Living on a smart, comprehensive and healthy diet is an essential part of living long and with energy. We all try so many different ways to nourish our bodies and most of the time... we're doing it wrong. It is an arduous task to stay with some of these ways of life. Not eating meat or cheese or eggs? I don't know how people do it. Yes we want to save animals and it's not ideal that we harvest their bodies for our own fulfillment but when your starving... the guilt fades.
Redditor u/eitakvo wanted to hear from all the people who gave in and went back to gobbling meat by asking...
Also.... therapy!
I was using veganism as a guise for an eating disorder for well over a year. When I finally realized I was in trouble, after losing 80lbs, I went and bought lamb chops and devoured them. Also therapy. SassBerryPie
Mostly veggies....
I still eat mostly vegetarian food and have done all my life. However my husband was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and coeliac which means that a high fibre/lower iron diet is not an option and a lot of the substitutes aren't gluten free. More often than not when he has meat I'll leave it or have the veggie equivalent but there are just not enough hours in the day to make 2 separate lasagnes and sauce etc. Reddit
Fevers.
I was on a diet for health reasons. When I was told I was allowed to eat meat again my fridge started looking like a Mexican fever dream. DasDoesSomeThings
I'm imagining that as lots of dancing tacos, quesadillas, beans, and chickens while mariachi bands play on a swirling tie dye background. Sapper501
"burned"
Got a genetic illness which makes me permanently anemic. My body only absorbs a tiny amount of iron from food and that amount is "burned" pretty fast. Turns out it doesn't help to cut that tiny amount as well. Also i didn't replace the meat, i just left it out so i basically ate less food.
Edit: The genetic mutation i have is called Thalassemia (specific type: Thalassemia Beta intermedia) Its pretty common especially in mediterranean people usually only severe cases are properly diagnosed since you cant really do more than iron infusions blood transfusions etc. stolenkar
When in Japan....
I'm still as veggie as possible but I moved to a country where is is 10000% harder to be vegan (Japan). This is mostly due to not knowing a ton of Japanese and the fact that there is fish or meat in soooo many restaurant foods and the culture here isn't like in America where you can ask for items to be removed or substitutions... Not that my Japanese ability would allow me to do that anyway. SummerMournings
How Much? For Food?
I was vegan for a year when I lived in a big city that had lots of inexpensive options for what one could eat. When I moved to a small town in beef country, the cost of good produce quadrupled, as did the cost of meat substitutes. I quickly learned that if I didn't eat whatever I could get my hands on, I would starve, so I started eating meat again.
Some people say food deserts aren't real. They are. Ivytongue
Travels....
I was traveling in Africa (edit: this part of the trip happened to be in Zambia, not that the specific location really matters for the point of the story), and stayed in a small village off the beaten track. I had just arrived and as the matriarch of my host family was showing me to my room, and helping me get settled in, her boys were out back slaughtering a goat for me.
I couldn't turn down that meal, because that goat represented a substantial part of the family's assets.
The whole experience made me realize that the social constructs around sharing food are far more important to me than what the food is.
If someone is serving it, I will eat it with gratitude.
Edit: yes, my stomach did not handle it very well. That said, my stomach was having difficulty anyway. There were unspeakable things done to the pit latrine.
Edit: no, I would not knowingly eat human flesh. Fortunately societal taboos on this are much more universal than are taboos related to eating goat. grindermonk
For a Stretch....
My brother-in-law went vegan for a stretch. One of his pet causes is donating blood. As soon as he's able to, he's down at the blood clinic donating again.
Anyway, on a vegan diet, his blood iron levels got too low to donate blood. So it was back to meat for him. But his daughter (my niece) is still vegan, and it's driving them nuts, because she'll only eat those vegan chicken nuggets, and they're getting pricey. originalchaosinabox
Let's See....
I wanted to see if it made me sick. I've since eaten it here and there but it's not often. I was vegan (food and otherwise) for near a decade. I'm planning on going back because I can honestly say that I've not been missing out. It's possible to veganize about anything these days.
Oh, also. No it didn't make me sick at all. SquizzleSE
Life's Too Short!
My aunt was a vegetarian for health reasons. The day she got diagnosed with cancer she went to In-n-Out. lovelymoth
