• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
The Healthy Home Economist

The Healthy Home Economist

embrace your right to a lifetime of health

Get Plus
  • Home
  • About
  • My Books
  • Shopping List
  • Archives
  • Log in
  • Get Plus
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Get Plus
  • Log in
  • Home
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Archives
  • My Books
  • Shopping List
  • Recipes
  • Healthy Living
  • Natural Remedies
  • Green Living
  • Videos
  • Natural Remedies
  • Health
  • Green Living
  • Recipes
  • Videos
  • Subscribe
Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Healthy Living / Most Vegetarians Return to Eating Meat due to Failing Health

Most Vegetarians Return to Eating Meat due to Failing Health

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Sustainably Raised, Grassfed Meats Prove Enticing to Vegetarians
  • Omnivores Healthier Than Vegetarians

most vegetarians eat meat againIt appears that for the vast majority of vegetarians, abstaining from meat is only a phase rather than a permanent life choice.

According to Psychology Today, roughly 75% of vegetarians eventually return to eating meat with 9 years being the average length of time of abstinence.

The most common reason former vegetarians cited as the reason they returned to meat was declining health. One vegetarian turned omnivore put it very succinctly:

I’ll take a dead cow over anemia any time.

Other former vegetarians cited persistent physical weakness despite eating a whole foods plant based diet while others returned to meat at the recommendation of their doctor.

Another big reason that vegetarians returned to meat was due to irresistable cravings. This occurred even among long term vegetarians.  Respondents talked about their protein cravings or how the smell of cooking bacon drove them crazy.

One survey participant wrote:

I just felt hungry all the time and that hunger would not be satisfied unless I ate meat.

Another put it more humorously:

Starving college student + First night back home with the folks + Fifty or so blazin’ buffalo wings waiting in the kitchen = Surrender.

Even the 2017 Netflix documentary What The Health was unable to name a single vegan population group that was successful long term!

Sustainably Raised, Grassfed Meats Prove Enticing to Vegetarians

About half of vegetarians originally gave up meat for ethical reasons. Pictures of confined animals standing on concrete in their own excrement and the stench of factory farms on country roads from 5 miles away is no doubt plenty of reason to turn away from meat.   Some former vegetarians, however, have recognized and embraced the grassfed movement back to sustainable and humanely raised, cruelty free meats as a real ethical alternative.

Some of these converts back to meat view buying grassfed beef and other sustainably raised animal foods as a new form of activism similar to their boycott of factory farmed meats when they were vegetarians.

Berlin Reed, a long term vegetarian with the tattoo “vegan” on his neck is one of these. Now known as “the ethical butcher”, he believes that promoting customer contact with butchers which has been lost in recent decades with the rise of factory farming is the key to an improved and sustainable meat system.

Omnivores Healthier Than Vegetarians

The article in Psychology Today ended on a baffled note with the author wondering if meat eating could potentially be in our genes?

I submit that the results of this survey are not surprising and are in fact a testament to the research of Dr. Weston A. Price. Dr. Price traveled the world in the 1920s and 1930s visiting 14 isolated cultures in the process.

During this adventure which he documented in great detail with amazing pictures in his masterpiece Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price concluded that while the diets of these natives varied widely, nutrient dense animal foods high in the fat soluble vitamin A, D, and K2 (also known as Activator X) were the common denominator. Consumption of these animal foods were revered in these communities as they bestowed vibrant health, easy fertility, healthy children, and high resistance to chronic and infectious disease.

This discovery was a disappointment to Dr. Price who had expected to find the vegetarian cultures to be the healthiest cultures of all. But, the vegetarian cultures he examined displayed far more degeneration and tooth decay than the omnivore cultures. This surprised him given that these vegetarian cultures did indeed have superior health than the Americans of his day.

However, he could not deny that the health of the indigenous omnivores exceeded that of the vegetarian cultures. Those consuming a wide variety of marine seafoods exhibited the most vibrancy of all.

Therefore, in the famous words of Pink Floyd,  “Eat yer meat!”

And, while you’re at it, make sure it’s grassfed because even meat eaters hate factory farms!

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

 

Sources:

Beating a Humane Retreat Back to Meat

Psychology Today

FacebookPinEmailPrint
Category: Healthy Living
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: the bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

You May Also Like

Craziest, Saddest, Funniest Stories from My Kitchen!

The Latest Research on the Benefits of Vitamin K2

The Latest Research on the Benefits of Vitamin K2

The Dirty Little Secret about Gluten Free

The Dirty Little Secret about Gluten Free

The Big Getaway Thank You

mexican corn preparation

Traditional Mexican Corn Preparation Methods

blood thinning medication in a glass bowl with a red thread heart

Vitamin K2 and Blood Clotting. Is it Safe for Those on Blood Thinners?

Feeling Tired More Than You Should?

Get a free chapter of my book Get Your Fats Straight + my weekly newsletter and learn which fats to eat (and which to avoid) to reduce sugar cravings and improve energy significantly!

We send no more than one email per week. You will never be spammed or your email sold, ever.
Loading

Sidebar

Mother Nature’s Medicine Cabinet

5 Secrets to a Strong Immune System

Loading

The Healthy Home Economist

Since 2002, Sarah has been a Health and Nutrition Educator dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. Read More

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Check Out My Books

Mother Nature’s Medicine Cabinet

5 Secrets to a Strong Immune System

Loading

Contact the Healthy Home Economist. The information on this website has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease. By accessing or using this website, you agree to abide by the Terms of Service, Full Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Affiliate Disclosure, and Comment Policy.

Copyright © 2009–2023 · The Healthy Home Economist · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc.

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!