-Over the past 20 years many people have incorporated more plants into their diet or have completely cut meat out of their daily food intake.

-Whether this choice is for health reasons or wanting to improve the environment, this lifestyle change is spreading across the nation. 

- Having a plant based diet has shown to lower greenhouse gas emissions and cut water intake by 50 percent (Baroni, Filippin, & Goggi, 2018).

-Despite these various studies regarding the environmental effects of a vegan lifestyle, there is very little known about one's social environment and its influence when choosing to be vegan.

- Those with higher incomes tend to focus on quality, freshness, and nutrition when making food choices (French, Tangney, & Crane et al., 2019).

- Those with less incomes tend to focus on the quantity of food and the cost with nutrition and quality being less of a factor.

- However, research shows that plant-based consumers save up to 10 percent and 14 percent on grocery store expenditure compared to omnivores (Pais, Marques, & Fuinhas, 2022).

-People view foods categorized as healthy as being more expensive because of  the current nutritional information that is implemented within advertisements, education, and societal beliefs (Muhammad, D’Souza, & Meade et al., 2017).

- Communities living in rural areas have more access to fresh produce because they live closer to the source of their food, and they have a larger land mass to maintain farms and gardens (Pašakarnis, Morley, & Maliene, 2012). 

- On the other hand, communities living in big cities don’t have as much space to farm, which leads to living away from the source of produce (Jilcott, Laraia, & Evenson et al., 2009).

- When thinking about location we need to remember that food deserts affect food choices.

-The main problem surrounding food deserts is not that food is unavailable, but the food that can be easily accessed is overpriced (Wright, Donley, & Gualtieri et al., 2016).

-This leads to families in the communities having to resort to eating fast food as opposed to getting food from local markets and creating meals at home. 

-However, most fast-food restaurants have very little options when it comes to strictly plant-based meals, and almost each menu item contains meat.

-Different cultures are associated with different beliefs and practices surrounding faith (Oppong, 2013).

-For example, people who are Buddhists choose to not eat any meat (Sarao, 2008).

-The idea on whether meat consumption is accepted or denied in a religion typically is rooted in the belief that it is unethical or causes violence to another organism (Bryant, 2020).

-On the other hand, Christians are allowed to eat meat (Miner, Ghobary & Dowson et al., 2012). 

-People following these religions are more likely to have a meat-based diet, as opposed to a plant-based diet because there are less restrictions with their food choices. 

- Using forms of digital media leads to more knowledge and concerns about environmental issues within the younger generations as opposed to older generations (Severo, Guimarães, & Dellarmeli et al., 2019). 

-Older generations keep their current meat eating habits because they are unaware of the environmental factors (Knaapila, Michel & Jouppila et al., 2022).

-We can also look at how parents can influence their kids' eating habits.

-If the parents in a family eat a strictly meat-based diet, then their kids are more likely to eat a meat-based diet because the kids aren’t familiar with other eating options (Crockett & Sims, 2012).

-However, as these kids grow up they are exposed to how others outside of their family eat and can make their food choices on their own (Crockett & Sims, 2012).