The Elephant in the Room: For an economic approach to plant food and the animal condition.

Summary This article proposes a discussion of plant food and animal condition as objects of study for economics. It answers three questions: Why should economists be interested in the issue of animal product consumption? What contribution can economics make to existing academic discussions? What are the reasons for the lack of interest of economists in this issue so far? This paper first presents three arguments why economics should take into account the consumption of animal products: an environmental reason, a health reason and an ethical reason. It then presents the behavioral analysis of meat consumption developed in psychology, and discusses how economics could contribute to this field of research (behavioral economics, public policy economics, industrial economics and political economy). The final section offers a more exploratory discussion of the limited interest in these issues by economists to date.