By all accounts flawlessly balanced and perfectly constructed, the Popeyes chicken sandwich was billed a gift from the heavens. Selling for a paltry $3.99, it sparked a feeding frenzy in the U.S. this summer. As popular as it was, and still is, it also serves as a batter-crusted reminder of how deeply confused we are about meat-eating.

Roughly 50 billion chickens are slaughtered each year to satisfy our massive global appetite for wings, nuggets, strips and the slabs of breast at the heart of the chicken sandwich wars. The majority of these birds are raised in factory farms the crowded and cramped conditions they live in is, at this point, no secret. Yet an awareness of their discomfort has no impact on our desire for a viral fast-food sandwich.

While most would agree that causing animal suffering is immoral, we balk at recent recommendations to eat less meat and belittle those who choose to cut it out of their diets entirely. Merely mentioning veganism is enough to elicit eyerolls, and reactions to what is a purely personal choice have escalated far beyond the non-verbal.

The seemingly harmless launch of a plant-based sausage roll at U.K. bakery chain Greggs last year was enough to prompt a range of aggressive responses, including one from TV presenter Piers Morgan. Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns, he tweeted. The meatless rolls popularity ultimately led to a 13.5 per cent increase in year-over-year sales for Greggs, the BBC reports, and Morgans fraught relationship with it inspired YouTube comedian Alizee Yeezy to write Piers Morgans Vegan Lover an X-rated novella centred around an intimate pastry-related act.

In response to a freelance writer pitching a plant-based recipe column a perfectly normal occurrence an editor once saw fit to explicitly express bloodlust. How about a series on killing vegans one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine? wrote William Sitwell, former editor of Waitrose Food, a supermarket magazine in the U.K.

The anger isnt surprising

This degree of anger, over what amounts to a new menu item and a handful of recipes, seems extreme, but its far from surprising. There are countless examples just like them spanning this past decade alone. The frequency and hostility of such outbursts, though, only serves to detract from the real question, which is: Why do we care if someone eats meat or not? Why is meat-eating so contentious, and antagonizing vegans such a popular pastime?

According to a 2015 study published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, vegans in Western society experience discrimination to the same extent as other minorities. Second only to drug addicts in terms of the stigma they face, the BBC reports, vegans are increasingly under fire. And most-loathed of all: those who abstain from meat for reasons of animal cruelty.

As researchers Kelly Markowski and Susan Roxburgh of Kent State University highlight in a study published in the journal Appetite, vegans are viewed as oversensitive as well as physically and mentally weak by the omnivorous masses. The reasons for these negative associations run deep, affecting not just how we feel about meat-eating but our very sense of self.

If all of us are doing something bad, it cant really be that bad, right?

In choosing not to eat meat, the authors write, vegans are rejecting a core tenet of American culture. Meat is central to celebrations if you dont partake in the Thanksgiving turkey, Super Bowl chicken wings or Easter ham, youre not just declining an offer of food, but fracturing an unspoken pact and turning your back on tradition. This prevents one of the central functions of sharing food bonding the prevention of which fosters negative emotions among omnivores, like anger and discomfort, write Markowski and Roxburgh.

At the root of this conflict is a phenomenon Australian psychologists Brock Bastian and Steve Loughnan dubbed the meat paradox our hunger for meat clashes with the knowledge that animals must suffer in order for it to be satisfied. As Julia Shaw writes in Evil: The Science Behind Humanitys Dark Side, Hypocrisy feels less bad, less threatening, when in a group. If all of us are doing something bad, it cant really be that bad, right?

In the name of enjoyment, we might put any concerns related to health, environment or animal welfare aside. We eat that fast-food sandwich knowing full well it was made with a battery chicken. This disconnect between our actions and beliefs leads to another key concept in understanding the emotions tied to eating meat: cognitive dissonance. We have affection for animals and dont want them to suffer, yet we also want to eat them. When we act on the latter belief, the very fact that there are vegans in the world is unsettling, as Hank Rothgerber, a social psychologist at Bellarmine University, Kentucky, told the BBC. Were forced to view our meat-eating as what it is: a choice.

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Why we feast on meat and hate on vegans - National Post