“A large salad on the kitchen table, white wine, a sea food pâté and then a rich chocolate cake to finish. Easy-going, uncomplicated girly food and desserts packed with calories:, that was the name of the game. For the men it was the other way round: bloody steaks, heavy red wines, coffee and no sweets, and we all adapted to that.”
That is the menu when a group of posh people from the Stockholm upper middle-class meet in the novel Stjärnor utan svindel (Stars without Vertigo) by the Swedish author Louise Boije af Gennäs. And it is not just a fiction – it is a fact that men more often than women choose bloody steaks, in and outside of the Stockholm in-crowd. On the whole, men eat more meat than women do, not just quantitatively but relatively speaking, when taking into account the different energy needs of the genders. This turns men into greater environmental sinners than women, if we look at the price in climate terms for producing meat as compared to, for example, that of fish and seafood.
Figures also show that women to a larger extent than men are prepared to reduce their consumption of meat. This makes one wonder: what is there about men and meat?
Emission problems
But first, some facts: the 2006 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) shows that global animal husbandry is the source of nearly 18 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than the emissions of the total transport sector. The Norkost study, conducted by the Norwegian National Council of Nutrition and Physical Activity in 1997, for its part showed that men on an average eat 125 grams of meat and meat products daily, while women eat only 87 grams. A study carried out by the Department for Nutrition at the Danish National Food Institute in 2006, revealed even greater differences: the meat consumption of men was 135 grams while that of women was 81 grams.
“Food is first and foremost a question of getting a full stomach.” This is the answer given by many of the respondents in
a study made by Gun Roos and Margareta Wandel at the Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) in 2004. They
interviewed 46 men in the Oslo area about food and eating, and the men had a clear opinion that food plays a completely different
role for women than for men. As one of them put it:
“Women have a, well, a thing about food. They want to make fancy food. They have many more cookbooks, and are much more interested
in food. I’m not interested. I just want a lot and to eat it fast, and than I can go out and do something else. I think this
is true of many men in general.”
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| "Those who have everything, can always afford to have much more noble values. But if you travel to Tuscany to eat slow food, it is actually not very slow", says social anthropologist Runar Døving. |
Statements like these are supported by a numerous variety of consumer studies, which show that it is the women who are responsible
for the food regime in heterosexual households. It is mainly they who write shopping lists and decide the dinner menus. But
they do not do so without negotiating with their partners, as the Norwegian social anthropologist Runar Døving points out.
He is Professor at the Campus Kristiania Oslo School of Management and has done a lot of research into the consumption of
food.
“As a rule, women carry the responsibility for the family’s health and try to limit the consumption of meat from a nutritional
perspective. But, at the same time, we see that women who cohabit with men eat differently from, for example, women who live
alone. The same goes for men who live with women versus those living on their own. In other words, there are negotiations
between the genders on the amount of meat, fish and vegetables consumed in these households”, Døving says.
Women rule
It was not a matter of the men not being aware of what kind of food they should eat, and what they should have limited their intake of. But the men in Roos’s and Wandel’s study found that there were sometimes a few too many rules concerning these foods. Several of them also thought that women’s focus on healthy food and slimming was not always a positive thing. Occasionally this might simply tip over into a tense relationship to food and weight loss hysteria. Their own relaxed relationship to food the men, consequently, interpreted as something positive.
In her thesis Not Just a Matter of Taste – Disgust in the Food Domain, Norwegian nutrition researcher Elin Kubberød showed that a negative perception of one’s own body could lead to an antipathy towards meat among young women. Particularly red meat made the girls feel too “full”. Many of them also felt an aversion to meat as such – its smell, blood or texture. This was more a matter of antipathy to eating something that once had been alive, rather than sympathy and care for the actual animals. Marking the meat products with the animal’s country and farm of origin and perhaps even its name, thus only created and increased feelings of disgust for the products, instead of a feeling of closeness and security, which was the intention of the producers.
Power symbol
In large parts of the world, meat is a luxury, something that is only eaten at big celebrations. In China, the average daily intake of meat is 52.4 grams. In Ghana, the same figure is as low as 9.9 grams.
Such was the case for a long time also at our latitudes. And the one who was the first to help himself from the plate of meat was the man of the house, while the women and children had to make do with what was left after the men had had their share. This is an indication of meat being more than just food. It is also a symbol of potency and power. The fact that humans hunt and eat animals shows our superior status in the hierarchy of nature, writes Nick Fiddes in his book Meat. A Natural Symbol. The position of men in the patriarchy is confirmed by the fact that they eat more meat than women do. In addition, this feeds their “bestial” side. In earlier times sexologists therefore tended to recommend a diet low in meat for young boys, if their urge to masturbate was too strong.
In other words, meat bears a masculine code, while vegetables, fruit and sweet things symbolize femininity. “Real” men have a hearty appetite and need large portions, a perception which has not necessarily changed even if more and more people – including men – increasingly have jobs where they sit still. While women in general seem to be most focused on counting and limiting their intake of calories, men concentrate on getting enough energy. The male informants in Roos’s and Wandel’s study to a large extent confirmed the masculine metaphor of the body being a machine which needs fuel. As one of them put it: “My car needs diesel and I need food.” And by food they mean meat and other products that fill the stomach well.
Burger, not mussels
Thus it is perhaps not very surprising that two hungry lunch guests, a woman and a man, experienced the following at the gourmet restaurant Bølgen & Moi: One of them ordered mussels steamed in white wine, the other the restaurant’s “wild” burger with cheese, bacon and chips. When the food arrived, the waiter – as if automatically – placed the burger in front of the man. But it was, in fact, the woman who had ordered it.
A male vegetarian is regarded with suspicion by other men, claims Nick Fiddes. He refers to a young student who experienced that others assumed he was gay or otherwise suspect, since he did not eat meat.
Sondre Båtstrand, who has been a vegetarian for eight years, does not, however, feel less of a man just because he has chosen
not to eat meat nor fish. On the contrary: he laughs at the question.
“Of course I know the stereotypical image of steaks being male food and salad female. But no, I’ve never been told that I
wouldn't be a real man because I choose vegetarian food. At the same time, it is a fact that more women than men are involved
in environmental and animal protection, and that’s probably why more women are vegetarian.”
He engaged in animal rights in his late teens and as a consequence of that, he stopped eating meat and fish. The fact that
meat production is not good from a climate perspective either, is also a golden argument for Båtstrand, today the spokesperson
for the Norwegian Green Party.
“During the seven years that I’ve been a vegetarian, quite a few animal lives have been saved”, he notes.
Class differences
Nowadays, meat is available to all. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, the consumption of meat to a certain extent varies according to social class. However, it is no longer only the wealthy who gorge on meat, but “people in general”. The Norkost study showed that while female workers and professionals had the same intake of meat and meat products, the intake among men varied according to socio-economical status: male workers ate somewhat more meat than male professionals.
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| Photo: Colourbox |
The men interviewed for Roos’s and Wandel’s study belonged to the occupational groups joiners/carpenters, engineers and drivers. Even if their relationships to food displayed many common traits, the joiners and the drivers focused more on food as a source of energy and satisfaction, while food for the engineers to a larger extent was a source of taste experiences, nutritional worries or a hobby. Food was also associated to a certain occupational identity, with eggs and bacon being defined as drivers’ food, along with sausages as snacks during long working days.
When arguing against the consumption of meat, either from a climate or a nutritional perspective, it is often the common sausages and hamburgers that are the objects of criticism; but those served in fast food chains, not those offered in gourmet restaurants. For example, the newspaper Bergens tidende recently wrote: “We are snacking our way to extreme weather. Norwegians stuff themselves with a hundred million sausages per year. This results in large climate emissions and wilder weather in Western Norway.”
“Sausages are very practical. And they are cheap and tasty to barbecue”, is the explanation given by Grethe Skundberg, Head of Information at the Norwegian meat producer Nortura.
However, this has not always been the case, Runar Døving points out.
“Before meat-mincers were invented, minced meat was very expensive, since it took a lot of effort to prepare. In other words,
meatballs used to be a luxurious upper-class product.”
Distinctions
Today, McDonald’s hamburgers are regarded more or less as the symbol for vulgar food. In various lifestyle programmes on TV,
where “common” people are scolded by experts for their eating habits, minced meat foods are one of the first things to go.
“But it is as bad for one’s BMI to eat goose liver at a fancy restaurant as having a hamburger at McDonald’s”, Døving comments.
He shows how the middle classes use various foods distinctively, to distance themselves from the working class. And the middle
class itself always manages to avoid criticism, within climate politics as elsewhere, he claims.
“It is not the ecological footprints that are scrutinized, but the values. The middle classes have larger houses and use more
electricity to heat them, they drive cars more frequently, since they have cottages; they need two pieces of everything since
they have several houses; they have more money and spend it on things that are not good for the environment. And those who
have everything, can always afford to have much more noble values. But if you travel to Tuscany to eat slow food, it is actually
not very slow."
Veggie day
So far, it might seem far easier to be a meat eater than vegetarian. There are sausage kiosks on each street corner, if one feels peckish.
However, in the Belgian city of Ghent, it will now be possible to be both healthy and environmentally friendly without too much effort, at least one day a week. The city has introduced a meat-free day as a measure to improve its climate policy. That day, all public canteens, schools and other institutions will have vegetarian food on their menus, and commercial restaurants are encouraged to do the same.
This is a measure welcomed by Sondre Båtstrand.
“People must get to know vegetarian food and find out that it is both tasty and filling. And the more people ask for vegetarian
products and meals, the better the supply will become. I think it is important to convey that summer barbecues are not threatened
just because one cuts down on meat consumption. There is much else to be barbecued, from soy sausages to vegetables,” says
Båtstrand.
Sources:
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Gun Roos og Margareta Wandel: Menn og mat. Menn, yrkesgruppe og helselivsstil: En kvalitativ studie. Prosjektnotat nr. 1-2004, SIFO
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Elin Kubberød: Not just a Matter of Taste - Disgust in the Food Domain. Series of Dissertations 1/2005. BI Norwegian School of Management, Department of Marketing
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Desk study om køn, ligestilling og klimaændringer . Udarbejdet af Helene Oldrup & Michala Hvidt Breengaard, for Nordisk Ministerråd, 2009
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Statens råd for ernæring og fysisk aktivitet: Norkost 1997. Landsomfattende kostholdsundersøkelse blant menn og kvinner i alderen 16-79 år. Rapport nr. 2/1999
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Nick Fiddes: Meat. A Natural Symbol. Routledge, 1992.
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Louise Boije af Gennäs: Stjärnor utan svindel. Norstedts förlag, 1996.
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"Vi gnafser oss til ekstremvær." Bergens tidende, 04.06.2009.
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"Belgian city plans 'veggie' days." BBC News 12.05.2009
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http://earthtrends.wri.org
