of view. There is also discussion on the process of becoming a vegetarian or vegan, and similarly to the CM document, there is both criticism and defence towards vegetarian or vegan diets.

Many of the themes and dimensions related to the discussion on vegetarianism and veganism are presented in Table 5.5 (covering all four documents, as indicated), together with some examples from the data.

*Table 5.5: Themes and dimensions regarding vegetarianism and veganism in the data*

This introduction has demonstrated the rich discussion in the four documents, pointing out many of the specific themes and dimensions relevant to the new (and old) meatways, and to my research question. In the next sections, I will move to the main analysis.

#### **5.2 Framing**

This section will draw more heavily from Chapter 3, in terms of how framing works, and the connection to values. In Section 5.2.1, I will first discuss some conclusions of analysing frames in the data. Subsequently, Section 5.2.2 will continue with the frame theme, focusing on sustainability-facilitating values potentially being more related to certain frames than to others. I will discuss what this may mean for discourses around the new meatways. Finally on the focus on frames, in Section 5.2.3, I will present two topics arising from the data that are related to conceptual metaphors as framing tools: the demand-supply dilemma discussed in Chapter 2, which shows up in the data, and the idea of seeing daily (conventional animalbased) meat eating, flexitarianism, vegetarianism and veganism on the same continuum, as "stops" on a road on which one may travel, in whichever direction.

Firstly, however, I will briefly outline the most relevant principles and conclusions from Chapter 3 before moving on to the frames found in the data. Frames are often an important focus in analysing discourse due to their power of defining what is discussed, or not discussed, and how something is discussed. Discourses create and change cognitive frames, and frames impact on discourses in return. Through different frames, discourses also create and change meanings, activate certain values (and emotions), and vice versa, certain values can impact on the kinds of frames and discourses that exist or dominate. Similarly, there is a two-way connection between discourses, frames and knowledge. When discourses change or new discourses are born, new, but frequently present cognitive frames may not only have an impact on value priorities or dispositions. Through general understandings, they may be able to discursively open the relevant social practices, as long as any potential new practice elements are in congruence with each other. Further on reviewing Chapter 3, the potential of prioritizing sustainability-facilitating values through certain frames could be crucial for realising sustainable practices — both at the individual and the societal level — as prioritizing certain values may connect to (acceptance of) action towards sustainability, as long as these values are salient enough, and different values regarding practices are in alignment, rather than in conflict with each other.12

As discussed in Chapter 3, I use the analytical concepts in Strydom (2000, drawing from Klaus Eder and William A. Gamson) whereby three specific cognitive framing devices help construct various frames in a discourse. These three framing devices appearing in different proportions, and with different emphasis, to build frames in public discourses are "factual", "normative" and "emotive". As illustrated

12 Action towards sustainability need not involve only altruistic values, it can also, for example, be about responsibility towards one's own health and wellbeing, which in the context of meat is a relevant connection.

with the example in Chapter 3, framing devices build frames, and a larger discourse can be seen to be built up from several different but generally compatible frames. The division into three distinct framing devices simplifies matters to some extent, as there can be overlaps between them, especially as regards the normative framing device. Despite such overlaps, I keep the framing devices mostly separate in the analysis, and name them based on what is most apparent.13

#### 5.2.1 Frames in the data

In general, the data consists of what can be seen as either crisis discourses — the crisis of meat production with its disastrous impacts, and the crisis of sustainably feeding a growing world population — or solution discourses, i.e. the ways the crises can be resolved. Choosing between these two is also about framing.

All three framing devices can be recognized in the data, although the emotive framing device shows up to a lesser extent than the other two. The titles and leads of any newspaper articles influence the initial frame taken in by the readers, and this frame is often reflected in the article itself as well as the posts that follow. Therefore, Table 5.6 shows the titles and leads for each article, together with the strongest framing devices present.14

13 See Chapter 4 for more on this issue.

14 I briefly considered multimodality in terms of frame analysis, in particular the visual effects such as photos in the online articles. The conclusion is that the photos in these articles seem to be largely supporting the generally fairly positive frames about the topics. In the end, I did not include photos in my analysis.

*Table 5.6: Titles and leads of the articles — Framing devices*

The titles, leads and article texts do seem to influence the discourse that takes place in the posts. This can be seen, for example, from the way moral aspects are emphasized or not emphasized in the titles, leads and article texts and how this is reflected in the posts. For the PBM and INS articles, moral aspects are mostly not explicitly present,15 and so it is also largely for the posts, especially for INS posts. For the CM article, moral aspects are somewhat, although not very present, and the posts follow this line. The only article that does reflect extensively on moral aspects is the FLEX article where flexitarianism is seen as an at least partial solution to the moral dilemmas around meat (more on this topic in Section 5.3.2). The posts that follow this article reflect extensively on various moral aspects as well.

Further, Table 5.7 shows some examples from the different documents — including the articles, but mostly from the posts — for the different framing devices present. These are not meant to be inclusive of all different ways these framing devices are used, but only include some of the typical uses. Section 5.2.3 concentrates separately on two frames defined by two different conceptual metaphors.

15 Although here could be an example of two different framing devices overlapping: the new meats are seen as better for the environment (factual), and therefore something worth pursuing (normative).

*Table 5.7: Typical framing devices in the data*

The framing devices in Table 5.7 point to some common frames contained in the articles. For example, for the CM and PBM articles and posts, typical frames include what can be called the Market frame,16 the Innovation frame, the Efficiency frame and the Competition frame which all emphasize the factual framing device, and can be seen exemplified in Table 5.7 under "factual".17 On the other hand, the Responsibility frame, introduced in Chapter 3 as a historical master frame (for the present times, according to Strydom, 1999; 2000), and emphasizing the normative framing device, is more typical of the FLEX document, although it also shows up in the other documents to an extent. Especially in the FLEX document, we can speak of a Co-responsibility frame (Strydom, 1999), as there is a sense of society and collective human behaviour being able to transform itself, if "everyone does

16 Frames are often written with an initial capital letter.

17 However, to build a whole frame from framing devices, often more than one framing device would be employed. So, for example, for an Innovation frame, one of the factual framing devices, e.g. related to costs of cultivated meat coming down, could be combined with a normative framing device whereby, when cultivated meat is cheap enough, the moral question related to eating animals can be solved. In other words, innovation will solve the issue.

their bit", even if not all posters agree with such a sentiment, or the need to touch meat-eating related practices in the first place. In the other three documents, coresponsibility is visible as well, although to a much lesser extent. Remarkably, these documents include more focus on blame and reasons for inaction, along with giving responsibility for change more to policymakers.

As I mentioned in Chapter 3, some frames built from the framing devices tend to reflect ideologies, which in turn affect the manner and emphasis with which the three framing devices are applied (Strydom, 2000).

The dominant ideology as regards meat eating is carnism (Joy, 2010).18 However, as discussed in Chapter 3, dominant ideologies tend to not be visible: "the most common is the most obscure" (Lehtonen, 2000:7), or as van Dijk (2006) puts it, when an ideology becomes part of the "common ground" accepted by all, it is no longer a recognizable ideology. However, perhaps since carnism has historically had counter ideologies in vegetarianism and veganism, it can be a recognizable ideology, although not easily so. In the data, many of the frames do reflect carnism, in other words, the Carnism frame is rather present, as so much of the discussion circles around the necessity, naturalness, normalness, or niceness of meat, the four Ns that are used as common justifications for eating meat. However, not everyone calling meat Nice, or Normal, for example, is an (individual) carnist.19 Especially societal carnism is, however, present also in other ways. First, in the following data extracts, the underlying carnism is used for justifying cultivated meat as a necessary product, as opposed to the new plant-based meats:

*So why isn't[Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton Creek] making plant-based meat alternatives? "I can't imagine the people I was raised with in Birmingham Alabama under any scenario choosing a plant-based hamburger ... it's an identity thing." CM article*

*"The question is, which product can satisfy the craving of the population for meat?" posits [Mark] Post."At the moment it's there and it's increasing ... culturing is going to cover the entire gamut of meats that are out there. It will be much more difficult to achieve that goal with vegetable-based proteins." CM article*

And, the underlying carnism is used to justify the need for the new generation of plant-based meats:

18 Joy (2011) argues that neocarnism is another, more recent dominant ideology as regards meat.

19 Section 5.3.1 will discuss the four Ns further.

*The goal [of Impossible Foods] is to offset some of the damage done by cows and to satiate a beef-hungry American population that consumes 10bn pounds of ground beef every year. Doing this requires science.  Free yourself from the indoctrination of what is "normal" food. Humans can live healthily without the brainwashing of needing meat and dairy in their diet. CM12, 20 Sep 2017*

*What a bizarre observation [that vegetarians would prefer eating meat to a plant-based burger]. That's like saying every non-smoker secretly wants to neck down a whole pack in an hour.*

*PBM46, 3 Jun 2016*

The more commonly recognizable frames mentioned above, i.e. Market frame, Efficiency frame, Competition frame, Innovation frame, but also Consumer power frame and Meeting the demand frame found in the data and included in Table 5.7, can be grouped together to a frame reflecting capitalism (Capitalism frame), as they all rely one way or another in capitalism's take on how markets, economies and societies work. In other words, such frames indicate that markets, new innovations and competition and efficiency will solve problems (such as meeting the unsustainable and growing demand for meat) by making tasty, efficiently produced, innovative products cheap enough so that as many people as possible can buy them, e.g. cultivated meat or the new generation plant-based meats. Additionally, because of the supposed consumer power to both create demand (whether for meat, or for meat replacements), and reject unpleasant policies (such as a meat tax or other restrictions on meat consumption), the hands of policymakers are often tied, and the markets will deliver better solutions than policymakers could.

Rather central to the discourses around meat, the Meeting the demand frame is, in fact, connected to the Carnism frame. Meeting the demand is a topic for Section 5.2.3.

The Capitalism and Carnism frames can be seen as dominant frames in most current societies, defining much of the discourse around meat, as well as meat replacements, to the extent that the replacements feature in the discourses in the first place. Both of these frames can also be seen as part of the *dominant social paradigm,* introduced in Chapter 3, and seen by some as incompatible with sustainability (e.g. Berzonsky & Moser, 2017; Peattie, 2011).

Another dominant frame existing in the data could be thought of as the Absolute morality frame which is evident in the discourse around vegetarianism and veganism, in that nothing short of absolute abstention from meat can be defined as vegetarianism or veganism, and additionally, vegetarians and vegans should behave consistently in all areas of life, for example, so that vegans do not use any leather. Flexitarianism as an ideology counters the Absolute morality frame.

Defining what are dominant ideologies and what are counter ideologies may not always be straightforward, but it can safely be said that emerging ideologies are likely to be counter ideologies (at first at least), and flexitarianism can certainly be seen as an emerging ideology. Another emerging ideological frame, regarding the larger sustainability discourse, could be called the Sufficiency frame, and flexitarianism would certainly fit under that as well. The other new meatways, eating cultivated meat, new plant-based meats and insects are alternatives that may fit with both capitalism and carnism, in addition to, in part, the idea of a sustainability transformation. This is a relevant distinction to make between these new meatways. The probable conflict between strong sustainability and capitalism (as part of the dominant social paradigm) is increasingly recognized in literature (see e.g. Peet et al., 2011; Schmelzer & Eversberg, 2017), and between truly sustainable future food systems and growth-based economies (Hadjikakou & Wiedmann, 2017), and more specifically between meat eating and capitalism (e.g. Nibert, 2013; Twine, 2014).20 In the context of the new meatways, it can be said that those frames may be competing with each other as regards possible aims for a transformation.21 The different frames most closely associated with the different new meatways may suggest somewhat different futures, although they may also possibly combine and benefit from each other. These topics will be returned to in Chapter 6.

The individual behaviour change policy frame22 (or the "ABC model", Shove, 2010) or Individual responsibility frame, still rather present in policy discourses regarding more general sustainability issues, such as energy use or transportation, is not directly present in the data, but could be said to be implicitly so, as it is in opposition to the Co-responsibility frame. In the data, some people resist changing their own meatways or the meatways of the world, and some people consider change necessary, at the individual level as well, and many posters seem to have already changed their own meatways. To the extent that it is present in this implicit way, the Individual responsibility frame is likely to be either reflected here from discourses around, for example, energy use or transportation, or it may be a

20 However, synergistic frameworks between capitalism and strong sustainability are also explored (see Geels et al., 2015).

21 See Strydom (2000) and Eder (1996) for frame competition.

22 The Individual behaviour change policy frame refers to policymakers giving the main responsibility for sustainable society to consumers rather than to the policymakers themselves, or to other societal actors. This is not about co-responsibility which implies that all societal actors are partially responsible for making change.

product of civil society discourses around meat. The missing discussion as regards policies or policymakers and meat eating is likely to do with the fact that policymakers have until now indeed barely touched the topic, as discussed in Chapter 2.

#### 5.2.2 Frames and sustainability-facilitating values

As discussed in Chapter 3, sustainability-facilitating values (see Figure 3.5) — including co-responsibility, concern for, and unity with nature, social justice and equality — are linked to concern for and action on environmental and social causes, as well as general higher well-being (for the body of literature, see Chapter 3). Also eating less meat is linked to such values being prioritized (de Boer et al., 2007). Importantly, according to Schwartz value theory, people's value systems universally include these values, even though they may not be prioritized in daily lives or expressed in behaviour. Moreover, these values are higher in terms of value hierarchies, as they are related to the successful functioning of human groups (Schwartz, 2012).

Reviewing Chapter 3 further, values can be better engaged by certain discourse frames than by others (Lakoff, 2010). Significantly, pro-social, or pro-environmental policies can activate the related values in the larger society, rather than (just) the other way around, with societal value priorities producing certain kinds of policies (Hoff-Elimari et al., 2014). However, value conflicts are common within not only societies, but also within individuals, and they may prevent the engagement of these sustainability-facilitating values (e.g. Maio, 2011) at both societal and individual levels. In short, value frames related to sustainability, such as co-responsibility or concern for nature, present in discourses can help prioritize such values. Depending on what value conflicts may or may not be present, prioritizing sustainabilityfacilitating values can motivate people for action, for demanding change, or for accepting otherwise tough sustainability-related policies (e.g. Crompton, 2016). The frames that do not prioritize such values may be less likely to motivate for *persistent* environmentally beneficial action. For example, discourse frames related to money tend to link to values that can hinder sustainability, such as the cultural or societal level values of hierarchy and mastery (Kasser, 2011).

In this brief section, I will have a look at how, and if, sustainability-facilitating values are present in the frames the data contains. There is, in fact, a similar division between the articles for this as there is regarding the Co-responsibility frame. In other words, although frames related to sustainability values *are* present for the CM, PBM and INS articles, they are less present there than they are in the FLEX article. For example, the PBM article focuses largely on the new plant-based meat products and their qualities. However, on the sustainability-facilitating value side, a partial motivation for these new products is given as "to offset some of the damage done by cows". Further, a particularly powerful statement in the PBM article is that "the biggest threat to the global environment right now [is] the use of animals for food" (discussed later in the posts that follow the article). Similarly, the INS article frames using insects as food or feed as a partial solution to the problem of "supplying the UK's population with a nutritional and sustainable protein supply" in the near future, and "reining in the world's appetite for meat is essential to tackle climate change". Although the need to protect the environment is present, both of these articles have a rather human-centred view. The CM article has a human-centred approach as regards the importance of protecting the environment, but it also celebrates the idea that with cultivated meat, it may be possible to not cause cruelty to animals while continuing to eat meat. In other words, caring for nature — as far as farm animals can be seen as part of nature — matters in and of itself.

On the other hand, the FLEX article is to a significant extent built around sustainability-facilitating values. Protecting the environment, or nature, for humans, and for its own sake, is more present than in the other articles. Besides, these values are touched upon with the specific features of flexitarianism. It is constructed as responsible, honest, yet broad-minded (in that it is not a strict way of eating), incorporating some freedom and providing for inner harmony (in that cognitive dissonance need not be involved). Likewise, flexitarianism is framed as *not* being about public image or social recognition.23 For example:

*For anyone who has tried to cut out meat entirely and failed, there's a new movement which tries to take a more pragmatic approach. FLEX article*

*We celebrate anyone who decides to reduce the number of animal products they eat and the motivation doesn't matter. FLEX article*

*The reason people eat less meat isn't for some badge, some public status, it's because it has a meaningful impact on the world. FLEX article*

The posts that follow the four articles largely reflect the value presence in the articles. Therefore, the FLEX posts contain the most discussion that can be linked to sustainability-facilitating values, as already reflected in the data extracts earlier in this Section 5.2 in the discussion regarding frames. However, some of the points that are brought up in the FLEX article as essential to flexitarianism, are criticized

23 Preserving public image and gaining social recognition are related to self-enhancing values which less often coincide with self-transcending values. See Chapter 3.

in the posts. To some, flexitarianism seems to be, in fact, about irresponsibility and dishonesty:

*Basically"reduce your guilt over contributing to animal suffering, by giving yourweakwill a misleading name"[…] There is no negotiation with dead animals, either they're suffering and dead or they're not, this is just excusing inability to "stick to it". FLEX134, 25 Jun 2017*

Or, to others, it is indeed about public image:

*This simply reflects the narcissism of our age where everyone has to have a label attached to them as if to say "look at me, this is what makes me different". FLEX129, 25 Jun 2017*

Yet, most of the posters seem to embrace the idea of flexitarianism, and one can theorize that for these people, sustainability-facilitating values are being activated, perhaps more so than from reading the other articles or posts, in particular since these values can be seen as more relevant to the concept of especially strong flexitarianism.

Following the discussion in the previous section, those frames that tend to be fairly dominant in the discourse about the new meatways — new, more sustainable products — tend to also not have as strong links to sustainability-facilitating values, whereas the still somewhat less dominant frames about the new meatways — e.g. flexitarianism — do tend to have stronger links to such values.

As discussed earlier, conflicts between values are often preventing sustainability-facilitating values from influencing action. However, all the new meatways may have, in principle, a benefit linked to value expression in behaviour, as opposed to vegetarianism or veganism. The new meatways may, at least in some contexts, be better in line with values such as providing for family, convenience, tradition, freedom, politeness, and pleasure, than vegetarianism or veganism alone have traditionally been able to be. To note, the above values do mostly *not* belong to the selftranscending values (considered facilitating sustainability), and so, importantly, the new meatways can better align sustainability values with other values prioritized by people more generally.

#### 5.2.3 Two conceptual metaphors as framing tools

Conceptual metaphors were discussed in Chapter 4. In short, a conceptual metaphor (originally from Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) is "a way of knowing the world" (Foss, 2009:270), where one idea (*target domain*, e.g. time) is understood in terms of another (*source domain*, e.g. money). People's knowledge of the source domain (e.g. that money is valuable, not to be wasted) carries over to explain the target domain.24 A conceptual metaphor can often make a point more efficiently and comprehensively than typical argumentative structures can. Moreover, metaphors play a key role in framing perceptions, and therefore, in framing action. Foss argues further that change in society or, change at an individual level, can be generated by changing metaphors.

The two conceptual metaphors in the following two subsections can in part be traced back to the Metaphorlist (Lakoff et al., 1991), a compilation and analysis of conceptual metaphors found in (mostly) academic literature.

#### <IP_ADDRESS> Journey on a continuum

Smil's (2002) suggestion for a global shift in replacing a significant amount of meat in processed meat products with plant-based proteins is seen by Jallinoja et al. (2016) not only as a practical way to go about a somewhat involuntary transformation to using more plant-based proteins instead of meat, but also, as mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3, as a way into seeing meat eating, and plant-based proteins and vegetarianism, as different points on the same continuum, rather than as opposites. Much of that continuum is then comprised of different versions of flexitarianism (from weak to strong), and its endpoints are veganism at one end, and individual carnism25 at the other end.

The conceptual metaphors of a continuum, as well as a journey,26 might be helpful in several distinct ways, all of which can be found in the data. As a counter point, the more relaxed attitude in flexitarianism (the term coming from "flexible vegetarianism") causes some tension between those (vegetarians or vegans) who call for a more black-and-white moralism — referred to in this chapter as an allor-nothing approach27 — about meat eating and those who accept the imperfection of their own vegetarianism, or that of others. The all-or-nothing approach refers to two ways of reacting in this case, either justifying no action or defining one's own action rigidly. For an example of the first reaction: why cut car driving, if one still flies? Why mess with diet (to decrease its impact), if one still drives? Also, why eat a vegetarian diet when even with that diet some animals will die? These kinds of arguments are present in the data likely as coping strategies for cognitive dissonance. They will be returned to in Section 5.3.

24 So, in the traditional format of writing out conceptual metaphors in statements and in capital letters, TIME IS MONEY.

25 See Chapter 3.

26 In the traditional format of conceptual metaphors, we could say, for example, that DIET CHANGE IS A JOURNEY, or more generally LONGTERM PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY IS A JOUR-NEY. The latter metaphor can be found in the Metaphorlist (Lakoff et al., 1991).

27 In psychology literature, all-or-nothing thinking is referred to as *splitting*.

The second reaction, relating to defining foodways strictly, is more relevant to flexitarianism and the continuum idea:

*That's fine if your basis for not eating meat is environmental or health-based. In that case a reduction rather than elimination is still a positive thing. If the basis is that it's simply morally wrong to eat other living creatures then even a small amount is still going too far. Robbing one bank makes you a criminal as much as robbing 10. And many people have that moral basis for their vegetarianism or veganism. I'm not disagreeing with his general concept that it's good to cut down. As the sole meat-eater in a vegetarian family I've done that myself. Just not sure the justification would fly with a lot of people. FLEX68, 25 Jun 2017*

Here, on the other hand, is an example of a counter point to the above, i.e. accepting that flexitarianism, although imperfect, may be a good way to go about reducing harm:

*As a utilitarian, morality is about increasing expected utility: it's not an all-or-nothing thing. Black-and-white deontological morality is outdated. If more suffering is reduced by many people reducing their meat consumption, as opposed to a few people becoming vegan and the rest not wanting to go that far, then I support reducetarianism. As it happens, I don't know which approach is the best, but I suspect reducetarianism is part of the solution. I'm a vegan myself, and I do encourage people to go as far as they possibly can, but if reducetarianism really is the only way to get certain people to reduce their meat consumption, then I support it.*

*FLEX75, 25 Jun 2017*

The second of the two above examples points to flexitarianism possibly helping people to start a journey towards less meat, and for them "to go as far as they possibly can", on a road, so to speak. Moving along — back or forth — on that continuum is also acceptable for the more relaxed attitude inherent to flexitarianism (e.g. de Boer et al., 2014), and so, speaking of a "vegetarian relapse" (CM34, 20 Sep 2017) becomes unnecessary.28 As Jallinoja et al. (2016) argue, the continuum idea may make replacing (some, or an increasing amount of) meat with plant-proteins a more relaxed affair, and therefore, more easily a routinized and embodied practice.

Even though e.g. Verain et al. (2015) note that flexitarianism can just be a food style among many others, rather than a step on the road towards vegetarianism, it could be that the different clusters of eaters (such as those identified by Verain

28 Conceptualising the journey as nonlinear, and not unidirectional, may be quite central in fact: "If progress is movement in a forward direction then stopping, slowing down, or stepping off the path altogether may seem like failure, even though that could be a counter movement to achieve a sense of balance" (Andrews, 2017a:274).

and colleagues) are indeed on the same continuum from avid meat lovers to vegans, but they are just at different points on that journey. Importantly, some might never move forward, while others walk all the way. Even if flexitarianism was "only" another food style, promoting it (Jallinoja et al., 2016) becomes easier when it (the road) has a name:

*Giving it a label means that a movement can be formed. It's a bit like a political party. You could say "we believe that policies x, y and z should be implemented" or you could say "I'm a member of the Labour Party" or "I'm left-wing". FLEX133, 25 Jun 2017*

The relaxed attitude around flexitarianism as a food style could make trying a partly vegetarian diet possible for more people, some of which will make a permanent change: "[A label] ensures that more people stop eating meat" (FLEX 133, 25 Jun 2017).29

Another benefit to thinking of reducing meat eating as a journey is that generally, a slower change in individual eating habits may be better than a fast switch. For example, Zaraska (2016a) argues that a fast change tends to be resisted more than a slower change. Similarly, a considerable number of people (also represented in my data) are ex-vegetarians or vegans, so-called *lapsed* vegetarians or vegans (see Asher et al., 2016) due to the, often especially social, difficulties of maintaining the diet. When seen as a journey on which one can go back and forth, there is no need to think of oneself being an "ex-veggie".

People do tend to think of "going veggie" as a switch (rather than a journey), sometimes in a positive sense, especially when referring to a personal or family change that has taken part in the past:

*Go vegetarian or vegan. You'll never look back in terms of health. FLEX46, 25 Jun 2017*

*The kids have gone vegan and vegetarian and we've supported them in that (which has been a hassle but they have ended up eating much healthier […] food I think) — and we have gone almost fully vegetarian partly for simplicity, but mainly due to an acceptance of the arguments for, such as health, environmental concerns and animal welfare. FLEX103, 25 Jun 2017*

*When I first went veggie I used to use meat substitutes, but the[n] I learned to cook. PBM25, 3 Jun 2016*

However, even in these examples, a journey is referred to in "you'll never look back", and "going veggie" could actually be seen as going somewhere, i.e. being on a jour-

29 Labels will be explored more in Section 5.4.1.

ney, although most often this phrase seems to be understood as referring to a quicker change. However, a "switch" is also seen in a negative sense, especially when talking about a larger group of people and potential change in the future:

*The switch to a vegetarian diet just isn't feasible for many. CM5, 20 Sep 2017*

Here the idea of a switch is seen concretely, hypothetically positive if it existed:

*I do not think human beings are to blamefor our evolutionary proclivityfor delicious meat. If only that were a switch we could turn off. PBM131, 3 Jun 2016*

Seeing the process of change as a slow journey, at least on a scale of individual human lives, is specifically present in some posts:

*I think not eating meat is now one of the solutions to our species's survival, and as such it makes sense that some people introduce it [not eating meat] gradually into their lives. FLEX123, 25 Jun 2017*

*I'm on the same path. I stopped eating mammals some time ago, recently stopped eating chicken.*

*FLEX87, 25 Jun 2017*

There is a considerable amount of discussion in the data (mostly outside the FLEX document) regarding vegetarians and vegans either liking meat (but not eating it) or vegetarians and vegans disliking meat.30 The idea of a journey would seem particularly crucial for those who continue to desire eating meat, even though they try to follow a low/no meat diet. For example, cultivated meat can be seen as "a great halfway house" on a more general journey from meat eating to vegetarianism or veganism for those who do not find following a vegetarian or vegan diet (yet) "feasible" (both quotes are from CM5, 20 Sep 2017). Further, "mock meat" (plantbased meat) is referred to as "transitional food" (by PBM39, 3 Jun 2016), when on transit, i.e. on a journey from meat eating to veganism.

In the posts following the FLEX article, eating animals is compared to slavery. The topic is introduced by someone making an argument against flexitarianism ("lets have a bit less slavery too", FLEX118, 25 Jun 2017), but then as a counter point, this comparison is made to support the idea of flexitarianism:

*Slavery didn't just end instantly either. There were incrementalists and people who wanted reform of the system to "reduce" its severity, too. If people were so resistant to abandoning slavery, then a kind of reducetarianism for slavery would have been justified*

30 Table 5.5 reflects some of this discussion.

*too. FLEX121, 25 Jun 2017*

The FLEX document is indeed the one that is mainly concerned with the metaphor of a continuum and a journey. The posts to the FLEX article itself certainly reflect on the article referring to meat reduction as a point on a continuum (or spectrum):

*"The central premise of reducetarians is that vegans and vegetarians— who have reduced their animal intake so successfully that they're not eating any at all— are part of the same spectrum as people who are dissatisfied with factory farming and so have decided to, say, only eat meat once in a while", says Kateman.*

The article also sees flexitarianism as a more relaxed way than all-or-nothing vegetarianism or veganism. Right from the beginning, the article lead frames this: "For anyone who has tried to cut out meat entirely and failed, there's a new movement which tries to take a more pragmatic approach".

Even just calling flexitarianism a movement, can actually be seen as "moving" along a path. However, and as mentioned in Section 5.1, the FLEX article somewhat fails to emphasize the idea of a journey, and instead conceptualises flexitarianism, conflictingly, either as a small and easy switch: "if people were to cut back by just 10% that would be a huge win" (quoting Brian Kateman), or as a more radical change, in that reducetarians would "only eat meat once in a while" as in the above longer quote from Kateman.

However, as shown above, the posts to the FLEX article certainly help one see meat reduction as a journey. Figure 5.1 visualises these ideas in two-dimensional space.

To explain the diagonal, meat reduction and flexitarian line in Figure 5.1, the closer the intended change is to a quick switch (from daily meat to much less, or no meat), the more difficult it is likely to be, and the more likely one is to stay close to a daily meat eater. On the opposite end of the meat reduction and flexitarian line, the slower the journey of change is, the easier it is, and the more likely one is to eventually be able to eat even a vegetarian or vegan diet, if desired. However, the reason why the diagonal line is also the flexitarian line (and not only about meat reduction) is that flexitarianism can usefully be seen as a journey, on which one may move more freely, and sometimes also "backwards".

#### <IP_ADDRESS> The hungry beast

Chapter 2 discussed the meat demand paradigm, or frame, according to which the world will need 75% more meat production by 2050, due to population and income increases along with rapid further urbanization, and importantly, it is this demand that the meat industry tries to adjust to. Moreover, this frame largely excludes other ways to supply the majority of the world population with adequate

*Figure 5.1: Meat reduction process, and flexitarian journey*

Source: Figure by author.

Note: The diagonal arrow indicates the flexitarian journey.

protein. According to this frame, intensive meat production needs to intensify further to cut greenhouse gas production, and less intensive, or extensive production (in the Global South) needs to either transform into intensive production or use other ways to make meat production more efficient. This frame is still strongly present in policy discourses.31 However, very lately, mainly following the increasing awareness of the contributions from meat production to climate change and biodiversity loss, has some discussion on reducing meat eating in the Global North entered certain policy documents, for example, some documents published by the IPCC (e.g. IPCC, 2015; 2018; 2019).The topic has, however, been present in academic discourses, as well as in some civil society discourses for a considerably longer time.

 To explain, the articles, especially the PBM article, but also the CM and INS articles, and a number of posts (especially to the PBM article) refer to different groups of people, in the Global North (especially in the United States) or in the South, as if they were one singular entity with certain beast-like qualities. Importantly, the beast metaphor is not meant to depict actual humans as animal-like or to dehumanize anyone; the idea is simply to reveal the metaphorical dimensions of seeing meat demand as something natural, unified

31 The assumption that intensification significantly decreases GHG emissions from extensive animal farming has been called into question (see Hayek, 2019).

and something that cannot be argued with. The qualities of unpredictability, large size and power are linked to the idea of the demand for meat in this metaphor. The beast also some powerful own will (and a great hunger), whereby the industries just have to comply with the demands (of the beast).

In the examples that follow, this beast must be fed, and in particular, fed with meat, for it to be satisfied: 32,33,34

*US may be among the world's most carnivorous nations, but as China's economy swells, the planet's most populous country is catching up. CM article*

*The promise from Impossible Foods[…] is they will be making burgers so realistic that even an "uncompromising" meat eater won't be able to tell the difference. The goal is to offset some of the damage done by cows and to satiate a beef-hungry American population that consumes 10bn pounds of ground beef every year. Doing this requires science. PBM article*

*Yes, apparently if [a domestic animal is] not a dog or a cat it is just an object to be abused, terrified and murdered to satisfy the obese masses. PBM92, 3 Jun 2016*

*As the article says, they're a company trying to diminish the negative impact of the beef industry— an industry that isshovelling 10 billion pounds of ground mince into Americans' mouths every year. They're trying to produce a viable substitute. PBM126, 3 Jun 2016*

Here is an answer to the above post (PBM126), emphasizing the demand factor:

*[PBM126:] "an industry that is shovelling 10 billion pounds of ground mince into Americans' mouths every year"*

32 The expressions that refer to the hungry beast are in bold in the examples that follow.

33 This analysis combines extracts from different articles and different posts to build the metaphor, via showing different aspects of a narrative of a "hungry, uncontrollable, meateating beast" present in the discourse. Although the purpose is not to claim that any one article or post would have all these aspects within it, the PBM document as a whole does actually contain all the elements.

34 In the traditional format of writing out conceptual metaphors, we can use, for example, a statement such as HUNGRY POPULATION IS A BEAST or POPULATION IS A HUNGRY BEAST.

*In response to consumer demand, you should note. They aren't being force-fed in detention.*

*PBM128, 3 Jun 2016*

An uncontrollable desire makes humans more like animals. Sometimes it is the appetite itself that is a beast that needs to be controlled, rather than simply fed:

*Reining in the world's appetite for meat is essential to tackle climate change, according to a report published last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. INS article*35

The wild animal is also growing bigger, even in an uncontrollable way:

*The biggest threat is undoubtedly the out-of-control human population growth. All these sticking plasters aren't going to change that (and just wait till the Chinese demand for beef catches up to the Americans.) Fewer meat-hungry people means fewer methane-emanating cows, it really isn't that hard to understand. Yet many governments are subsidising childbirth. Insanity. PBM75, 3 Jun 2016*

*The interest in meatless meat has to do with finding an economically viable substitute for a growing population of meat eaters. PBM22, 2 Jun 2016*

*It's simple maths. The world has a steadily increasing population. As the middle classes of poorer countries grow, so does their appetite for meat. PBM23, 2 Jun 2016*

In other instances, the beast that needs to be fought is the Western food culture:

*The target market for these products is people who wouldn't have eaten those veggies anyway. They would just keep eating beef burgers, which is an unsustainable practice longterm. It would be nice to encourage people to come back to eating healthy foods properly, but this would take a long time (if it was even possible). You would be battling against an entire culture of fast food and instant gratification. PBM7, 3 Jun 2016*

And in other instances, the beast is more addicted to meat than just hungry (a carnivorous animal does need meat):

35 "Reining in" refers to controlling something, including controlling a large animal by using "reins", straps.

*But in the eyes of the cultured meat trailblazers, fancy vegetarian food will never have mass appeal. Demand for meat, and fish, is only going one way. "The question is, which product can satisfy the craving of the population for meat?" posits Post. CM article*

*There isn't enough farm land on the planet to raise the livestock and grow the crops to feed the livestock to supply the global meat habit. PBM23, 2 Jun 2016*

There is some criticism as well for the existence of the hungry beast:36

*You don't counter propaganda by providing fakes. The key problem is induced desires and resultant massive over-consumption. It's not about substitution for reasonable levels of food intake, or about nutrition, or about taste. The fake meat is not the solution to a problem, it perpetuates the primary problem.  Free yourself from theindoctrination of what is "normal" food. Humans can live healthily withoutthe brainwashing of needing meat and dairy in their diet. CM12, 20 Sep 2017*

Parallels to this metaphor could be drawn from Edward Bernays' (a nephew of Sigmund Freud) theories, applied to the public relations industry he created in the United States in the 1930s, of how advertising can tap into people's unconscious needs to create desires. So, the beast, or the uncontrollable wild animal, would then be the Freudian unconscious human mind (Nadine Andrews, personal communication, 10 May 2018).

The hungry beast metaphor connects my data well with the more general discourse (see Chapter 2) about the near future of humanity, as regards food and population growth, and as regards the future of eating meat. Metaphors activate certain frames, and in the case of the hungry beast (in this context) the frame being rather naturally activated is the Meeting the demand frame. This metaphor can also be seen to combine the Capitalism frame with the Carnism frame in connection with the new meats, as the proponents of new meat products aim to satisfy the (societal and/or individual) carnists world over.

The new meats, i.e. cultivated meat, the new plant-based meats, and even insects to an extent, are functioning in the same Hungry beast (Meeting the demand)

36 In these two extracts, the bold text refers to the idea of "induced desires", or of the beast actually being a creation of the meat industry and the current global discourse around meat.

frame. In particular, the ambition of the start-ups is to create huge worldwide markets for these new meats, to replace (much of) conventional animal-based meat.The beast has to be fed with meat, or with something *like* meat. The underlining notion that such a product (old meat or new meat) is absolutely necessary is usually not touched upon in the dominant discourses, often reflecting capitalism or carnism.

Finally, the hungry beast metaphor intriguingly links to a dog metaphor that Zaraska (2016a:102) uses when discussing our current meat-eating practices: "we love eating meat because it is well sold to us", and the meat industry "wag[s] the dog of demand as hard as it can". The dog metaphor links to both the hungry beast metaphor and the demand-supply dilemma of whether it is the industry largely creating the demand, or whether the industry is just responding to an urgent need. There seem to generally be two main interpretations for the tail wagging the dog metaphor. The first is that the action of the tail wagging the dog takes place, for example, when followers control their leader.37 In Zaraska's sense above, the demand is the leader (the dog), but the meat industry (the tail, a follower) controls it. The second interpretation is that to "wag the dog" means to "purposely divert attention from what would otherwise be of greater importance, to something else of lesser significance".38 So, in this interpretation, the discourse of meat demand may be distracting from the meat industry's strategy to actually create the demand. Neatly combining to this, the "dog of demand" itself (from Zaraska, above) can be seen as a meat-eating beast which needs to be fed (by the meat industry).

#### <IP_ADDRESS> Metaphors and the policy context

One of the crucial consequences of the dominance of the Meeting the demand frame in mainstream discourses regarding how to handle meeting the food and/or protein demand by 2050 is that research into behaviour change in meat is still lagging far behind research on technological emission reduction from meat production, due to the low priority among policymakers (Garnett, 2011). Remarkably, flexitarianism runs counter to the Meeting the demand (with meat) frame. Noting from the data, the counter discourses around flexitarianism imply a different way of meeting the challenges as regards food futures.

Metaphors themselves have a connection to policy (Spencer, 2010) in that, by activating certain frames, metaphors contribute to the discursive construction of an issue (e.g. meat as a problem or not), and therefore they contribute to the policies seen as relevant to that issue. Both of the conceptual metaphors discussed above call for certain — although potentially different — kinds of policies, with the first (the

37 Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1978.

38 From UsingEnglish.com, viewed on 23 May 2018. Also, similar definitions can be found in Urbandictionary.com and Dictionary.com. This interpretation of the metaphor seems to be a more recent one.

journey) more likely to activate a counter frame which encourages flexitarianism, and the second (the hungry beast) a currently dominant frame which encourages more meat production, whether old or new meat. It will be seen whether a struggle (Strydom, 2000) between these two different and somewhat opposing frames will take place in the context of meat,39 or whether the frames could somehow combine, in particular, so that the demand for the new meats would be balanced with the principle of strong flexitarianism. Being aware of the frames expressed through these two metaphors can, in any case, be very useful, and contribute to change as such. For example, the "beast" may be hungry, but it need not necessarily be fed with meat. Instead, it can be fed with a combination of new meats and pulses, in the spirit of strong flexitarianism, for example.

Finally, in addition to the individual level journey towards less or no meat, the societal transformation away from the old meatways into new meatways can be seen as the *grand journey of transformation* of the meat system,40 involving experimentation (going back and forth) with different alternatives. This journey is then part of the larger sustainability transformation journey. As regards the new meatways and the discourses around them, and the increasing problematization of the current meat system, this journey has already started.

#### **5.3 Meat-eating related challenges**

#### 5.3.1 Coping strategies and the new meatways

In Chapter 3, I discussed the different strategies used by many meat eaters to cope with cognitive dissonance, a common phenomenon arising from the conflict between eating animals, yet not wanting to hurt animals — a conflict in values. Similarly, cognitive dissonance can be said to arise from not wanting to harm the environment or even one's own health, and yet engaging in activities that do harm them. Changing actual behaviour is also a coping strategy, with vegetarianism or veganism being the traditional ways to do this, and the new meatways adding important options to these.

By all means, not everyone who eats meat uses coping strategies. In Chapters 2 and 3, I discussed the idea of a continuum to cover all meatways. The previous section in this chapter explored the data as regards the impact of thinking of different

39 Magneson-Chiles (2013) refers to a *discursive struggle*, in connection with cultivated meat and various future expectations regarding it. Comparable discursive struggles could be fought between different new meatways.

40 Calling the societal level transformation of the meat system as a journey is from van der Weele (personal communication, 25 January 2019).

meatways as on a continuum. This continuum covers everyone from an avid (individual) carnist to a strict vegan. At the individual carnist end, it may well be that coping strategies are not required, if no prioritized values are in conflict, whereas someone at the vegan end of the continuum is likely to have used the coping strategy of changing his or her actual behaviour, i.e. by ceasing to use animal products, at least for food and drink. A good part of the continuum consists of flexitarians, from weak to strong, and most flexitarians do use either their flexitarianism as a coping strategy, or they use some other strategy, as do what I call societal carnists, i.e. people who prefer to eat meat on a regular (usually daily) basis, out of a habit, a social convention, or because meat is Nice. At the same time, these people may be somewhat uneasy about their diet. A societal carnist has normalised regular meat eating (usually as a small child), but carnistic values (see Chapter 3) are likely to not all be prioritized by societal carnists.

In literature (discussed also in Chapter 3), coping strategies include the four Ns41 — meat being Normal, Natural, Necessary and Nice — as justifying meat eating, in addition to a group of other coping strategies identified especially by Rothgerber (2014) and by Onwezen and van der Weele (2016). Together with some of the other coping strategies, the four Ns can be seen as more direct justifications, whereas indirect justifications include some of the other strategies for coping with cognitive dissonance. These justifications, as discussed in Chapter 3, are often part of strategic ignorance of the value and emotion conflicts, and of knowledge regarding what eating animals actually entails. Importantly, the (on- or offline) presence of vegetarians or vegans makes meat eaters particularly prone to using coping behaviours (Rothgerber, 2014).

As regards the data, there is a range of coping strategies present, many of which are identified in literature. However, some of the strategies identified in literature are not really present, or if they are, they are only present concerning a discussion of the behaviour of others. In terms of the four Ns, the data has somewhat different takes on the concepts. Below, I have attempted to include all the ways that the four Ns are used either for justifying meat eating or for justifying the new meatways. I also include the Not Ns, i.e. expressing something as Not normal, Not natural, and so forth.

First, although the traditional sense of meat being Normal is indeed expressed: "more than half of the animal kingdom eats the other half. Hence I think it's normal" (CM43, 21 Sep 2017), much of the use for Normal in the data is for normalising the new meatways. The articles do this:

41 Joy (2010) discusses the first three Ns, Normal, Natural and Necessary in her theory regarding carnism. The fourth N has been added later by Piazza et al. (2015).

*People are already coming around to the idea of produce grown in factories rather than fields. Marks and Spencer has introduced microherbs cultivated free from pesticides in airraid shelters […] And perhaps knowing that cultured meat isn't a new idea might help normalise it. Winston Churchill was banging on about it in 1932."We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,'' he wrote, presciently. CM article*

*Comparing the process of culturing meat cells to […] brewing beer. That hallowed, ancient process tends to happen in giant, sterile, sealed fermenters,which are not unlike the bioreactors that will be used for culturing meat in industrial quantities. CM article*

*Ground cricketflour is already being used as a protein source inNorth America,[Swannell] said. The adoption of insects as a protein in animal diets will be "more straightforward", added Swannell.*

*INS article*

*For Brown, all food manufacturing relies on technology to some extent."The entire history of food has been nature combined with human ingenuity", he said."Bread isn't something that falls off a plant." PBM article*

*At the tasting, the crowd lined up for sliders. The general consensus was a lot of shrugging. "Burger", one tester described it as between bites. "Pretty good." PBM article*

Further, the posts are using Normal in a way that can be seen as working towards normalising the new meatways:

*Mock meat is created for meat-eaters, an attempt to get meat-eaters to eat less meat. Not many vegans eat this — it's considered a transitional food. It started with the Buddhists creating fake meat for non-harm festivals that get the greater part of the meat-eating population abstaining for meat for the duration of the festival. PBM39, 3 Jun 2016*

*And time, I feel, will also produce more willing consumers, people not yet born who will grow up with this as an entirely normal idea. I feel absolutely certain that cultured meat will one day be commonly eaten the world over. CM143, 20 Sep 2017*

*Yes, yes [the Impossible Burger] is [a burger]. Burger these days refers to the form. It isn't a hamburger, but nor are chicken burgers, fish burgers, etc. PBM2, 3 Jun 2016*

*I just eat food too. But I only eat meat two or three days a week.  FLEX16, 25 Jun 2017*

In particular, many of the INS posts are about normalising insects as food:

*A lot of insects taste like pork, particularly in the larval stage and you'd eat the ones that are palatable and we have history digesting. INS16, 5 Nov 2015*

*The Aztecs and Maya ate -- and still do -- insects for their protein. Fried worms are tasty and crunchy with a texture like cheeze puffs.  I know they're not the same as insects, but they certainly share a number of traits and it turns out they're probably more cloesly related to insects than previously thought. Lobsters really are cockroaches of the sea. INS4, 5 Nov 2015*

Normalising the new meatways will be returned to in Section 5.4.2. In opposition to Normal, Not normal is used occasionally for the new meatways or for vegetarianism or veganism, but additionally, it is used for conventional meat eating, as in "free yourself from the indoctrination of what is 'normal' food" (CM12, 20 Sep 2017) or in "meat from animals will become a premium product and with time may become socially unacceptable in many societies" (CM132, 20 Sep 2017).

Second, and different from Normal, Natural is used mainly to justify meat eating, this being a typical example: "whilst I hate the term natural there can be little debate; we evolved from an omnivore diet so clearly eating meat was natural" (CM65, 20 Sep 2017). However, there are also attempts to make the new meats more Natural: "she describes the raw paste of harvested cells within them as having a delicate flavour of the sea, a little like the water in an oyster shell" (CM article). Further, there is criticism for the importance of Natural as an argument, for example in the CM article: "Naturalness is perhaps one of the most slippery concepts ever to have been massaged by advertising copywriters". The posts reflect this as well: "What's so good about things being 'natural', whatever that means? Smallpox is natural, mosquitoes are natural" (CM67, 20 Sep 2017). The opposite, Not natural, is used more variably, often for cultivated meat: "Frankenstein's creation was a reanimated dead corpse. Are cells grown invitro far removed?" (CM140, 20 Sep 2017), and for eating conventional animal-based meat:

*We are only omnivores in the sense that we do eat meat, not because our biology is adapted to meat consumption. Eating meat is as "natural" as eating a deep-fried Mars bar; we can do it, but if we do it everyday there are health consequences. CM75, 21 Sep 2017*

Additionally, and as could be expected, Not natural is often used for the way conventional animal-based meat is produced:

*No one can argue that intensive farming is natural. Eating insects is arguably more natural, and yet westerners turn their noses up at the idea. CM article*

*The critics who dismiss [cultivated meat] as unnatural are going to be very upset when they find out where their meat currently comes from. CM121, 20 Sep 2017*

*Animal Flesh is a[n] expensive product to make, it requires an intense amount of water, crops, and land to produce. PBM68, 3 Jun 2016*

Third, Necessary is used in equally varied ways. There are some, although not many references to people personally finding meat eating Necessary, however, it is more common to say that farming animals is Necessary:

*Here we go again. If we didn't eat cows, we wouldn't breed them. Therefore they wouldn't even exist in the first place. PBM95, 3 Jun 2016*

*We do need our grasslands for biodiversity. CM21, 21 Sep 2017*

*Total rubbish [to say that if you care about the environment, you should not eat meat]. Wait till you have to denude all the forests to plant your silly soya bean and other crops to sustain the population of the planet on only vegetable matter. Let's see how the world is then.....*

*PBM139, 3 Jun 2016*

However, a common use for Necessary is also to justify the new meatways:

*Alternative protein sources will be needed for humans and livestock INS article*

*"I decided that without question the biggest threat to the global environment right now was the use of animals for food", Brown said. "But the only way you're going to [replace meat] is a marketplace approach and that entails creating a food that outperforms this market."*

*PBM article*

*We're already at the stage where we need to start eating less meat in order to not completely destroy the planet.  But imagine if you can make a burger that tastes like meat, costs a 5th of the price, is actually healthy, and doesn't decimate the environment. The person who achieves that will make sh\*t loads of money! PBM23, 2 Jun 2016*

*[Cultivated meat] will get there because it has to. too many humans on this rock. CM3, 20 Sep 2017*

*More worrying is the fact that because us Westerners don't have much tradition of eating insects, newly-affluent people in emerging countries are also ditching their insect diets as they aspire to eat a meat-heavy Western diet. And the last thing the planet needs is the whole of China and India getting hooked on meat, with all its disastrous environmental impacts. So we in the West basically need to start eating more insect-based proteins pretty sharpish...*

*INS46, 5 Nov 2015*

*I think not eating meat is now one of the solutions to our species's survival, and as such it makes sense that some people introduce it [not eating meat] gradually into their lives, and should not be made to feel like advocates for rape/slavery for doing so. FLEX123, 25 Jun 2017*

The opposite justification, Not necessary, is similarly used in varied ways, to either justify that the new meatways are Not necessary, or that meat as such is Not necessary. Sometimes criticism of the new meatways is to defend the status quo:

*Insects are fine as a snack (eg replacing crisps) but they just don't do the job of a steak. So we either need genetically modified, cow-sized insects (the stuff of horror) or to stop listening to these ridiculous think tanks. INS93, 5 Nov 2015*

However, most of these justifications seem to be used to support discontinuing meat eating, as even when the new meatways are considered Not necessary, it is to say that vegetarianism or veganism is all that is needed:

*I don't even see the point of cultured meat at all on this basis, it would be easier and better to turn farming around the world to vegetables, nuts and grains used to feed people. CM2, 20 Sep 2017*

*Anyone would think getting more than adequate protein from plant sources was difficult (it isn't). There are many vegan bodybuilders and athletes who do well without any animal form of protein. So why bother with insects. INS66, 5 Nov 2015*

*The key problem is induced desires and resultant massive over-consumption […] the fake meat [such as the Impossible Burger] is not the solution to a problem, it perpetuates the primary problem. PBM130, 3 Jun 2016*

*Given that we don't live in [a hunter-gatherer] society however, meat eating results in animals being imprisoned and oppressed all their lives which makes eating meat under these circumstances all the more wrong, and as it is arguably no longer necessary for survival it is even less defendable. FLEX126, 26 Jun 2017*

Fourth and last, when Nice is used to describe meat, it is often with short and confident appeals to senses: "a lovely form of food", "delicious", "yummy", "meat, in all its glory". Especially the CM article focuses, however, on similar sensory aspects of cultivated meat and fish: "a succulent beef meatball", "sushi or sashimi softer and better than the best sushi you have tasted". In addition, it talks about the new plant-based proteins, with the Impossible Burger being "uncannily beeflike, oozing cholesterol-free fat and pink through the middle". The PBM article also describes the Impossible Burger as "very tasty". As regards the posts in general, the only new meat (in the sense of this book) the posters in the data have had an opportunity to taste are insects, and this personal experience is shared by many, for example:

*I've tried several types [of insects]. Some were quite delicous. INS10, 5 Nov 2015*

*I remember the excitement of handing over the cash for a tin of Za-Za insects at the deli in Broomhill, Sheffield, back in 1964. […] What were they like? Chewy and the main flavour I remember was salty — possibly soy sauce. […] Still wish that I'd tried the neighbouring can of chocolate coated ants. INS65, 5 Nov 2015*

Not nice is applied less frequently than Nice. The first 2013 cultivated burger is described in the CM article as "dry and anaemic", insects are claimed by a couple of INS posters to be "tasteless", and a PBM poster guesses that the Impossible Burger would taste "gross". Some posters are identifying as vegetarians or vegans who refer to meat as Not nice: "never loved meat", "not pleasant", and "repellent", but many of the posters identifying as vegetarians or vegans talk about meat as Nice.42

As regards the other coping strategies expressed in the data, as said, many, but not all of those discussed in literature (and mentioned in Chapter 3) can be found in the data. In addition, there are some that I consider to work as coping strategies, but to my knowledge, they are not discussed as such in literature.43 Table 5.8 lists a variety of the strategies together with examples from the data. In some cases, the data contains criticism of certain coping strategies, rather than expressions of the actual strategies.44 I will discuss the most interesting issues for the new meatways after the table.

*Table 5.8: Further coping strategies in the data in addition to the four Ns*

42 A strict vegetarian or vegan referring to meat as nice, is probably less about a coping strategy, and more about stating one's opinion about meat. If however, someone identifying as a vegetarian or a vegan still eats meat, Nice may be a coping strategy. Further, a vegetarian or vegan referring to meat as Not nice, may indeed be using a coping strategy.

43 It may be that the discourses around meat currently develop, diversify and change fairly rapidly, and academic literature may not be able to keep up with them in all cases.

44 In Table 5.8 these cases are indicated with the word "criticism" in brackets after the quotes.

As mentioned in Section 5.1, one observation from the data is that vegetarianism and veganism seem to hold such power in the discourse that even when they are not the topics of the articles in question, a considerable amount of the discussion revolves around them, and various coping strategies are employed. For some posters, the new plant-based meats seem to hold similar agentive power as vegetarians and vegans in terms of causing resentment. But here it may be because the new plant-based meats are (supposed to be) just as good as meat, so there would be no reason *not* to eat them instead of meat. This brings out the value conflict (in those employing coping strategies) and restricts freedom of choice, and in fact, makes it more obvious that meat eating is a choice, not a necessity. One *should,* therefore, in principle, switch from eating meat to eating the new plant-based (or cultivated) meat products as soon as they are widely available.

Many of the traditional coping strategies (as discussed in literature) are not used extensively in this particular data. For example, the four Ns are often used in ways that justify the new meatways, rather than just the status quo, i.e. the old meatways. It can be said that the meanings of the four Ns are particularly varied, as discussed above. The main conclusions are that Normal focuses often on a new normal, e.g. eating the alternatives, or not eating conventional animal-based meat, or at least not eating industrial meat in the future; Necessary focuses on the urgent change required; and Nice is often also applied to the new meatways, in addition to the old meatways. Only Natural is most often used in the traditional sense of eating animals being innate to humans. The varied ways of using the four Ns may have some significance for opening up meat-eating related practices discursively.

Combining and comparing Nice and Necessary, a noteworthy observation can be made between those posters who identify as meat eaters and those who identify as vegetarians or vegans. Meat eaters employ both Nice and Necessary (regarding meat), and many vegetarians or vegans employ Nice and Not necessary (and some combine Not nice and Not necessary). There may be two linked explanations to this. Either the realisation that meat is Not necessary makes it indefensible for some people to continue eating it, despite it being Nice, or, those who do not want to give meat up justify their practice by it being Necessary. Further, the posters who identify as vegetarians or vegans tend to be criticized for claiming that some old plant-based meats would have the same qualities as meat, or be just as Nice as meat: "these claims of 'taste like meat' usually come from people who rarely eat meat and who seem to not remember what it actually tastes like" (PBM55, 3 Jun 2016).Whether meat is addictive to humans (Zaraska, 2016a) or not, it might at least be possible to move away from that addiction. However, dislike or disgust towards meat can even be seen as a coping strategy in terms of coping with vegetarianism or veganism which are often difficult to maintain, especially socially.

Several of the coping strategies identified in literature — such as denial of animal mind, or denial of animal pain — are not employed in this data. And, in some cases, important coping strategies are more criticized, rather than employed, in particular so with disassociation and avoidance (see Table 5.8) which have been considered perhaps the most fundamental coping strategies in general as regards meat eating. It could be that the new meats "create a kind of safe space in which there is room for ambivalence that in daily life [would normally lead] to strategic ignorance" (van der Weele, personal communication, 25 January 2019). Therefore, these basic coping strategies need not be employed as much in this context. It may

also be that some people are more aware of these strategies due to the discourses from the last years, thus employing discursive consciousness.

Criticism of vegetarians and vegans — especially in the general devaluing sense – is, however, fairly common in the data. This discourse has historic roots, as mentioned in Chapter 3, and much recent and current media discourse around vegetarianism and veganism is negative (see Cole & Morgan, 2011; Nørregård Vørre, 2011). Minson and Monin (2012) call the putting down of vegetarians and vegans by meat eaters *do-gooder derogation*.The all-or-nothing criticism, focusing largely on the idea of hypocrisy and inconsistent behaviour, is a widely used coping strategy. The allor-nothing issue is actually a larger point that connects to the issue of morality, a topic for the next section.

The three coping strategies identified above as "not yet in literature as a coping strategy for meat" need some further mention. Firstly, disgust need not be a coping strategy, but from the data, it seems that it can be used as such. As mentioned in Table 5.8, disgust can be used to justify both continuing to eat meat — when expressed towards alternatives such as cultivated meat or insects — and not eating meat when the disgust is expressed towards meat, as in the case of some vegetarians or vegans. Secondly, employing the need for freedom of choice — linked to individualism and the current dominant social paradigm — is likely to be one of the reasons policymakers have not really touched meat eating as a practice. At least it is one of the reasons used as a justification in the data for continuing with meat eating. Lastly, blaming "militant veganism" for one's own inaction may be a rather new and perhaps still rarer coping strategy, and although it is related to the more general criticism of vegetarianism and veganism, it is still worth a separate mention.

Environmental melancholia is not discussed by Lertzman (2015) as a coping strategy in connection with eating animals, but it certainly seems to fit in this context. Environmental melancholia tends to prevent action, and therefore, it can be used as a coping strategy for maintaining the status quo, in this case continuing with meat eating, even when the awareness of the many negative environmental impacts is there.

As discussed in Chapter 3, strategic ignorance helps to keep certain problematic practices from changing in a deliberate manner towards being less problematic. The wider, more varied and in-depth the discourses about these practices are, however, the less convenient strategic ignorance may be to maintain, the more likely discursive consciousness about the practices is, and the easier a certain amount of ambivalence about the practices may be to acknowledge by recognizing the conflicting values and related emotions (see also van der Weele, 2013). Acknowledging the ambivalence may on its own lessen denial and strategic ignorance, and reveal similarities between meat eaters and vegetarians and vegans. The new meatways, therefore, offer a way to expand the discourse, away from the conventional animalbased meat vs. no meat dichotomy whereby the vast majority of people in the Global North reject the no meat option. There is a possibility that the new meatways may eventually lessen the negative (coping strategy) type discourses around vegetarianism and veganism, and even help normalise these diets further by bringing them to the wider discourses. The fact that vegetarianism and veganism appear to be so strongly present in the discourses around the new meatways, at least in my data, can be a sign of such a process.

#### 5.3.2 Morality and the new meatways

Questions of morality are about right and wrong. While moral questions related to eating have been more or less ignored by most, eating animals, in particular, has been a significant moral question to a small minority of people for millennia, generally solved by abstaining from meat or other animal products. In the last decades, questions of morality as regards industrial animal farming and eating intensively farmed animals have become an additional moral issue for a growing number of people, as discussed in Chapter 2. Even so, this has been reflected largely only at the level of discourse, and the amount of animal flesh eaten has seemingly not been substantially affected by these moral concerns. It is one thing to be concerned, even in a moral sense, and quite another to act upon on the concerns in terms of practices so central to human lives as eating. Adopting a consistent vegetarian or vegan diet has been beyond most people's realm of everyday possibilities in locations of the world where meat is widely available. Therefore, strategic ignorance and the related coping strategies, discussed in Chapter 3 and in the previous section, have been a relevant, yet unacknowledged part of life for many, but by no means all meat eaters. As will be seen from the below discussion, strong flexitarianism, while breaking some moral codes, stands out from the new meatways as being, however, able to offer a workable solution to the morality of meat.

As regards the data, moral aspects are variably reflected on in the articles and posts. In the PBM and INS articles, moral issues are not really present, at least not explicitly, and so it is also largely for the posts, especially for INS posts.45 For the CM article, moral aspects are somewhat more present, and the posts follow this line. The only article that does reflect extensively and explicitly on morality is the FLEX article. The posts that follow this article reflect widely on various moral aspects and challenge the position taken in the article itself. In the case of all the four documents, the posts reflect on morality more than the articles do, which could

45 The relative absence of explicit moral statements in the articles may be accidental, or it may be intentional. Further, as in the frame analysis, I focus mainly on explicit expressions of morality. However, morality may be hidden, e.g. in factual statements such as "meat is bad for the environment" ("therefore it *should not* be eaten").

indicate the importance of such issues to people. Section 5.2.1 looked at framing devices and frames, and in connection with this, and Table 5.7 included some of the moral arguments included in the data. Therefore, I will not repeat this exercise but concentrate on a few key points where the new meatways make a difference to the discourse, and could help transform meat-eating related practices.

First, Section 5.2.1 mentioned the Absolute morality frame, evident in the discourses around vegetarianism and veganism in the data, in that nothing short of absolute abstention from meat can be defined as vegetarianism or veganism in this frame, and additionally, vegetarians and vegans should behave consistently in all areas of life. This morality can be thought of as an all-or-nothing approach which can be understood in two distinct ways, as mentioned earlier. First, unless one does everything (to avoid harm, for example) it is not worth doing just something, and since doing everything would be impossible, one needs not do anything. Second, only absolutely clean behaviour is good enough, therefore one must be strict about one's own behaviour. Meat eaters (see Table 5.8) tend to justify their behaviour with the first understanding: "[quote from another post, PBM136:] 'the bottom line is this, if you care about the environment, you shouldn't be eating meat'; Or driving, or flying, or travelling anywhere unless by bike or foot, etc." (PBM145, 3 Jun 2016). Meat eaters can also blame vegetarians and vegans for hypocrisy using the second understanding: "finger-wagging vegetarian hypocrites" (PBM14, 3 Jun 2016).46 Finally, vegetarians and vegans in the data are using the second understanding to blame flexitarianism for immorality: "robbing one bank makes you a criminal as much as robbing ten" (FLEX6, 25 Jun 2017). Posters themselves refer to this as "black-and-white morality".47

As seen in the data, flexitarianism counters the Absolute morality frame as an ideology, and in both senses of the all-or-nothing approach: flexitarianism is about less harm being better than more harm which makes it, on the one hand, *difficult* for meat eaters to deny on moral grounds as a viable strategy, and makes the argument about vegetarian or vegan hypocrisy lose ground. On the other hand, it may be *easy* for strict vegetarians or vegans to deny flexitarianism on moral grounds. Being that the meat eaters currently vastly outnumber strict vegetarians and vegans, it may matter more for societal change how flexitarianism is received among meat eaters.

Additionally, however, many vegetarians and vegans are in reality strong flexitarians, even if they would not call themselves that. Flexitarians (who do call them-

46 See also Section 5.4 on meat eaters acting as guardians of morality in social situations with vegetarians or vegans present. This is also about using the second understanding of the allor-nothing approach.

47 This second understanding can also be seen as a conceptual metaphor: GOODNESS IS WHITE/BADNESS IS BLACK, whereby only "white" i.e. "completely pure" is good and acceptable. This metaphor can also be found in the Metaphorlist (Lakoff et al., 1991).

selves that) are similar to out-of-choice vegetarians or vegans in the sense that all three groups are likely to have acknowledged some degree of their ambivalence about meat and have decided to change their own practices, but the key differing characteristics of flexitarianism are flexibility and absence of absolutism. Being that vegetarians and vegans often cease to follow their diets due to absolute morality being very difficult to follow in practice and especially socially, flexitarianism in particular, the strong version — can be an attractive option to them.

Ideally, flexitarians would be satisfied with long-standing, cheap, much less resource-intensive protein alternatives, such as pulses, in addition to the occasional meat. In my discourse data, nobody is really combining flexitarianism as a diet with the new meats, cultivated or new plant-based meats, or insects, as the discourses around the different themes are not yet properly merging. However, it would be hard to claim that using the new meats (as much as they exist as real products) as part of a flexitarian diet would be wrong (arguing this would be against the flexibility principle), and the new meats could indeed work as an enrichment of a flexitarian diet, as long as the principle of absolute strong reductions in impacts is followed. Further, using the new meats as part of a strong flexitarian diet *replacing* conventional animal-based meat, rather than in addition to conventional animalbased meat would be very relevant in terms of impacts.

As argued in Section 5.2.3 following frame analysis of the data, flexitarianism goes against the Meeting the demand frame, whereas the new meats would likely support the Meeting the demand frame. Vegetarianism and veganism also run counter to the Meeting the demand frame. However, due to the difficulty of realising the Absolute morality frame, vegetarianism and veganism, in fact, paradoxically support the Meeting the demand frame. To explain, strict vegetarianism and veganism often end up as unsuccessful projects — there are five times as many lapsed vegetarians and vegans in the United States, as there are current vegetarians and vegans (Asher et al., 2016) — and since conventional meat eating has been the only identified fall-back option, the unsuccessful vegetarians and vegans have ended up as, somewhat involuntarily, supporting conventional meat eating as the only realistic option.48

Remarkably in the data, vegetarians and vegans are blamed for being hypocritical, but flexitarians are generally *not* blamed for being hypocritical.49 Generally, if flexitarians are blamed for something, they are blamed for being immoral, as they are still involved in eating animals. Considering which accusation is worse from a moral point of view is instructive: pretending not to harm at all (but still harming), or knowingly and admittedly harming, but harming significantly less that would

48 However, many of the lapsed vegetarians and vegans end up eating less meat than an average American (Asher et al., 2016).

49 Except in the "calling weak will [vegetarianism as] flexitarianism" (FLEX posts).

be possible. Hypocrisy can be seen as a form of lying (about good behaviour), and lying about good behaviour could be expected to be seen as worse than honest bad behaviour.50

A further relevant point as regards morality and the new meatways, as opposed to the old meatways, is related to guilt. This moral emotion has two basic links to meat eating. Firstly, meat eaters may feel guilty about eating animals (or causing serious environmental harm with their diet) whether or not this shows up in their behaviour, hence the need for coping strategies, and the strong reactions to the presence of vegetarians and vegans (Adams, 2001; Rothgerber, 2014). Secondly, vegetarians and vegans often feel guilty when "falling off the wagon", i.e. when failing to follow their diets strictly. Here is one instance for each from the data:

*Reduce your guilt over contributing to animal suffering [when not being able to follow vegetarianism/veganism], by giving your weak will a misleading name [flexitarianism] FLEX134, 25 Jun 2017*

*Sadly though I shell out for the free range stuff, I like it too much to be totally veggie. CM1, 20 Sep 2017*