84% of Vegetarians and Vegans Return to Meat. Why?

[Shooby]

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why

[swamp]

Because bacon. 

[mollyanna58]

Dec 3, 2014 7:05:31 GMT -5 swamp said:

Because bacon. 

That was my first thought.

[The Captain]

Let's not forget crispy chicken skin. (The only meat my vegetarian friend would eat).

[Shooby]

Or a delicious, savory yummy steak!

[thyme4change]

I suspect a lot of vegetarians return to meat for the same reason that the vast majority of people who lose a significant amount of weight put it back on - keeping up some "alternative diet" is difficult.  The author's daughter is likely a poor example of a vegetarian returning to meat.  I suspect most vegetarians start when they are young adults and crash when they have kids or get really busy in middle age.  Then they just return to how they were raised, or whatever feels more natural.

Peer pressure is also a huge factor.  Even if everyone you know is personally supportive, the food industry is not.  As the author's daughter said - it can be a real chore to eat when you can't eat such a large percentage of the foods offered.  Finding main dishes at restaurants and finding recipes is difficult when you don't eat like everyone else.  Eating a hamburger is the easiest thing to do in America.  Even if that same hamburger joint has a vege burger and a salad - they still have 28 different combinations of hamburgers.

I recall meeting a fair number of vegetarians when I was in my 20's.  So many of them would eat a bag of chips and declare themselves healthier or whatever because they were vegetarians.  I bet a bunch of them have reverted to meat. 

[andi9899]

An old friend of mine went vegetarian when we were in our mid to late 20s. I took her daughter out to eat with my kids and she ordered a hamburger. You would have thought she'd died and gone to heaven!

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Because ultimately our bodies crave what they were designed to run on, or if you prefer what we evolved to run on.

healthandnutritionexperts.wordpress.com/tag/farming/

Why are we fatter? Not just Americans, but worldwide obesity is rampant. There are a number of reasons; we eat too much; don’t exercise enough, our foods are denatured from industrial farming and food processing, our metabolisms are stressed and we’re too toxic to lose weight.

For now, I’m going to focus on one thing, the hormone insulin. Our DNA, our anatomy, our physiology and our nutritional needs are virtually unchanged in the past 40,000 years. If you compressed all of human history into one year, we’ve only been farming and eating grains for the past day. We’ve only been eating vegetables oils for the past ten minutes. We’ve not yet adapted to these foods.

Humans evolved in a carbohydrate poor environment. The hormone insulin is designed to maximize the effects of the few carbohydrates that were available to enable us to survive. Insulin helps us store excess energy as fat. Now that we live in a carbohydrate rich environment, eating far more carbohydrates than were ever available to humans before, insulin still maximizes the effects of abundant carbs into abundant stored energy in the form of body fat.

[Cookies Galore]

Dec 3, 2014 6:46:53 GMT -5 Shooby said:

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why

Lack of determination to stick it out. Or bacon. I hear that stuff is good.

I haven't eaten meat since I was 15, I'm 33 now. I don't think it's a phase.

[mmhmm]

I think it's probably because of what they've become accustomed to eating. It's really hard to break a habit - any kind of habit. If you've had meat as part of your diet for a goodly portion of your life and suddenly decide to remove it from your diet, it's going to take a lot of will-power to do it. To stick with it, a person would have to figure it as a hill to die on. I don't imagine most who decide to become vegetarians after they've grown up are going to find it that important in the long run.

[kent]

Bacon is a great reason because even dirt tastes good with bacon.

Likewise, humanoids would NOT have developed larger brains, and therefore dominance, had we stuck with eating plants - we actually NEED protein.

Show me a cow with equal intelligence and I'll take back what I posted.

[Deleted]

I was a vegetarian for 11 years from 16 to 27.  I was bored with food when I gave up.  I was also married and cooking for someone who ate meat.  It had worked fine, when it was just me and when we ate out all the time, but once we started eating at home (house poor and a newborn) it became a real PITA. 

[Ombud]

Vegetarian until last Monday. Lab values suck, right arm has noticable lump (that's the one that had hand put back on), cancer sucks. Feel sorry for the chicken / fish but only eating 3 × a week. But karma's kicking vegetarian ass right now

[chiver78]

Dec 3, 2014 7:05:31 GMT -5 swamp said:

Because bacon. 

bacon is what started my return. I had been a vegetarian in HS/college bc I didn't like any of the meats I was offered at home growing up. I have come to realize since then that I didn't like them bc my mom cooked everything well done. ick. I still don't like beef, so maybe that's a legit dislike

sent from my electronic distraction

[alabamagal]

We have a hobby group that we host with food every month or so and there are usually a veg or two. I usually make a big pot of vegetarian chili. A lot of meat eaters like it.

The son f one friend is 19 and he wen through a vegetarian phase for a court month. Then the next month he bypassed the veg chili and headed straight for the hot dogs.

[Artemis Windsong]

The self-talk of a vegan is, "Gee I feel so tired, moddly and icky.  Something is missing from my diet.  What could it be?"

Meat.

There are nutrients in meat that the carnivore human cannot live without.

I give vegans a wide berth because they tell others how nuts they actually are.

For balance,  I do eat some vegan meals like black bean burgers.  In the end, I have to have red meat every other day. 

[NoNamePerson]

I haven't eaten red meat in 12 years but it wasn't one of those "oh I'm gonna give up red meat" moments. I went thru dental implants and all I could think about was a big ole rare filet when it was all over. Well, I took one bit and had to toss it. Don't know why but it just wouldn't go down.

But I eat lots of fish and vegetables. I really don't miss red meat. Not a true vegetarian though just real close    

[mroped]

While growing up meat was scarce so most of our meals were vegetarian. However meat was never removed intentionally from meals as to become vegetarians. It was just the circumstances.
While serving we had a couple weeks when our diet was completly vegetarian and you had to fetch it too. Out in the wild, a few cooking pots-if a couple aluminum canteens can be called that- matches and any kind of meat absolutely prohibited.
As an individual I never considered turning vegetarian but I do respect/understand those that do.
To me, it comes down to this: humans are omnivores meaning their diet is composed of vegetables/fruits and meat. It is the natural order of things I supose!

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure chiver78 must be one of my daughters cause I'm blaming it on my cooking too!!  They were vegetarian for many years; oldest even went vegan. Diet was not conducive to body building! Her boyfriend/now DH brought her back to carnivore world.

And yes, there was a lot of bacon involved!!!

[yogiii]

I must be really weird, I eat meat but I don't get the obsession with bacon.  I'd rate it "ok" at most.

[saveinla]

Does this only apply to people who used to eat meat and then turned vegetarian or vegan?

[weltschmerz]

I haven't eaten red meat in about ten years.

[mollyanna58]

I haven't eaten red meat since lunchtime. 

[Green Eyed Lady]

Perhaps part of it is the actual reason people don't eat meat. For me, it's not that I don't like meat, it's because it bothers me that we kill precious animals to eat them. I still would LOVE to eat meat if I could convince myself again that it grew on bushes. I can see me, in a weak moment, giving in. If I hated the taste of meat, it would be a lot easier. I suppose it depends on an individual's reasons for giving it up in the first place.

Another reason might be because of people like you guys saying BACON all the time!!

[weltschmerz]

Jul 27, 2015 13:37:07 GMT -5 Green Eyed Lady said:

Perhaps part of it is the actual reason people don't eat meat. For me, it's not that I don't like meat, it's because it bothers me that we kill precious animals to eat them. I still would LOVE to eat meat if I could convince myself again that it grew on bushes. I can see me, in a weak moment, giving in. If I hated the taste of meat, it would be a lot easier. I suppose it depends on an individual's reasons for giving it up in the first place.

Another reason might be because of people like you guys saying BACON all the time!!

I'd eat lab-grown meat. I'm certainly not avoiding red meat for my health. If I was concerned about my health, I'd have quit smoking years ago.

[mmhmm]

I don't like red meat. Neither did my mother. To us, it just didn't taste good. I eat fish and shellfish, and will eat chicken and ham/bacon, but I mostly eat vegetables, nuts and seeds, grains, fruit, etc. It's only a taste preference, though.