Just as surely as cats are girls and dogs are boys, everybody knows that salad is girls and meat is boys. A recent study out of Europe, published in the journal Sex Roles, affirms that "Of all foods, meat has the strongest association with masculinity and identity" and that among both male and female respondents, "Men on a vegan diet were not perceived as masculine, which is related to the stereotypical association of eating meat with power, prestige, and manhood." Similar research published in 2023 in Frontiers in Communication explored the "feminine connotations associated with veganism" and found that describing vegan food with "masculine attributes" helped participants "weaken the [food's] link to femininity." This fear of not being perceived as manly may explain why fewer than a quarter of all vegans are men. So, is it possible to butch up vegetables?

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Leaning in a more plant-based direction is better for everybody's health, but can be uniquely beneficial for men. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men — responsible for a stunning 1 in 4 male deaths. One of the leading contributions to heart disease is diet, and lowering cholesterol can help. Men also have higher rates of obesity, a contributing factor not just in heart disease but certain kinds of cancers and type 2 diabetes.

"Avoidance of red and processed meats, was found to be associated with a lower risk of developing erectile dysfunction."

Meat consumption has also been tied to heightened Alzheimer's risk, and processed meat has been linked to colorectal cancer. And if none of that is persuasive, how about some of the promising research out of China that suggests that........

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