I am with this post requesting feedback from experienced EA:s engaged in research, funding, animal welfare and behaviouralism, Could this project be worth working on and if not - discuss alternative solutions.
Story: On some Australian long distance highways there are “Drive-and-Revive“ stops, where you get coffee and a snack for free, with the intent of drivers taking a rest from their long drives. The idea is that the cost on society to provide snacks is lower than the potential cost on society of someone having an accident.
Can it be so that the cost of supporting free plant based cooking education will be lower than the cost on society for healthcare on unhealthy eating, non human animals dying and the planet suffering etc?
Goal: Spread the plant-based diet (PBD).
Why: For the sake of the planet and its inhabitants.
Ethos: Be understanding and forgiving about how difficult the transition to a PBD is and use realistic incentives to encourage the change: peoples’ self interest. No shaming. Reward effort, not performance.
Problem: Transitioning to a PBD is hard and requires substantial behaviour change, which is challenging already for someone with bandwidth to do it, but much harder for someone with lack of time and/or finances. We can not expect anyone to go through these changes without help or without correct incentive. Some, but not all, aspects that require change are:
-Motivation -Planning -Shopping -Cooking -Flavours -Digestion -Storage
Project main activity: Use an existing or new movement to motivate and alleviate the transition to a PBD for consumer, group and societal levels. A backed-by-science curriculum gets developed with the help of psychologists, nutritionists, environmentalists, chefs, neuroscientists etc. It gets tested and reiterated. It contains actionable advice about how to go through the process of eating more plants, waste less, how to avoid future disease and the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle.
- Teachers provide courses and coaching using the curriculum for consumers.
-Advisors provide free coaching on how to provide a PBD for groups like restaurants, catering, organisations and other corporations.
-Movement lobbyists and influencers meet with decision makers on societal level.
Price: There can be no cost for the participants - as that generally will be a friction point too large for them to want to learn. On the contrary - they should be rewarded financially or with food products to learn. Only when given a strong incentive can you motivate otherwise uninterested consumers to want to make an effort in PB living. Measures can be taken to avoid people taking advantage of the system.
Question: Could the project be cost effectively funded by donors, governments and potentially sponsors (like PB food companies etc), motivated by reducing suffering and cost on society?
In my opinion: I care deeply about animal welfare, but in my opinion it needs to be separated from the curriculum. Shaming people into stop changing behaviour is not effective. I can highly recommend listening to this podcast with psychologist and author Melanie Joy, in which she goes over how to communicate with non vegans, and how to contribute to the solution even though you are not able to become vegan.
Finally: I’m looking forward to tapping into the great accumulated knowledge of this forum’s participants. This is my first post, I’m an aspiring EA and not in academia, so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from your feedback. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your piece and for citing our new study. There are many existing courses and programs to support people going veg*n so my feeling is that there isn't much additional mileage to be gained there by creating another one, but I don't know of any testing about paying people. It's a nice parallel to pay-per-view and pay-per-read advocacy. Worth testing, in my opinion, but I agree with the point about people who need it most not being the ones who would sign up. Another approach could be to focus specifically on the people who in our study had ability barriers (lack of access), where individual strategies weren't helpful. If you provided money for them to get veg food delivery, that would address some of those systemic barriers.
Thank you for joining the conversation Jo. Faunalytics is as far as I know one of the best sources of information regarding this subject.
I agree that the main point is to open the eyes of those that previously were interested in PB eating. Probably "Peter" and his family who are dead set meat eaters wouldn't be interested in free classes about plant based eating since they would see no benefits to it. Hence the idea for monetary rewards.
I agree that there's probably no inherent value in creating another program for the sake of creating another progra... (read more)