I may be the farthest thing from a vegan. In Princeton’s dining halls, you can find me eating chicken, meat, or other animal products. At home, I drive a gas-powered car, and am a frequent ice cream eater. I have even been known to enjoy the occasional glass of milk.
Among Princeton students, I stand among the vast majority of students as a meat eater. In fact, this year’s Frosh Survey found that just 6 percent of the Class of 2029 identify as vegan or vegetarian. Meat is a huge part of the typical Princeton student’s diet; in 2023, Senior Opinion Writer Thomas Buckley found that a single Rockey/Mathey dining hall main course used 500 pounds of beef per week. This massive consumption of animal products is a grim sign for students looking to reduce their use of animal products.
Still, with the recent rise of a movement known as reducetarianism, Princeton students are able to contribute to veganism’s moral standards while still enjoying the occasional hamburger.
Reducetarianism aims to reduce animal product usage and promote healthy lifestyles without adhering to traditional veganism or vegetarianism.
Brian Kateman, the founder of reducetarianism, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that the movement originated with one fateful Thanksgiving dinner, when the then-vegan Kateman watched from the sidelines as “the turkey kept going around the table.” Kateman, a vegan at the time, tried the turkey at his father’s insistence, but felt a sense of guilt. That is, until he had an epiphany.
“It’s a wonderful thing if someone wants to be 100 percent vegan or vegetarian, but the vast majority of people struggle to do it,” he said. And so the reducetarian movement was born.
Reducetarianism is not a standard take on a plant-based diet. Instead, Kateman’s movement is aimed at reducing meat consumption without adhering to a complete dietary commitment. Reducetarians do not make a specific commitment to eating only plants. Instead, the goal is to reduce consumption of animal products enough to make a difference.
“If a lot of people cut back 10 or 20 percent [of meat consumption], that could actually make a much greater difference than getting a small number of highly committed people to go vegan or vegetarian,” Kateman said.
Meat consumption in the United States comes with significant costs. Across the country, approximately 99 percent of all livestock is raised in factory farms. These farms are industrial plants, dedicated to producing animal products with massive amounts of animals in conditions that can be cruel and unsanitary. Factory farms are often associated with high rates of disease in nearby towns, as well as cramped and inhumane conditions for animals.
As recent studies have shown, meat consumption is also a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, with every pound of meat eaten contributing to 22 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Despite this alarming carbon footprint, meat consumption in the United States shows no signs of slowing over the next two years.
The good news: It doesn’t take much to change this trend. If the 5,800 Princeton undergraduates committed to a 10 percent reduction in consumption of animal products — around two meals a week — the cutback would be equivalent to 580 people newly committing to veganism.
At Princeton, students have a unique opportunity to contribute to the reducetarian movement. Campus lifestyles are strongly conducive to reducing the University’s carbon footprint — as well as the amount of meat consumption on campus — by gradually chipping away at traditional dining habits. As the reducetarian maxim describes, small measures, when taken on a campus-wide scale, can yield tremendous results.
As a University with a stated goal of reaching net zero campus greenhouse gas emissions before the year 2046, Princeton students have to do their part in contributing to this goal. Sweeping University projects, like the recently completed TIGER geo-exchange plant and the Poe and Pardee Field stormwater retention project, have aimed to reduce the school’s environmental footprint in terms of utilities.
What Princeton is still missing is a strong culture of student-driven climate consciousness. The space of individual dietary decisions is not the University’s to regulate. Rather, it falls on us, as stewards of Princeton’s environmental goals, to do our part in upholding the university’s informal mission “in the service of humanity.” The solution offered by reducetarianism is a perfect fulfillment of this goal, allowing students to have a significant effect on the University’s carbon footprint, while making minute changes to everyday life.
Kateman’s mission of gradual reduction relies on the principle that minor changes within a community can create a ripple effect.
“The greatest hope I have is among college students,” Kateman said. “We need young people to take up the mantle and transform the way that we eat for a better world.”
Josh Stiefel ’29 is a contributing Opinion writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Teaneck, N.J. and can be reached at js9365[at]princeton.edu.
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