Any vegan/vegetarians who went back to eating meat?

leggup

The French fry /grilled cheese diet would kill me. I've been a vegetarian for over a 14-15 years. I use loads of meat substitutes like tofu (which is actually cheaper than most meat), Morningstar, gardein, etc.

Adding back chicken won't fix your junk-food-vegetarian diet. You'll just be having chicken with French fries and grilled cheese. Also, going back is not fun, digestively speaking. I've had 2-3 instances in recent years in which something that was supposed to be vegetarian had chicken stock in it. Cue gut clenching and intestinal exorcism for 2 days. Ugh. I do not have the digestive enzymes to digest meat.

Meerataila

Adding back chicken won't fix your junk-food-vegetarian diet. You'll just be having chicken with French fries and grilled cheese.

Quoting for concise truth!

Patttience

To avoid getting fat, Vegetarians and vegans should be eating a LOT of beans, lentils and chickpeas. At least in two meals every day if not three. These are low fat high protein foods which are filling and sustaining. Indian vegetarians survive on them. They are also inexpensive compared to meat and seafood.
I'm not going to criticise you for eating meat especially if you can stick with the more ethical ones like free range and raised in the field animals or wild caught fish.

I avoid meat most of the time but do eat seafood sometimes. Here most chicken is ****. chicken and pork are the worst foods as far as humane treatment of animals goes here in australia as far as i can see. I'll have a free range chicken once a year or if i'm eating at someone else's place and that's on offer.

if you want to know how to cook more wholesome and delicious bean dishes, look to the mediterranean cuisines and indian. The french and italians often add only a small amount of meat to a chickpea or bean dish so they get the best of both worlds with regards to flavour and health.

tabicatinthehat

Errr, I never said you had to agree or be bound my morality. And the lion kills the gazelle itself, you pay KFC to kill the chicken on your behalf.

This. I'm not a vegetarian, but I can see the difference between a lion working and hunting its prey, an animal that lived a humane life in the wild, and a guy buying a drumstick from a chicken he never saw. You are not a lion, sir.

SunofaBeach14

The lion feels no remorse or guilt for the slaughter of the gazelle, and I feel no remorse or guilt for my fried chicken.
You are certainly welcome to live your life as you see fit, but I certainly don't have to agree or be bound by your morality.

Errr, I never said you had to agree or be bound my morality. And the lion kills the gazelle itself, you pay KFC to kill the chicken on your behalf.

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

SunofaBeach14

Errr, I never said you had to agree or be bound my morality. And the lion kills the gazelle itself, you pay KFC to kill the chicken on your behalf.

This. I'm not a vegetarian, but I can see the difference between a lion working and hunting its prey, an animal that lived a humane life in the wild, and a guy buying a drumstick from a chicken he never saw. You are not a lion, sir.

Humans are far more deadly than lions. We are the ultimate apex predator.

DavPul

Errr, I never said you had to agree or be bound my morality. And the lion kills the gazelle itself, you pay KFC to kill the chicken on your behalf.

This. I'm not a vegetarian, but I can see the difference between a lion working and hunting its prey, an animal that lived a humane life in the wild, and a guy buying a drumstick from a chicken he never saw. You are not a lion, sir.

Which is why humans are smarter than lions. What,you think that if the lion had a credit card he'd be like, "no thanks, I'd rather starve for three days and then chase after this fast *kitten* gazelle and then pray that another lion doesn't take it from me in the hopes of getting some food?"

And what exactly is a "humane life living in the wild"? If enduring the extreme heat and cold while scavenging for food and evading predators day and night sounds appealing to you I suggest you give it a try

JenniDaisy

I went back to eating meat after 12 years and I never suffered any sickness. If I'm being honest I don't feel any different than I did when I was vegetarian, but I ate mostly healthy then and I eat mostly healthy now.
What's important to me is real meat (organic, free-range, healthy, happy meat) a couple of times a week due to cost and health, and that vegetable are just as important in my diet as the ever were.

Whenever I eat out though I usually get the veggie option, because some places are like 'it's meat flavoured, what more do you want?'

DavPul

Adding back chicken won't fix your junk-food-vegetarian diet. You'll just be having chicken with French fries and grilled cheese.

Quoting for concise truth!

It's true, but at least she won't have to borrow my jacket every time we go to the movies

blastbeat78

The feelings of guilt some meat eaters have is only relevant to those who are capable of compassion or empathy.

blastbeat78

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

I was never applying it to you and of course they are meaningless to someone like you.:yawn:

DavPul

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

I was never applying it to you and of course they are meaningless to someone like you. The feelings of guilt some meat eaters have is only relevant to those who are capable of compassion or empathy.

do feelings of guilt apply to someone that butchers both the quote and edit buttons?

SunofaBeach14

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

I was never applying it to you and of course they are meaningless to someone like you. The feelings of guilt some meat eaters have is only relevant to those who are capable of compassion or empathy.

You're entertaining in your assumptions. I have to wonder whether you've simply bought into propoganda or whether you've read foundational works of moral philosophy and come to your own conclusions. Your knee jerk assumptions lead me to lean towards the former.

Edit to fix your quotes

SunofaBeach14

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

I was never applying it to you and of course they are meaningless to someone like you. The feelings of guilt some meat eaters have is only relevant to those who are capable of compassion or empathy.

do feelings of guilt apply to someone that butchers both the quote and edit buttons?

Only when he breaks the soap box on which stands

grazer432

I was a vegan for a while and I found myself eating a lot of crap because decent vegan food took too much time to make. And eating crap was not doing me any favours health-wise or weight-wise. I introduced meat back into my diet, cut the junk and lost weight and felt better. I eat mostly paleo now, but not loads of meat. I would definately transition slowly. Adding lots of anything new can be hard on your digestive system. Like someone else suggested, I started eating fish then chicken then red meat over a few months and had no issues.

And I have done work in the agricultural industry, words like organic, free-range, pasture-raised etc. do have meaning. I have visited the farm where the meat I eat comes from multiple times and am satisfied that the animals are treated fairly, feed appropriate diets etc. I would never eat battery chicken eggs or animals fed junk.

kristin1493

Again, your morality doesn't apply to me. The distinctions you draw are meaningless to me. I have certainly killed and butchered my share of animals. The fact that I often choose to pay someone to do it for me, doesn't change my analysis. As I said, you're welcome to your beliefs but don't pretend that everyone agrees or feels this guilt of which you speak. To me, animals are resources.

I hope that's not a leather jacket in your second photo... I find it hypocritical for vegans to wear leather.

mathmatt

Took a while but I finally found what I was looking for. To see what the terms free range and organic actually mean, check this out:
http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/chickopedia/

Seeing that you disagree with animal cruelty, these terms don't necessarily mean cruelty free depending on what your view of cruel/unethical treatment of animals is.

I've been trying to research why one might get sick when adding meat into their diet after long periods of not eating it and there's not been a lot of studies done. I've seen several different theories as to why it could happen including lack of proper digestive enzymes to a change in the bacteria present in the gut biota but no conclusive evidence. One thing that I've noticed from my readings is that "sick" means mostly bloating and diarrhea not vomiting. These things should clear up once whichever mechanism causing the issues balances out and gets back to what you need for proper digestion. I've seen things that say from a few weeks to a few months but that seems to all be guesswork.

RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle

To address the original question: I can go a year without eating meat, then have some steak and feel fine. I don't feel guilt and I don't have tummy ache. I don't think I'm a hypocrite either, nor do I care what anyone else thinks.

jofjltncb6

Ok so I'm not going to answer the question that you actually asked but I'm going to give you some resources for how to be a healthy vegetarian/vegan since you are correct that your french fry/grilled cheese diet is definitely not.

Brendan Brazier's book Thrive
Tim VanOrden's website and youtube channel
Neal Barnard's book Food for Life
Matt Frazier's website No Meat Athlete.

And just something to look into, the "organic" and "free range" terms have very specific meanings and from what I've found organic means they were given organic feed, not necessarily a chicken's natural diet; free range means they have access to the outside. This could be a doggie door that they may or may not know how to use. If, in the end, you do end up deciding to eat meat again, I recommend looking into some local farms were you can see how animals are kept. And fish, check out http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx for fish that aren't in danger of overfishing and always buy wild caught.

In...

...to see if this non-answer of the question asked by OP is met with the same outraged response as when others do it to someone trying to go the other direction...

...because I'm curious like that.

lilmssmartypants

I'm glad I found this topic. I find it very difficult to lose weight as a vegan/vegetarian even with the intense exercise I am doing, Barry's Bootcamp-HIIT and strength training 4 days out of the week. I've been vegetarian for 7 years and try to avoid the dairy. I don't like the way dairy makes me feel.
This past week I ate turkey, weighed myself and dropped two pounds. So, now I know the problem is my diet! I thought about what I did differently this week: I added turkey, limited my intake of dairy, and incorporated oatmeal with blueberries into my diet.

I am thinking of adding Hormone Free Turkey, Lean grilled or baked Chicken, and fish or least the Sushi Rolls for starters into my diet to lose the 10lbs and maintain it. I think my vegan diet also also has something to do with breakage of hair and nails as well. I don't think the vegan diet is doing me any good. The purpose of it was to avoid chemicals and to be acne free. Although, my acne is not as bad, I am still not completely clear and still have to make regular visits to dermatologist. What's the point if it's not fixing any health problems? I've just become accustomed to not eating animals anymore.

I've been fluctuating between 136lbs-138lbs this whole year. It feels good to finally see a drop to 134lbs. My goal is 125lbs. It's not even a significant amount of weight I am trying to lose. I am 5'6/5'7 and just trying to get back to how I looked 7 years ago.

Side note:I can't wait to throw out the Whey Protein for my smoothies. It's been giving me stomach aches!