Browsing by Subject "sustainable diet"
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(2022)Climate change and biodiversity loss are some of the most serious challenges the humanity is facing today. Current food systems are a major contributor to both global crises with massive negative impacts on climate and biodiversity, and thus, sustainable food system transition is inevitable in slowing down the further progress of climate change and biodiversity loss. One way to tackle the unsustainabilities of the food systems is through policy interventions, which can guide both food production and consumption to a more climate- and biodiversity-friendly direction. The aim of this thesis was to examine the popularity of different policy instruments in terms of reducing food’s climate and biodiversity impact among Finnish young adults. Moreover, this thesis aspired to find out which areas of food production and consumption Finnish young adults think policy interventions should target. Young adults were chosen as a target group, because they are in an important position in sustainability transitions. This research is based on survey data and the method applied was content analysis with characteristics from both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The data was analyzed in Atlas.ti program by using inductive and deductive content analysis methods. The results indicate that the most popular policy instruments for reducing food’s impact on climate and biodiversity among Finnish young adults were market-based, including taxes as the most popular and subsidies as the second most popular individual measure. This is in contrast to previous literature, where taxation and other market-based policies have been reported to be the least favored policies. Furthermore, information-based policies, of which especially raising awareness, regulatory instruments, of which particularly price regulation, as well as public procurement policies like a vegetarian day in public food services were among the most popular policy instruments. Although not directly examining acceptability, these results offer a glimpse on policy acceptability, which is found to be crucial in successful policy implementation. Further research is needed to study the acceptability of these policies comprehensively. Moreover, policy target areas related to food consumption rather than production were more popular among the respondents. Target areas such as favoring domestic food, reducing or ending animal product consumption and production, transitioning to vegetarian diets, making better (e.g. climate-friendly) choices easier, and converting meat into a luxury product were the most suggested. These results could be scaled up in future studies and then utilized in creating sustainable policies for food consumption and production, and that way reduce the climate and biodiversity impact they cause.
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(2020)Meat consumption in the world is increasing, which has significant negative effects on the ongoing climate change. There is a need to make people change their diets towards more plant-based. One of the problems is that there is a negative atmosphere around veganism and vegans that prevents the change. In order to get people more plant-based, that negative atmosphere around veganism and vegans should be reduced. The aim of this study is to find out what kind of arguments are used against veganism and vegans, and what rhetorical strategies are used in these arguments. Previous studies have shown that there is still a strong belief that meat is a necessary part of the diet to keep one healthy. Studies also show, that the reason people do not change their diets can be attitudinal, for example that people think they are meant to eat meat, or practical, for example that there is not enough information available. The material for this study is from the Finnish online discussion forum Suomi24 and consists of messages that are against veganism and vegans. The Suomi24 data was retrieved from the KORP interface, where it was possible to search messages related to veganism. There is no information about the people behind the messages, because they are anonymous on the forum. The material was analysed with content analysis and strengthened with rhetorical analysis. Categorization was part of the analysis and categories were coded to the material in the Atlas.ti program. As a result, there were seven main categories and 28 sub-categories under two parent categories. The most common arguments against veganism and vegans were related to health, vegans as individuals and how vegans act. The most commonly used rhetorical strategies were factual argumentation, categorization, extreme expression and taking distance from one’s own interests. As a conclusion, to be able to increase plant-based food in people’s diets, more available information is needed, and positive encouragement without incrimination to build up an attractive atmosphere around veganism and vegans.
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