Aversion to cultured foods reflects the perceived risk of replicating nature

Public acceptance of foods produced through cellular agriculture remains limited despite their potential to mitigate the environmental and ethical costs of conventional food production. Existing research has focused on cultured meat, where pathogen-based disgust has been proposed as a key source of aversion, yet this account does not fully explain resistance to cultured foods that are not animal-derived, such as plant-based products. The present research investigated whether aversion to cultured foods reflects intuitive perceptions of risk arising from attempts to replicate natural processes, with disgust also functioning as an affective expression for that risk. Across two pre-registered experimental studies (N = 1132), participants consistently reported lower willingness to try cultured foods compared to traditionally sourced counterparts. In Study 1, both risk and disgust mediated this effect across all cultured food types, with risk emerging as a general driver of aversion across meat, dairy or egg, and plant-based products. Insofar as cultured foods are perceived as replicas of natural foods, Study 2 demonstrated that replicating natural foods was judged as riskier and more aversive than replicating originally human-made foods, such as processed snack foods. Disgust followed a similar pattern, arising only for cultured versions of natural foods, suggesting that alongside pathogen avoidance, it may also reflect broader perceptions of risk associated with tampering with and replicating natural processes. These findings advance understanding of public resistance to cultured foods and suggest that addressing risk perceptions may be essential for improving acceptance of emerging food technologies.