Eating plant-based is good for the environment. But it might be easier for some people than others.
It’s more common than ever to talk about cutting back on meat: There are now vegetarians, vegans, “reducetarians,” “flexitarians” and “pesceterians.” But the share of the U.S.population not eating meat is on the decline: In 1999, 6 percent of U.S. adults said they were vegetarian. In August, the figure was 4 percent. And Americans aren’t even eating less meat overall — according to one study, per-person meat consumption was about the same in 2000 and in 2019.
Why — despite all the ethical and environmental calls to eat less meat — do so few people choose to stop eating chicken, pork and beef?
It could be that avoiding meat is partly in our genes.
A study released Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One identifies 34 individual genes that are associated with vegetarianism.
“We have shown basically that yes, there is a genetic influence on vegetarianism,” said Nabeel Yaseen, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University and the lead author of the new study.
defined as people who had not consumed any animal flesh in the past year — to 329,455 non-vegetarians in the database known as the U.K. Biobank. Theresearchers looked for differences in the genes of the vegetarians and the non-vegetarians.
They found a link between a marker for one genetic location, or SNP, “rs72884519,” and people who don’t eat meat. “There was one SNP that was significantly associated with vegetarianism,” Yaseen said.
Scientists have long known that preferences for certain foods are heritable (parents, children and other family members tend to have similar tastes) and can also be linked to specific genes. For example, the smell-related gene OR6A2 has been linked to the difference between people who like cilantro and those who think it tastes like soap. Another area of the genome containing six smell-related genes has been connected with how many cups of tea a person drinks in a day.
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