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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
Thank you! I will give it a go =)
“And, while you’re at it, make sure it’s grassfed because even meat eaters hate factory farms!” This really touched my heart. Thank you for saying that. I am new to this real food style of eating. I am just recently coming off of a mostly vegan diet. I was in between vegan and vegetarian for 5 years. I adopted the diet because of the horrible treatment of animals and for my health. I became vegan when I was 17, after my mother passed away from breast cancer. I did research, and the vegan diet seemed the best for cancer prevention. I did not and do not want cancer….so I was determined to do all that I could. I was also pretty unhealthy. Suffering from depression, anxiety, PCOS (although at the time I did not know I had this), PTSD, Reflux, OCD. UGH! So, of course, PETA’s website assured me that all my ailments would be cured with a vegetable centered diet. Well, here I am, 24 years old….and still suffering from most of the above =( Through fate, or divine intervention, I was introduced to the Primal/Paleo diet. After much research and looking through Facebook, I came across your blog. It has been extremely helpful to me! Thank you so much for doing this. This is a difficult transition for a former vegan, but I live in Seattle…so there are plenty of great farmers that I can get connected with. Do you have any good resources for GERD? Since going grain free, I have noticed an improvement for sure; but not cured. Maybe it will just take some more time. My husband and I are low on funds right now, but I soon hope to do the GAPS diet. I am pretty sure my gut needs to be reseeded, if you will =P I have taken way too many antibiotics in my life unfortunately. In the mean time, I have been eating a lot of fermented foods and taking probiotics. Thanks again! <3
Hi Brianna, thank you for sharing your story. My husband suffered from GERD for years and raw cream did the trick for him He ate raw cream with almost every meal for several months (8-9 quarts per month believe it or not) and he was pretty much healed. He has occasional bouts but usually when we are traveling and eating out at restaurants a lot.
I have been vegetarian for over 30 years, my husband as well. We are rarely ill and we have brought up three children as vegetarians who have been strong sports people and very academic and artistic. We will never go back to eating meat or animal products..that is our choice. Most of our meals are now vegan and there is enough evidence to suggest that a vegan diet can help prevent and cure heart disease and cancer. But whatever the arguments for and against a meat-free lifestyle, in the end it boils down to choice.
Please Sarah, could you send the exact article of Psychology Today where you found this information? My husband who is vegan wants to read more of it.
Hi Lucila, the article is sourced with a link at the end of the blog.
I am a vegan for a year now / former vegetarian on and off for about 9 years. Aaaand a nursing mother of my 8 month old healthy (!!!!) Son.
I think people who were vegan/vegetarian and went back to meat simply didn´t even get to know variety of vegan foods, let alone of preparing it. There is a big difference between “side dishes” eaters and people who actually got to learn the whole spectrum of vegan kitchen.
I don´t miss meat, I trully feel sick thinking of how nasty it is and what it does to my body. I remember my two month detoxification when I went 100% vegan: I was sweating and I stunk non-stop, I had to shower 4-5 times a day (had never ever problems with that before and after) but it wouldn´t help at all! My body was clearly getting rid of all the poisons.
I feel great since I eat vegan, I have so much more energy, I enjoy my self-prepared healthy food more then ever before. I lost some weight without any dieting, my skin got so much better. I could go on and on with the goodie-list! I am happy and trully balanced. And, yes, my Son is going to eat vegan. I am not going to make the same mistake like my parets did with me only because they didn´t know better.
Most Vegetarians Return to Eating Meat – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/DTInBmu hmmmm well, I’m on year five…
Hi Sarah,
I just read this article and thought you would enjoy it. A former vegan butcher: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/07/01/bbq-tips-from-ex-vegan-butcher/?intcmp=obinsite
I don’t understand the desire to attack those people who are vegetarian. I don’t see why some meat-eaters see it as their duty to educate non-meat-eaters in the ‘errors’ of their ways. I really don’t get those people who think they’ve got any right to tell their pregnant friends what to eat (her body, her diet… please don’t think her body isn’t her own just because she’s pregnant).
Live and let live. I don’t lecture people in what they should eat, and I expect other people not to lecture me. If any of my friends tried this, well, they wouldn’t be my friend for long.
Obviously, the majority of folks are not needing a lecture to leave vegetarianism behind as this survey shows quite clearly. Their observation of their failing health and/or cravings for some complete protein as found in meat is quite enough!
But the suggestion that people need to leave vegetarianism behind or they’ll fave ‘failing health’ is a nonsense. Some people have difficulty in establishing a balanced vegetarian diet in the first place, so perhaps it’s just not for them. Other people, particularly in Europe it would appear, have no problems in maintaining a good vegetarian diet and living healthily that way for decades.
I don’t think it’s right to push an agenda that everyone should eat meat. As I said, live and let live.
You can call it nonsense, but obviously it is not because most people who return to meat cite exactly that (failing health) as their reason. Are you calling them liars for what they have observed and decided to do (return to meat)? Doesn’t seem to fit your “live and let live” philosophy too well, does it?
By the way, a “balanced vegetarian diet” is a contradiction in terms. An omnivore diet is balanced – a vegetarian diet is by definition imbalanced because it does not include any meat. Kind of like saying someone who eats only meat eats a “balanced carnivore diet”. This too would be ridiculous to say because it would also be imbalanced because it did not include any plant foods.
Yep, Sarah, your agenda is clear, sad and biased. “Balanced” could mean many things, but for you it means a diet that includes “eating meat.” I wish you could better yourself and your audience by having a more nuanced view.
You are exactly right. This is my blog and I am incredibly biased toward health which is why I encourage people to eat meat as healthy indigenous cultures have done for thousands of years.
I left a comment about the ‘us’ against ‘them’-comments I see over there, and here, too.
Because I also mentioned this post (or actually, the comments on this post) in it, I though I’d post the link here, to be thorough: http://www.foodrenegade.com/why-im-not-vegan/#comment-447762
Having been a vegetarian for 10 years, I’ve learned that our own individual make-ups are the most important factor in how we handle a meat-free diet. I don’t crave meat, I didn’t after I stopped eating it, my body just doesn’t need it. I initially became a vegetarian because I noticed I felt better and more energetic without meat, even through both of my pregnancies. However, I know a ton of people who could never live without meat. It’s all about what works for you.
I’d be curious as to how many of the survey participants took up vegetarianism for ethical or trendy reasons. It’s possible that ethics aren’t strong enough to sustain one’s physical needs, at least not in all cases.