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This paper is the outcome of an empirical research on a Seventh-day Adventist farm in Tanzania. The author investigated the role of Christian spirituality in switching to and maintaining vegetarian practices. Dietary change is proposed in the sustainability literature as a crucial trajectory to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between spirituality and climate-friendly dining in a localised Christian context and discuss their significance further for wider society.

Social practice theory (SPT) provided the tools to explore, empirically, the dynamic development of dietary practice within the farm community and its relation to the outside world; according to SPT, following the main building blocks of practices, namely materials, competences and meanings (cognitive or emotional), helps to understand the evolution of practices in society.

Findings show that the spiritual element of the community's dietary practice is key in maintaining commitment to vegetarianism, despite the rationale focussing exclusively on human health.

Expanding the rationale to animal compassion and environmental concerns could enhance the stabilisation of the practice within and beyond the community's realms.

The research showcases, probably for the first time, how a localised vegetarian practice may be linked to broader societal developments and policymaking through the application of SPT.

Early in 1986, the Realeat Company commissioned a Gallop poll, which indicated that 2.7% of the population (1.5 million people) regarded themselves as vegetarian, with a further 3.1% (1.75 million) being non‐meat eaters. There had been a growth of 11% in the number avoiding meat since 1985 and this had mainly occurred among women, particularly those aged 16–24 years. 12.5% of this age group were found to be either fully vegetarian or non meat‐eating.

Food consumption is a result of a choice that is influenced by economic status, society, culture, psychosomatic elements (Bisogni et al., 2002) and religious factors (Dewan, 2017) creating an identity based on one's beliefs (Mennell et al., 1992). Although many versions exist, this diet is often established on an ideology to abstain from using animals for dietary needs (Smart, 2004). There has been much research to explore vegetarian motivation and impacts of this diet on health; however, first-hand accounts are few.

Autoethnography was undertaken to understand my experience as a vegetarian living within a primarily meat consuming country. The theoretical framework driving the research uses social cognitive theory (SCT), the transtheoretical model (TTM) and ethical theory to address the vegetarian experience and emotions generated through such encounters.

Data collected, including conversations, headnotes and teaching material, were transcribed and categorised into four emerging themes including vegetarian experience, culture, identity as an educator; and impacts of beliefs. The author also discusses the motives for converting to vegetarianism and the experiences that came with behavioural change. Obstacles and opportunities presented by living in a dominant meat society are explored and the author’s influence on others as an educator, as a citizen in society and as a member of a family.

Being new to autoethnography proved to be a limitation in the study.

This research may prove useful for researchers to gain an insider's view of a vegetarian's experience, and how the lifestyles impact students and others in a social context from the author's perspective.

Autoethnography regarding vegetarianism from an educator's perspective is lacking and hence may give an insight to help fill the literature gap and change perspectives towards the vegetarian community.

Autoethnography regarding vegetarianism from an educators perspective is lacking; hence, this would be a valuable insight to add to the literature gap.

Describes an in‐depth study of the attitudes to food, food consumption patterns and health of young vegetarian women (aged 15‐30). Studies women as the ratio of female to male vegetarians is 2:1. Self‐completed questionnaires formed the basis of the study and provided information on length of time and degree of commitment to vegetarianism, affect on social relationships, and moral and health factors and food factors influencing the decision to become vegetarian. Food factors appeared to be less distinctive than moral and health factors. Concludes that more research is required, particularly into the strict vegan section of the population.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hotel selection preferences of vegetarians in Turkey.

The questionnaire used in this study had four main sections: animal and environmentally friendly hotel attributes; hotel features and facilities; hotel food and beverage services; and demographic and travel information of respondents. Data were collected by way of face-to-face questionnaires from 328 self-identified vegetarians who visited the first vegan/vegetarian event – “Didim VegFest” – in Turkey on 29-30 April 2017.

Eco-animal friendly hotels, customer requests and animal friendly and environmental ethics (main Factor 1); comfort and value, facilities and security, the natural environment and the staff and their services (main Factor 2); standards and sanitation, sensibility, atmosphere and knowledge (main Factor 3) were identified as the main hotel selection factors of vegetarians in Turkey.

This study is the first of its kind in the tourism literature.

This research aims to determine the relationship between the consumption of animal products and attitudes towards animals among university students in Eurasia.

A survey was conducted with collaborators in each country who supervised volunteers to personally invite 16,777 students to take part. The sample was composed of 3,433 students from 103 universities in 11 Eurasian countries. ANOVA was used to compare the responses. All analyses were conducted using the statistical packages Minitab 15 and SPSS 15.

A total of 47 per cent of university students avoided some meat products, 4 per cent were vegetarians and 0.4 per cent vegans. Students avoiding some meat did so principally for environmental and health reasons, and beef and lamb were the meats most likely to be avoided. Vegetarians avoided meat mainly for health reasons. Vegans had greater concern about humans using animals than vegetarians, who in turn had greater concerns than those avoiding some meat.

Avoidance of animal products was related to an increased level of concern for animal rights, animal experimentation and wildlife, with vegans demonstrating the greatest concern. This implied that students' attitudes to animal welfare and rights can affect animal product‐eating behaviours.

This study conflicts with previous studies by demonstrating that health rather than environment was a major reason for vegetarianism. The study highlights the importance of environmental, health and welfare concerns but not religion in avoidance of animal products.

Meat consumption has a variety of implications in society. While various types of meat-restricted diets exist to address this, not enough is known about how the average meat consumer views different avenues to lessening their intake. In response, this study aims to assess US omnivores’ impressions of three meat-restricted diets.

An online survey was administered to a cross-sectional, census-balanced sample from Nielsen of 30,000+ US adults. Omnivores (N = 928) were randomized into one of the three conditions where they were asked about their perceptions of a vegetarian diet, a reduced-meat diet or a chicken-free diet as individuals not currently following that dietary pattern.

The findings showed that omnivores had a more favorable perception of a reduced-meat diet on a greater number of study variables as compared to the vegetarian or chicken-free diets. The research also demonstrated that a majority of omnivores were in the precontemplation stage of cognitive change, suggesting that most American omnivores are not actively demonstrating a readiness to alter their meat consumption in the ways presented.

This research is the first to examine the comparative trends around these three diets among omnivores. It also speaks to how the desirability of meat restriction varies by type of approach, i.e. elimination or reduction, and if the latter, what type. The findings may be of relevance for efforts to reduce global meat consumption for ethical, health, or environmental reasons.

Vegetarian and vegan dietary practices have recently moved from being marginal activities to occupying a more mainstream position. While the reasons for this have been analysed by many researchers, the extent to which the underlying motives may influence other behavioural contexts remains relatively unexplored. The present research thus analyses the degree to which vegetarians and vegans also act in an environmental and animal-conscious manner.

A self-administered survey was conducted among omnivores, conscientious omnivores, vegetarians and vegans in Austria. The research design is embedded in an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). A mixed-mode sampling strategy resulted in 556 completed surveys.

The TPB correlation analysis shows that there are significant relations between dietary motives, subjective norms, attitudes, behavioural intentions and the behaviour in question. When considering all dietary groups, the results indicate that the differentiation in behaviour is impacted by dietary identity: the stricter the diet, the stronger the behaviour related to animal-wellbeing and environmental protection.

First, this research evaluated motivational drivers through a pairwise comparison, which resulted in strength factors instead of single motivational driver. Second and foremost, this research draws a connection between dietary categories and the wider behavioural implications related to these identities and their underlying motivational drivers.