Exploring Ethical, Ecological, and Health Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Cultured Meat among Generation Y and Generation Z.

Growing research and technological development is making the commercial production of cultured meat as a sustainable alternative to livestock-derived meat an increasing reality. However, to competitively position cultured meat on the food market, appropriate marketing and communication tailored to specific demographics is required. We aimed to define the motives that influence the willingness to include cultured meat in consumption based on age, specifically in Generation Z and Generation Y. To achieve this, data from a questionnaire survey that asked about ethical, ecological and health and safety factors around cultured meat was collected from 740 respondents (301 Generation Z and 439 Generation Y) and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test and structural equation modeling. Generation Z were significantly more likely than Generation Y (p < 0.05) to consider cultured meat healthier than conventional meat because of the possibility of adjusting the composition and nutrient content. Generation Z were also significantly less concerned than Generation Y (p < 0.05) about the consequences that consuming cultured meat might have on human health. In Generation Z, ethical, ecological and health and safety factors significantly influenced their willingness to consume cultured meat (all p < 0.01). In conclusion, we confirmed the influence of ecological and ethical awareness, as well as health and safety, on willingness to include cultured meat in consumption; these areas could be targeted when marketing cultured meat.

Healthy Food on the Twitter Social Network: Vegan, Homemade, and Organic Food.

Online social networks have become an everyday aspect of many people's lives. Users spend more and more time on these platforms and, through their interactions on social media platforms, they create active and passive digital footprints. These data have a strong potential in many research areas; indeed, understanding people's communication on social media is essential for understanding their attitudes, experiences, behaviors and values. Researchers have found that the use of social networking sites impacts eating behavior; thus, analyzing social network data is important for understanding the meaning behind expressions used in the context of healthy food. This study performed a communication analysis of data from the social network Twitter, which included 666,178 messages posted by 168,134 individual users. These data comprised all tweets that used the #healthyfood hashtag between 2019 and 2020 on Twitter. The results revealed that users most commonly associate healthy food with a healthy lifestyle, diet, and fitness. Foods associated with this hashtag were vegan, homemade, and organic. Given that people change their behavior according to other people's behavior on social networks, these data could be used to identify current and future associations with current and future perceptions of healthy food characteristics.

Healthy Food on Instagram Social Network: Vegan, Homemade and Clean Eating.

Social media platforms have become part of many people's lives. Users are spending more and more time on these platforms, creating an active and passive digital footprint through their interaction. This footprint has high research potential in many research areas because understanding people's communication on social media is essential in understanding their values, attitudes, experiences and behaviors. Researchers found that the use of social networking sites impacts adolescents' eating behavior. If we define adolescents as individuals between ages 10 and 24 (WHO's definition), 76% of USA young people at age 18-⁠24 use Instagram, so the Instagram social network analysis is important for understanding young people's expressions in the context of healthy food. This study aims to identify the main topic associated with healthy food on the Instagram social network via hashtag and community analysis based on 2,045,653 messages created by 427,936 individual users. The results show that users most associate Healthy food with healthy lifestyle, fitness, weight loss and diet. In terms of food, these are foods that are Vegan, Homemade, Clean and Plant-based. Given that young people change their behavior in relation to people's behavior on social networks, it is possible to use this data to predict their future association with healthy food characteristics.