College Student Literacy of Food Animal Slaughter in the United States

Despite the growing influence of food justice and conscious consumption in Western society, Westerners exhibit limited knowledge of non-human animal oppression in the food system. This study asked students in seven classes of

how many non-human animals are killed for food every year in the United States.

speciesism and non-human animal oppression in the food system, results demonstrate major variation in student retention and awareness. Most students (66%)

65 million while the bottom 10% of responses averaged a guess of 24 667. Exam

findings support existing research on consumer ignorance and social psychological theories that predict cognitive barriers to understanding large-scale suffering,

alerting educators and policymakers to the difficulties in raising food literacy