Looking for former vegetarians

Do you eat eggs and dairy?

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I've been a veggie for 25 years before becoming a pescetarian (I a eat fish). This gives me plenty of extra grams of protein in my diet as well as being super tasty. Is that an option for you OP?

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Former and current vegetarian here. I stopped eating meat at 12 and didn't again until my 20's when I got pregnant. Then one day I looked at a cheeseburger, thought "My God, that looks divine" and sat down and demolished it. My youngest is 6 tomorrow and I'm having continued stomach problems that only go away when I remove meat from my diet. Been meat-free again for about a month and already my stomach is feeling better and I'm not gacking up blood between meals and rolling around the bed in pain. Yay!

TL;DR
Former veg, dove straight back into meat with no problem, stopped eating it again.

I was a strict vegetarian for 5 years, and this year have begun to be a little more flexible in my diet. I was vego for ethical reasons relating to the environment and sustainability. I was never one to judge others who chose to eat meat and always felt that it was ok to kill an animal for food- it was more the factory farms I was against. I'm a bit of a foodie who loves trying new things, so my new philosophy on eating allows for trying something when I eat out even if it contains meat, and eating food that my friends and family cook for me without demanding that they make me something vegetarian. I still eat mostly vegetarian at home, though while trying to lose weight I have made a further allowance for tuna and salmon so that I can have more protein options without the carbs. I think that many people see vegetarianism as an 'all or nothing' thing or a restriction, but I feel that it is jut as valid to have a preference for vegetarian eating based on ethical reasoning without it being a hard rule.

I have a reverse aversion. I was involuntarily mostly vegetarian for three years from 2001-2004 while I lived in yoga communities and to this day I cannot stand soy. It took me 11 years before I could eat oatmeal again. I have to cook the hell out of it. Maybe that would help you too - try using meat in very small pieces in soup that has been cooked a long time. I like your idea of starting with meat broth.

Also try it in very small pieces in stir fries.

An interesting thing about my Thai cookbook - 8 oz of beef is supposed to serve 4 in the Pad Sei Ew (Street Noodles) recipe and 1/2 C of pork in the pork fried rice (2 cups cooked rice, 1.5 C veggies) is also supposed to serve 4. This low proportion of meat is consistent throughout the cookbook. So maybe think Thai portions of meat rather than American.

azulvioleta6 wrote: »

I was a pescatarian for about 20 years. I've been eating meat for about 5 years. I still don't eat beef and have only recently started to eat some pork. I mostly consume chicken and turkey.

I just can't handle the carbs of a typical veggie diet, and I can't get enough calories and protein without meat.

Similar to me, except I was pescetarian for 12 years (on the rare occasion I ate chicken) and have been eating meat for 16 years. Seafood is still my favourite meat, but I eat the occasional spaghetti bolognese or cheeseburger. And bacon.

I started eating meat because I was sick of feeling tired all the time, and sick of being so picky about my food.

OP, have you tried eating chicken? Being white meat, it's a bit like fish or tofu.

The first meat I ate other than chicken was a pork chop.

I was a vegetarian, nearly a decade ago, for almost three years. That may or may not be a meaningful amount of time. I pretty much jumped right back into meat eating. I think I had a pound or more of meat the first day I decided to eat meat again. And two servings were gas station hot dogs. LOL

I didn't have any more gastric distress than I had already been suffering from the vegetarian diet. Actually, I felt really good. The hardest part was explaining it to the people around me. I knew what I was doing was right for me and made me feel good. I didn't really lose any of the weight I put on. I went back from vegetarianism to pretty much the standard garbage that everyone else was eating. I didn't know better, I just knew that it was better than what I had been doing.

Now, I've swung pretty far to the other extreme. I guess my only advice would be to listen to your body when you eat.

I was veggie for about 8 years, although I still occasionally ate meat at family gatherings where I didn't have much of a choice. I started eating meat again because I got really sick and the only thing I could imagine eating, for like several weeks, was chicken soup. So I started by making a really good homemade chicken soup (bone broth and all) and then eased back into eating other meats as well.

Part of me still really wishes I could be veggie again. I hate thinking about eating meat, I don't like messing with it while cooking, and I usually enjoy veggies and grains more anyway. But when I was veggie, I was anemic, obese, and had really high cholesterol. Now I'm not anemic, I'm overweight (but not obese, and getting closer to the normal range every week) and have close to normal cholesterol. I'm sure some of this could have been solved through changes to my eating/exercise patterns even as a vegetarian, but now I have Crohn's disease and can't eat beans, legumes, some grains, or any soy products. When I'm flaring I'm also really limited in what types of fruits, nuts, and veggies I can eat, and how they need to be prepared. So, being a vegetarian just really isn't sustainable or healthy for me anymore.

It sounds like you are transitioning well, so I would just stay stick with things that are really appealing to you at first, and buy meat that you feel better about consuming (for me, that's wild-caught seafood, and as much certified humane/pastured/grass-fed/organic meat and poultry as my budget will allow). And when you are a little turned off by eating meat, just try to focus on all the reasons you decided to start eating it again and the nutritional benefits it will give you. It will get easier in time! Best of luck!

It's been very useful to read all the posts on this thread, and I would be very interested in hearing an update about your experience. I was raised a pescetarian (and thus have been one for about 29 years), and I get sick when I accidentally eat meat. However, I travel a lot and am a foodie, and would really appreciate being able to eat regional cuisines when I'm abroad.

Great thread

I was vegetarian for about 7 or 8 years, and didn't really eat meat often before that. When I started logging my food here I was shocked at how little protein I was getting, even on days when I was trying really hard to eat lots of protein.

A few weeks ago I started by ordering some bacon at breakfast, had a bit of chicken for dinner a few nights later. Ate the BBQ spare ribs I've been craving off and on for the last few years but kept avoiding. It is a bit overwhelming now going to a restaurant for dinner and being able to order anything on the menu after being so used to having one or two crappy veggie options to choose from.

I was expecting horrible stomach pains because of enzymes or whatever, but I've been fine so far. Just a pleasant full feeling after eating meat that I've been missing for awhile.

I still haven't managed to cook meat, even before I went vegetarian the most I would have done is warm up some fish sticks. I think that will take a bit to work up too, for now I'm mostly just eating meat at restaurants and munching on entirely too many pepperoni sticks and beef jerky.

About the "yuck" factor... I was very fortunate that even though the decision to try to control my diabetes with LCHF and to eat meat was mine, my husband cooked all the meals we had at home. Not only that but he went to great lengths to disguise the meats and make it more palatable to me. If it was not like that I'm not sure I would have survived the first months.

It was only recently that I cooked my first steak and, surprisingly, I was ready to do it. I feel like I've finally grown up past my teens. All the benefits I've been experiencing made it clear that my body needs meat and I've accepted that I need the death of animals so that I can be healthy (I've also lost the peace and love vision of vegetarianism as harmless to other beings, but that's another issue). I feel grateful for the lives I'm taking, I doubt I'll ever lose that. But I had to choose and I've chosen to give my body what it needs.

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I was vegetarian for three years and recently stopped due to my worsening ibs. After doing the low fodmap diet I found my biggest sensitivities were wheat and beans which are a large part of a veggie diet. I switch back to meat and I eat bacon and chicken most. It still grosses me out I eat a chunk of fat though so that I don't like but my ibs has improved