It seems like vegetarians have an image problem; they’re feminine.

In an effort to encourage men toward better, healthier diets, it is necessary to make veggie burgers and salads more masculine.

“In the (distant) past, meat was associated with strength. It was important for males to have more muscles than females in our social evolution — for hunting and fighting,” said Wansink, the John S. Dyson endowed chair of marketing at Cornell University. “That association remained — not between protein and muscles but between meat and muscles. It started a long time ago and it’s still powerful today.”