減少肉類攝取的障礙：台灣案例研究

Abstract

飲食中的肉類攝取隨著全球經濟與人口的成長成指數性的增幅，在東亞國家特別顯著，如中國。現今肉類產業的不當土地利用與管理，與高度溫室氣體排放導致氣候變遷。個人減少肉類攝取是受到世界上關注的氣候變遷調適策略，但需要大規模、集體的國際參與才能發揮作用。 在西方研究中有關減少肉類攝取的阻礙被廣泛討論與研讀。然而在東亞方面，相關降低肉類攝取的阻撓研究相較稀少。本研究旨在了解國立臺灣大學 (NTU) 學生減少攝取肉類之阻礙，他們是台灣受高等教育的青年族群，推測應有很高的環保意識。與此同時，台灣因佛教傳統而盛行著吃素食的風氣。選擇這個樣本族群將有助於鑑別除明顯阻礙之外的障礙，例如人們普遍缺乏對先前研究中廣泛報導的食用肉類對環境影響的認識。 我們製作線上問卷調查，分發給在校的臺灣大學學生，調查他們的飲食習慣，並確定哪些因素讓他們減少肉類攝取影響最大。這些阻礙分為外部因素，包括價格、取得容易程度和來自社會壓力；內部因素則包括有：口味、飲食限制、環境知識、道德、健康知識、自我認知、控制點和情感左右。在確定好所有外部因素與內部因素的影響參數後，進行定性訪談。獲得更細緻的見解後，補充定量結果，並利用它們提出克服障礙的干預措施。問卷調查顯示，大多數台灣大學學生，即使是那些吃肉最多的學生，也對肉類生產與攝食肉類對環境的影響有很高的認識，但大多不願意減少肉類消費。本研究發現：健康知識、社會壓力、口味與取得容易程度成為臺灣大學學生減少肉類消費的最主要的阻礙。文化、價值觀、身分認同與外部控制點等在西方研究中出現的情形在本研究並沒有出現。潛在輔導，讓台灣人降低肉類攝取的方法：包含在家庭教育與學校教育裡教導減少肉類攝食的重要性、增加餐廳素食菜單選擇、增加素食風味、口感，與降低素肉的價格。本研究為討論降低肉類攝取之阻礙新興領域中最早的東亞研究之一，研究特定族群因環境原因減少食用肉類的阻礙，以便按照之前的研究要求制定獨特的影響方法與措施。

Meat consumption has increased exponentially as global economies and populations continue to grow, particularly in East Asian nations like China. Modern meat production has been linked to climate change as it results in high greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable land management. Reducing individual meat consumption is a climate change mitigation strategy gaining traction worldwide, but it would require large-scale, collective international participation to be effective. Meat consumption reduction has mostly been studied in western contexts, and various barriers have been identified. However, barriers have been underexplored in East Asia due to the scarcity of studies. This study aims to understand the barriers to the pro-environmental behavior of reducing meat consumption for National Taiwan University (NTU) students, a highly educated youth demographic with presumably high environmental awareness in Taiwan, a country with prevalent vegetarian cuisine due to Buddhist religious tradition. Choosing this sample group would allow for the identification of barriers other than the obvious ones such as a general lack of awareness of the impacts of meat consumption on the environment reported widely in previous studies. An online questionnaire was created and distributed to current Taiwanese NTU students to identify their dietary habits and determine which barrier was the most influential in preventing them from reducing their meat consumption. The barriers were categorized into external factors, including price, access, and social pressure, and internal factors, including taste, dietary restrictions, knowledge of environmental impacts, morality, health knowledge, self-construal, locus of control, and emotional involvement. Subsequent qualitative interviews were conducted to gain more nuanced insights to supplement the quantitative results and use them to propose interventions to overcome the barriers. Questionnaire responses demonstrated that most NTU students, even those who consumed the most meat, had high awareness of the environmental impacts of meat production, but mostly were unwilling to reduce their meat consumption. Health knowledge, social pressure, taste, and access emerged as the most significant barriers to reducing meat consumption for NTU students. Taste was the only influential barrier in common with western studies since the nature of the social pressure and health knowledge barriers differed slightly. The culture, value, and identity-related barriers and external locus of control found in western studies were absent here. Potential interventions include encouraging families and schools to teach children the importance of limiting their meat consumption, increasing the availability of vegetarian options in restaurants, and improving the taste, texture, and price of meat substitutes. This is one of the first East Asian studies in an emerging field studying the barriers to reducing meat consumption for environmental reasons. It studies a very specific demographic in order to develop distinct targeted interventions as previous studies have called for.