This dissertation research addresses the issue of how to incorporate concerns about the health of the environment into food decisions, be they the small choices we make every day or the much larger decisions relating to what foods should be served in a university or made available within a community. This research takes as its starting point insights from the interdisciplinary fields of behavioral decision research and decision analysis, which suggest why it may be challenging to make decisions that are in line with these goals, e.g., the systematic shortcuts and biases that tend to pervade our decision-making (often without our awareness), as well as what approaches we can take to account for these short-cuts and biases, e.g., structured decision-making and behavioral interventions. The context for this research is Michigan State University's (MSU) Environmental Stewardship program, which is charged with exploring all aspects of the university's approach to sustainability and has the ultimate goal of reducing the university's environmental footprint. The university's food system is well positioned to make contributions towards the achievement of a broad range of health and environmental sustainability outcomes, and provided an ideal context within which to apply emerging ideas from behavioral decision research and decision analysis. The research for this dissertation unfolded in two complementary phases. First, key objectives that MSU students associate with their food choices on campus were documented using a semi-structured open-ended interview protocol, with an eye to identifying and elucidating how objectives relating to environmental health and sustainability factor into student food choices (if at all). Second, a factorial experimental design was used to compare a behavioral intervention that presented students with meat-free menu items as the default option (representing a more pro-environmental choice) with the provision of information linking less meat consumption with positive environmental outcomes. Several social psychological and demographic factors were incorporated into the design of the experiment as well. In terms of the first phase of research, students discussed objectives relating to taste, health, enjoying the dining experience, and safety, and this is in keeping with what has been found in other studies. Connections between food and environmental sustainability, e.g., through food overproduction and waste, dining hall practices, organic food, local food, modern food production practices, and the implications of raising animals for food, were also noted. In terms of the second phase of research, logistic regression analysis revealed that the default menu configuration was a significant predictor of choice of a meat-free menu item; the presence of information was not a significant predictor of choice. In addition, neither an individual's values or worldview contributed directly to the model; only gender was a significant additional predictor of meat-free meal choice. Default interventions and other behavior-based decision-structuring efforts can be important tools in motivating pro-environmental behavior, and can also serve to complement information and education efforts over the long term, as long as concerns about individual autonomy are addressed.
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