Why Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat

One issue that vegetarian shills conveniently ignore is the legions of folks who try vegetarian/vegan diets, then abandon them due to adverse health effects. Vegetarian promoters wank on and on about how superior the diet is, but have little to say about the preponderance of people who adopt vegetarianism only to watch their energy and well being deteriorate.

A 2005 survey by CBS News found three times as many American adults described themselves as ex-vegetarians as opposed to current vegetarians. This suggests that around 75% of people who quit eating meat eventually change their minds and return to a diet that includes animal flesh.

Now why would that be?

To gain insight into this very question, Morgan Childers and Hal Herzog, Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University and the author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals, set up an online survey for ex-vegetarians to complete.

The respondents’ reasons for abandoning vegetarianism, in order of prevalence, were: Health, Hassle, Cravings, Social, Ethical.

Thirty-five percent of the participants indicated that declining health was the main reason they reverted back to eating flesh. For example, one wrote, “I was very weak and sickly. I felt horrible even though I ate a good variety of foods like PETA said to.”

Wait a minute…this person ate like PETA said to?

Oh dear.

Another wrote, “My doctor recommended that I eat some form of meat as I was not getting any better. I thought it would be hypocritical of me to just eat chicken and fish as they are just as much an animal as a cow or pig. So I went from no meat to all meat.”

The most succinct response was by a man who wrote, “I will take a dead cow over anemia any time.”

About one in five participants had developed an irresistible urge to taste cooked flesh once more. This occurred even among some long-term vegetarians. Participants talked about their protein cravings or how the smell of sizzling bacon would drive them crazy. One, for example, said “I just felt hungry all the time and that hunger would not be satisfied unless I ate meat.”

News flash: When your body desperately craves certain foods, it’s trying to tell you something. Something like, “I’m a human body and I need the nutrients in meat for sustenance, so quit this vegetarian bullshit already!”

Herzog interviews Staci Giani, who in her early 30′s began to suffer from anemia and chronic fatigue syndrome after twelve years of strict vegetarianism. She experienced stomach pains for two hours after every meal. “I was completely debilitated,” she tells Herzog. “Then I changed the way I ate.”

Staci now eats “lots” of meat and, according to Herzog, is a vibrant, strong, attractive woman who looks ten years younger than her actual age of forty-one.

This picture of a delicious, succulent. sizzling steak – which tastes so damn good, w-a-a-a-y better than rubber-like tofu – is not in any way meant to influence all you vegetarians on the verge of ditching your meatless ways. No sirree. You folks go ahead and make your decision based purely on reason and logic. Just not the same reason and logic that led you to conclude giving up nature’s most nutrient-dense food would somehow be a good idea…

Herzog’s Psychology Today article can be read in full here.

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