If You Know How a Cow Feels, Will You Eat Less Meat?

Scientific American ^ | 07/11/2013 | By Anne C. Mulkern and ClimateWire

[SeekAndFind]

STANFORD, Calif. -- Inside a lab on the Stanford University campus here, students experienced what it might feel like to be a cow.

They donned a virtual reality helmet and walked on hands and feet while in a virtual mirror they saw themselves as bovine. As the animal was jabbed with an electrical prod, a lab worker poked a volunteer's side with a sticklike device. The ground shook to simulate the prod's vibrations. The cow at the end was led toward a slaughterhouse.

Participants then recorded what they ate for the next week. The study sought to uncover whether temporarily "becoming" a cow prompted reduced meat consumption.

The motivation wasn't to make people vegetarians, said Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. But the project hoped to uncover whether virtual reality could alter behaviors that tax the environment and contribute to climate change.

"If somebody becomes an animal, do they gain empathy for that animal and think about its plight?" Bailenson asked. "In this case, empathy toward the animal also coincides with an environmental benefit, which is that [not eating] animals consumes less energy."

It's one of several environment-related experiments Bailenson is conducting in the lab, all tailored toward revealing whether there are new ways to encourage environmental preservation. Volunteers also have virtually chopped down a tree, a study aimed at examining attitudes toward paper use. Others took a virtual reality shower while eating lumps of coal -- literally consuming it -- to gain insight into how much was needed to heat the water.

[FXRP]

Another no here. I think I’ll grill a burger right now.

[rarestia]

if you look at a cow you will see a large cube of meat with four short legs sticking out below.

Minecraft?

[cripplecreek]

[fulltlt]

Dress like a cow and get your lunch for free today at Chick-fil-a.

[CrazyIvan]

Hold the prof under water for about an hour so he can learn how fish sticks feel.

[pax_et_bonum]

This article really mooved me.
__________

I found it absolutely bovine.

[Night Hides Not]

No need for this: there's been an abundance of supply since last October, when I was diagnosed with diabetes. I think my meat intake has dropped to less than 1/2 pound per week, if that.

Oh, I've made up for it in other areas, as I follow Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" regimen (80-85%). Just had my second followup: HbA1c was 5.0, after being taken off metformin in February. Blood glucose has ranged between 100-115 over the past five months. Cholesterol in the 150s.

It's worth checking him out.

[Perseverando]

I love cows. They're delicious. Don't listen to the propaganda. </sarc>

[2big2fail]

This study is absurd as it only simulates the last few minutes of a steers life. There is a lot of “life” before that and much of it is unpleasant in my opinion. There are many videos on Youtube and elsewhere that depict the commercially-raised lifestock experience. It is pretty disgusting in my strongest opinion. But for me, vegetarianism is simply not an option.

So I got me a place outside town recently, and have begun raising chickens (for eggs and meat), turkeys, geese, pigs, and goats (for milk, mainly). I did so mainly because I have lately begun to think that meat and eggs and milk I raise myself is healthier. And tastier! Time will tell.

But also because I want to give my animals a life that is as happy as they could get. They are all pastured and pretty much do animal stuff all day. Which is mainly foraging for food and working stuff out, i.e. one-upping each other and looking to get lucky. Not too far removed from a corporate environment. And then I will give them a dignified and relatively painless death.

As for beef, we simply do not have enough land for a steer. So this fall we will buy a grass fed steer from a neighbor. So, problem solved.

Not sure when I became concerned about the treatment of “meat animals” as I grew up in the Texas Panhandle in proximity to dozens of feed lots. Can’t explain it, just happy to have an alternative.

[cripplecreek]

VEGATARIANISM IS MOIDER!!!!

[PGR88]

OMG.....wonder if we could get money to study what it feels like to be a LIBERAL IDIOT!

Yes, but they still wouldn't taste good on the grill.

[beaversmom]

Good point on abortions! Betcha they won’t think of that one.

[IronJack]

And this is supposed to be “scientific?” Wow! What passes for science these days????!

Do these buffoons seriously think that crawling around on all fours gives anyone the real sensation of being a bovine? The only ways to do that are to either channel Hillary Clinton or have 90 percent of your brain removed.

But I repeat myself ...

[Himyar]

Actually, animals do feel pain as acutely as we do. They react differently because an animal in the wild that lays around feeling bad gets eaten. That’s one big problem dealing with prey animals like horses and cattle. Unless you are really experienced by the time you notice that they are sick, it can be too late.

[SECURE AMERICA]

That would be NO!

[Mr. K]

We just need to raise cows that WANT to be eaten

(Just read The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy)

[max americana]

“OMG.....wonder if we could get money to study what it feels like to be a LIBERAL IDIOT!”

Don’t bother because I felt good when I was in the room when we fired their sorry asses. Oh, you mean them? Who gives a sh&t.

[Fiji Hill]

I have heard that sacred cows make the best hamburgers.

[cripplecreek]

Cows are just the larval stage of human feces.

[pas]

Let’s take this same thing and make it an unborn baby. Then we can undergo an abortion.