Why Do the Vast Majority of Vegetarians Return to Meat?

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!

References

(1, 3) Psychology Today

(2) Beating a Humane Retreat Back to Meat

(4) The Risks of Eating Commercially-farmed Insects