Danger ahead! How Canadians respond to information about the risks of eating meat

Previous research has demonstrated that animal-based diets are harmful to planetary and human health, accounting for a significant portion of global greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the risk of non-communicable diseases. In contrast, vegan and vegetarian diets have much lower environmental impacts and are associated with reduced risk of many illnesses, offering compelling opportunities to mitigate global warming and lower nutrition-related deaths worldwide. However, effectively communicating the risks of meat-based diets has proven difficult, as previous research has found that when engaging with meat-related risk communication, individuals exhibit selective exposure, the tendency to prefer attitude-confirming over attitude-challenging information. Literature has suggested that this selective exposure bias may be mitigated by information utility, the degree to which material can benefit future decision-making. Therefore, this research examines selective exposure to meat-related information among Canadian consumers and investigates whether information utility framing can override this bias, shift attitudes, and increase willingness to reduce meat consumption. The study recruited a sample of 361 Canadian omnivore adults who completed an online baseline survey, an experiment, and a post-experiment survey. Participants showed a strong preference for meat benefit information over risk information in health-related contexts, indicating selective exposure consistent with existing theory. Information utility framing modestly increased engagement with meat-related risk information under free choice conditions but did not reliably influence post-exposure attitudes toward meat or willingness to reduce meat consumption. Overall, the findings have implications for practitioners, not-for-profit organizations, policymakers, the media, and future behavioral science.