Economic growth in most areas of the world has resulted in increased food availability. Our dietary patterns have changed toward increased intake of animal proteins and processed food bought in supermarkets, rich in sugars and saturated fat. Current food consumption patterns negatively affect people’s health and the environment. 

Concerning health, studies found a correlation between eating home-cooked meals and better dietary quality(Tiwari et al., 2017). Per capita meat consumption is rising, and most meat is already processed before it reaches our shopping baskets (FAO, 2018). High meat consumption can increase the risk of certain chronic diseases (GBD, 2013). In Hungary, 25% of children are overweight or obese, and it is the highest rate in Europe 60%  of adolescents reported not eating either fruits or vegetables every day (Inchley et al., 2020). 

 Concerning environmental issues, studies showed that greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are two times bigger than from plant-based foods (Xu et al., 2021), so meat production is one of the most significant ways humanity damages the environment (Ramankutty & Foley, 1999). 

Dietary habits formed and fixed in childhood are challenging to change later on (Ábrahám & Csatordai, 2006). Education could play a crucial role in addressing these issues. Knowledge itself is rarely enough to change behaviour (Christiano & Neimand, 2017). Many studies investigate the effectiveness of different interventions (Kwasny, Dobernig, & Riefler, 2022) to reduce meat consumption. Evidence shows that increasing the visibility of vegetarian alternatives can nudge people to choose them more likely than meat options (Kurz, 2018; Wansink & Love, 2014; Garnett et al., 2019). However, our previous research (Varga et al., 2024) revealed that reducing meat consumption is the least favourable choice for Hungarians from several green lifestyle options. That is why we assumed that an indirect attempt to make plant-based meals more attractive rather than meat consumption less attractive could effectively change people’s attitudes and behaviours concerning meat consumption, a culturally deeply rooted element of the Hungarian diet. 

Our main assumption is that skill interventions focusing on plant-based foods delivered at an appropriate age could tackle more than one face of this complex problem. The presented research aimed to assess whether an experiment for children aged 10-12 and their parents  based on the participants’ experiences gained during two online cooking workshops with plant-based foods without a direct argument for meat reduction could change attitudes and behaviours towards a plant-based diet and meat consumption.

During the research, we examined the attitudes of students and their parents towards meat and the importance of meat in their meals, as well as towards plant-based diets before and after a two-session online intervention. A total of 15 groups, each consisting of approximately 15 participants, took part in the study, with 10 groups as experimental and 5 groups as control. Students in the latter did not participate in the intervention. In the experimental groups, students and their parents participated in two separate online cooking workshops, each lasting about two hours, working with a pre-supplied ingredient package. The workshops focused on preparing and tasting meals based on plant-based, meat-free recipes. During the experiment, the participants also received information and played quizzes regarding the impacts of plant-based food and meat on their health and environment. Each group completed a pre-intervention online questionnaire. Parents and students filled out almost identical questionnaires, with some differences in item wording. Responses were paired with a code to link the responses of parents and their children while preserving participant anonymity. The time between the two online cooking workshops varied between 2-4 weeks, depending on the groups. After the second session, the control and experimental groups completed a post-workshop version of the online questionnaire used before the workshops. Two months after the intervention, participants completed the post-workshop questionnaire again, including a debriefing, which revealed that the research aimed to examine whether plant-based eating could be promoted through online cooking workshops. To assess participants’ attitudes towards plant-based diets, we used self-developed items as well as some items adapted from a plant-based diet questionnaire of Faber et al. (2020) (α=.816). We also used the Meat Commitment Scale (α=0.93) of Piazza et al. (2015). The sample consisted of Hungarian primary school pupils and their parents. In total, 389 participants filled out the survey: 125 students and 136 parents in the experimental group and 64 students and 64 parents in the control group. The Research Ethics Committee of ELTE Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology provided ethical permission (2023/228) for the research. The data were collected using the Qualtrics questionnaire software and analysed using SPSS.28 statistical software. The project was co-ordinated by Climate Smart Elephant (MAYAVI 3.0 KFT and supported by EIT -Food.

In the experimental group, no significant differences were found between the pre- and post-workshop measurement of the importance of meat in meals, neither among children [F(1.915, 197.285)=1.259; p=0.286] nor among adults [F(1.975, 189.633)=1.723; p=0.182]. The analysis also showed no differences regarding meat commitment between the three measurement points in the experimental group. Neither children’s [F(1.886, 181.054)=1.324; p=0.268] nor their parents’ [F(1.852, 177.787)= 1.324; p=0.479] commitment to meat have changed across the three time points. A repeated-measures ANOVA showed some changes in the perception of plant-based foods between measurements, e.g. scores regarding how enjoyable the participants find the plant-based diet differed significantly across the three time points among parents [F(1.996, 197.601)=7.768; p=0.001] but not among their children [F(1.984, 200.415)=2.529, p=0.083]. In the second output measurement, the experimental group, on a scale from 0 to 100, the parents’ average score was 65.32 (SD=35.1) regarding the question if they have cooked the same dishes as they did during the workshops or something similar. The students’ average score was 60 (SD=37.4). The parents also reported with an average score of 59 (SD=29) that they eat more vegetables than before the experiment. The children had an average score of 58.1 (SD=28.8) on the same question. The results indicate that although the workshops did not cause changes in participants' overall attitude toward meat consumption, they made them more open to plant-based foods, which could be a significant first step toward accepting a diet with less meat.

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