Serving up Plants by Default

What if a simple change in the way universities present food choices in dining halls could help us meet global climate goals? In this study, the research non-profit BITE: Building Impact Through Eaters—in collaboration with Better Food Foundation (BFF), Sodexo, and researchers at Boston College—successfully tested the impact of serving plant-based dishes as the default option within dining hall stations at three universities: Tulane University, Lehigh University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

This is the first-ever multi-site research study on plant-based defaults within all-you-care-to-eat dining halls.

While plant-based eating grows in popularity (particularly among Gen Z), meat-centric diets remain the norm. How might we address this challenge? Enter the use of defaults, a proven strategy to nudge human behavior.

Defaults are a type of behavioral nudge that make the desired choice the easy choice. Defaults gently guide a person to take on a desired behavior by presenting them with a pre-determined option that takes effect if that person does not seek out a different choice.³