This presentation will raise the question of the role that meaning and culture plays in consumption in general and meat consumption in particular. It will pursue the notion that culture, understood as the concepts and actions humans use to construct our identities, are highly influential to consumer habits. Apart from the strictly nutritional properties of meat, many anthropologists believe it`s involved in the thoroughly cultural acts of expressing masculinity and power, social status and wealth, and dominion over nature. So if meat consumption is indeed so deeply embedded in western culture, maybe initiatives aiming to end exploitation of animals should choose messaging that take culture into consideration.

So for example, when Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, says that he`s been searching for "the molecule that makes meat meat", maybe he should be looking for a cultural component? Maybe it`s really a question of meat-a-physics?