Background aims  
A successful sustainability intervention at a university self-service restaurant reduced the use of high-biodiversity footprint rice by 62 %. In an exploratory manner, we sought to explain this change through background values, norms, knowledge, and emotions. 
Methods 
195 people participating in a food biodiversity intervention completed an extensive value and biodiversity questionnaire. Food motivations were assessed both before and after the intervention. A subgroup of individuals (19 people) who stopped using rice and systemically avoided it throughout the intervention was identified and analyzed. 
Results  
We found no difference between the rice avoiders and other participants in egoistic, altruistic, or biospheric values, nor in a broad spectrum of biodiversity knowledge or awareness of biodiversity loss risks. Additionally, norms, self-efficacy, nature-related emotions, and sustainability actions were not different between the groups. Shifts in food motivations in the rice avoider group were not different from other participants. However, a single question from the biospheric value set, which measured respect for other species, effectively distinguished this group from the rest of the participants (p<0,02).  
Conclusions 
Our findings suggest that the current typical question sets fail to measure people’s readiness for a sustainable life. We hypothesize that this is because they insufficiently measure the moral obligation which is necessary for radical changes in strongly routinized habits like everyday food choices