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Why the vast majority of vegetarians return to eating meat within a few years. Is eating meat, in fact, “in our genes”?
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. (1)
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 irresistible 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.
My late Father-In-Law, who ate primarily vegetarian, used to say that he would experience periodic (overwhelming) cravings for steak. He wisely chose to indulge himself during those episodes, thinking that there was a nutritional deficiency that was causing the cravings.
Even the hugely popular Netflix documentary What The Health was unable to name a single vegan population group that was successful staying healthy and fertile over the long term!
Sustainable Meat Proves Enticing
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 are no doubt good reasons to turn away from meat.
Some former vegetarians, however, have recognized and embraced the grassfed movement, finding their way back to sustainable and humanely raised, cruelty-free meats as a real ethical alternative.
Some of these converts 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. (2)
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.
Is Meat Consumption “In Our Genes”?
The article in Psychology Today ends on a baffled note, with the author wondering if meat eating could potentially be in our genes? (3)
That’s an easy question.
Of course it is!
Just look at our omnivore teeth, which include four pointy canines (for tearing meat!).
I submit that the results of the Psychology Today survey, which found most vegetarians ditching plant-based eating within a few years, are not surprising.
In fact, they are a strong testament to the research of Dr. Weston A. Price.
Dr. Price traveled the world early in the last century, living amongst and intensely studying 14 isolated cultures.
During this adventure, he documented these isolated people groups consuming their ancestral diet in great detail.
Amazing pictures and the data from his analysis of these foods can be found in his masterpiece, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
If you’ve ever considered becoming a vegetarian, I highly recommend this book. It will dissuade you in a hurry!
Dr. Price concluded that while the diets of these natives varied widely, nutrient-dense animal foods high in the fat-soluble true vitamin A, D, and K2 (also known as Activator X) were the common denominators.
Consumption of these animal foods was revered in these communities as they bestowed vibrant health, easy fertility, healthy children, and high resistance to chronic and infectious diseases.
Vegetarian Cultures Compared to Omnivores
The discovery by Dr. Price that there wasn’t a single vegetarian indigenous culture that had the vibrant health of those consuming animal foods was actually a disappointment to him!
Dr. Price had expected to find the vegetarian cultures to be the healthiest cultures of all.
This was due to the vegetarians of his day in the 1920s and 1930s being healthier than Americans eating a processed diet.
However, the ancestral vegetarian cultures he examined displayed far more degeneration and tooth decay than the omnivore cultures.
Dr. Price’s observation that vegetarians suffered from more cavities has been confirmed by peer-reviewed research in recent years.
Besides issues with caries, vegetarians also suffer from a high risk of fractures compared to the general population that consumes meat.
Dr. Price’s scientific integrity demanded recognition of the fact that the health of the indigenous omnivores far exceeded that of the vegetarian societies.
Those consuming a wide variety of marine seafood exhibited the most vibrancy of all.
Therefore, in the famous words of Pink Floyd, “Eat yer meat!”
And….crickets and other mass-produced bugs don’t count as a sustainable meat option, despite what mainstream media claims! Eating factory-farmed bugs is more likely to give you parasites than nourishment! (4)
Ancestrally-inspired meat eaters hate factory farms whether it be for animals or insects!
(1, 3) Psychology Today
(2) Beating a Humane Retreat Back to Meat
(4) The Risks of Eating Commercially-farmed Insects
I am a vegan, been one for a year and a veggie for 2 years. Since switching my diet to plant-based I have never felt better. As a teen I suffered from acne, eczema, mood swings, bad PMS, etc… When I was 20, a friend told me the hormones and stuff in the dairy I was eating were causing all my problems. So I quit eating dairy. 2 weeks later my skin was clearing up (I kept using the same soaps, etc…). I had already stopped eating red meat (red meat is linked to heart disease which is the #1 killer in women!). So I was only eating turkey, chicken and fish. So after awhile I was only eating fish. I finally gave up fish. In the 2 year vegetarian span (although you might classify this as vegan because I wasn’t eating dairy) I only had two relapses, where I craved tuna salad (tuna and mayo mixed together and ate it with Doritos). There was about a year where I was irritable and crabby and it turns out that was my body detoxing and I was craving the chemicals that were in the dairy, meat, etc… See, food companies put drugs in junk food and you get addicted and just like any druggie or alcoholic you might go through a relapse or be very irritable because your body isn’t getting its “fix” if you will. So now I’m going on 4 years vegan. I have never felt so good. This plus exercising makes me feel great. Yes I buy the occasional fake meat (just like anyone would stop at McDonald’s a few times) just for a treat. I do take supplements too. I take a multi, wheatgrass, chlorella, and spirulina. I make green smoothies every day. I cook about 90% of the food I eat myself. The 10% being processed food/treats.
Now, reading the comments here just further proves my theory that not everyone was meant to be vegan/vegetarian. I don’t know many people in my life who tried being vegetarian and it almost killed them or anything. I do get flack from a few family members for being vegan, but my response is usually “why do you criticize my food choices when I haven’t and will not say a peep about yours?” Maybe they don’t understand and never will. I just know my body and my message is find what works for you. If it’s vegan, great! If it’s meat, great! I don’t push my beliefs on others because I know it’s not realistic. Not everyone will want to be vegan and not everyone can. Find what works for you and stick with it! Cheers!
Candice I can fully understand how you feel better from going vegan/vegetarian. I do believe that dairy and meat that is filled with hormones and antibiotics are toxic and will make you feel awful. Being vegan/vegetarian is very cleansing. Your body digests so easily and therefore you can get rid of all the buildup of crap that your body has been buried under forever. If you feel great, stick with it.
I personally just felt that over time, I wasn’t able to keep up with my daily energy expenditures with the way I was eating. At the end of my 4 years of being hardcore vegetarian/vegan (I ate limited dairy) my body started declining rapidly. I think my body had done the majority of its cleansing and was telling me that it was ready to start eating meat again. The instant I did (of course I only ate organic grass-fed, hormone/antibiotic dairy/meat in small proportions daily) my health came back and I feel I’m at a peak.
I truly hope your vitality maintains itself, but if for some reason you start feeling sluggish and a bit lacking in any way, I hope you’ll reconsider allowing a bit of good clean animal protein back in your diet and see how you feel. Good luck and cheers indeed!
edit* i meant hormone/antibiotic free dairy & meat. whoops!
We were vegan for a while ourselves. You have more in common with them than you realize. The reason we went vegan was for health reasons. We knew the traditional American diet was not making people healthy, so there had to be a different way. So, we ended up with vegan resources telling us that’s the way to health. We even tried all raw for a while. However, we didn’t feel healthy. We ended up going to extremes. Black bean soup at home one night and then McDonalds another night. I know now it was nutritional deficiencies screaming out to us. However, I was still convinced that the traditional American diet was not the way. Through a variety of sources, we landed upon Nourishing Traditions. What a difference that has made!!! Bad cravings are GONE! Like I said, you hold a similarity to vegans believing that listening to the government and mainstream medical advice is not going to be how one regains health. It’s just that how it plays out for vegans and those on traditional diets is much different!! For us, it was a matter of time. We’ve now got all sorts of glass jars around the house making kombucha, kefir, lemonaide, and other things I have to explain to guests!!! Keep up the good work 🙂
Excellent post, really enjoyed this one! About 10 years ago I went through a vegan-fish eating vegetarian stint for about 3 1/2 years. Results: steadily declining health, horrendous cravings/mood swings, negative body composition changes. Been Paleo/Primal and WAPF combo for over 5 1/2 years. Issues all resolved and to this day still improving even tho I am older. Probably the healthiest I have ever been in my life and at 51. Course, the exercise helps also:)
I am confused on whether to eat grains at all after I read Cure Tooth Decay by Nagel. Is the soaking instructions enough as explained in Nourishing Tradition to decrease the phytates in grains/rice and beans to make them safe to eat? I am wondering about buying unbleached white flour and making my own bread and selling my grain mill. Please if you could clear this up. I don’t know if my own homemade wheat yeast bread is okay to eat —- at least for my cavity prone child. We are doing the cod liver oil/ high vitamin butter too.
thanks
Marie
Hi Marie, I grind my own whole wheat flour and sift out the bran which is what Rami recommends from what I understand. I wouldn’t buy white flour from the store.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/soaked-sprouted-fermented-grains/
I gained so much weight when I went vegetarian/ border line vegan. I was sick & tired all the time. I read nourishing traditions and have lost 60lbs without exercising.
I was a vegetarian for oh, about two weeks while in my early 20’s. It was “trendy.” I got over it quickly. I am amazed at the amount of “recovering vegetarians and vegans,” that attend our WAPF chapter. I notice most came to their senses when they hit their 40’s and up. That’s probably when it all caught up to them health-wise. Most ended up anemic or with pellegra! They give our chapter quite the testimonies at our monthly meetings!
I have a friend who is goimg vegetarian and has been eating like this for a few weeks. She is also six weeks postpartum and nursing a baby. I am worried for her and her baby and I will definitely pass this along to her! She needs WAPF right now and so does her health!
maybe you can show here these in addition to this article..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-death-baby-breast-milk
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/07/04/20080704parker0704.html
i have to agree with Alessandra. I have been vegetarian for a year. I was a flexitarian before and liked more vegetarian meals anyways. I sleep better and my hot flashes went away. My vegetarians/vegan eat soy and processed products which is no different than eating a junk diet. Processed food is the problem. I only eat fermented soy on occasion, been soaking my beans forever, and eat sprouted wheat bread.
I wondered if the study Sarah talked about the type of diet the vegetarians were on and how much soy and fake soy foods they were eating. From my experience, I think you have to look at the diet of someone who is eating vegetarian or beef, then make an opinion from there.
There are so many different opinions out there which diet is best for people. Dr Mercola says it depends on body type. Dr. Barnard advocated a low fat vegan diet to rid yourself of diabetes. The bottom line is eating a healthy whole diet, vegetarian or not.
I stopped eating meat because of the cruelty of eating animals.
@Ali–yep! the prep time is why I rarely advise people to be veg…I figure it’s easier to at least start by altering the food they currently eat and just prepare healthier versions…organic, grass-fed. Being healthy has nothing to do with being “vegetarian”, it’s about the quality of food we eat and the proper proportions for our body types. 🙂 There are plenty of unhealthy vegetarians!!!
i have never felt so healthy as when i was vegan, eating mostly organic, whole foods i cooked at home myself…. i pine for those days now – unfortunately im too busy to give so much time to food prep now.