ABSTRACT
The chapter deals with a commonsensical attitude: carnism. After introducing “carnism” as the dominant discourse of human nutrition, the chapter presents the “Three Ns of the justification” (normal, natural, and necessary), and the three cognitive mechanisms that lead to a distortion of perceived reality (“objectification”, “deindividualization”, and “dichotomization”) that may be used to justify carnism. It then introduces the “meat paradox” represented by the awareness that eating animals involves killing them, the conflict triggered by this awareness between the desire to be moral people and the desire to eat meat, and the role played by advertising when it skirts around the fact that meat-eating requires animal deaths. Lastly, the role of literature, cinema, and television in replicating the dominant way of viewing animals and food is highlighted, together with the carnonormativity of popular culture. There are few fictional vegetarians or vegans; moreover, as a brief review shows, if they are men they are usually “different”; if not, they are girls.
