The role of heuristics for composing an environmentally friendly meal

Abstract

Our food choices have a large negative impact on the environment. To address this, it is necessary to understand consumers' environmentally friendly food selection behaviour. To this end, we investigated the role of heuristics (i.e. decision-making shortcuts) for a consumer's ability to compose an environmentally friendly meal. Participants (N = 169) were instructed to compose either a meal to their liking (control group) or an environmentally friendly meal (eco group) from a fake food lunch buffet while verbalising their thoughts (“Think Aloud” method). The groups' meals were compared concerning their environmental impact (LCA data), weight, calories, macronutrients, and food selection reasons. The eco group's meals were lower in environmental impact as compared to the control group. For this, they appear to have followed three approaches which one could interpret as heuristics. In comparison to the control group, the eco group chose (1) less meat and fish (in particular, steak), (2) more meat substitutes (in particular, falafel), and (3) foods that were regional, seasonal, and organic, instead of choosing foods based on perceived tastiness and visual appeal. A regression analysis showed that consumers' knowledge about the environmental friendliness of food significantly predicted the environmental impact of the meals. To further improve the environmental friendliness of their meals, the eco group could have selected less animal-based foods (including egg and dairy), and more plant-based foods (including novel meat substitute products) instead. Furthermore, they appear to overestimate the role of regionality, seasonality, and organic production method, as well as underestimate the role of food amount in the context of food environmental friendliness.