Confessions of a recovering vegetarian: How I made peace with eating meat
Written by Margaret Floyd on 08/11/11 am30 08:00 AM
21 Comments
One of the first questions I’m asked when someone finds out I’m in the nutrition field is “So, you’re a vegetarian?” It’s a loaded question, whether they realize it or not.
The prevailing belief when it comes to our food and health is that the fewer animal products we eat, the better. It’s perceived to be the healthier, the more ethical, the more environmental option.
I was a vegetarian of some shade or another for the better part of 12 years. I started in University for the politics of it, loving how radical it felt, and continued on and off until, ironically, I studied nutrition. I’ll confess right up front that for much of this time I wasn’t particularly good at it – I was the classic junk food vegetarian. I didn’t eat meat, but what I was eating wasn’t all that fabulous. I was more of a carbivore than anything – pasta, bread, cereals – mostly because I could never fill myself up.
During my years as a vegetarian, I had loads of digestive issues and was constantly hungry. Several times I figured this was because I wasn’t being “pure” or radical enough, so I tried my hand at a strictly vegan diet (no eggs, dairy, or anything that came from an animal). All the issues got worse, not better. The “healthier” I ate, the worse I felt. Occasionally I’d cheat and eat a little meat. To my great dismay, I would feel much better: my digestive issues resolved and I was completely satiated after even a small meal. What a predicament.
I see clients in my practice all the time in this same quandary: well-intentioned, following what they’ve been taught is a healthy, plant-based diet, trying to live their values of environmental sustainability and animal welfare through their food choices, and yet their body rebelling. What a horrible choice: feel good in your body but guilty about the impacts of your choices; or feel good ethically and miserable physically.
When I started studying nutrition, one of the concepts that compelled me the most was bio-individuality. Basically it means that what works for you might not work for me, and vice versa. One man’s food is another man’s poison. Bio-individuality is based on everything from physiology, family background, geography, ethnicity, season, blood type, stress levels, personal preferences… it’s a veritable jigsaw puzzle of factors that determine how our body will react to something.
This means that there’s no one diet that works for everyone. In fact, the diet that works for you today might be completely inappropriate five or ten years down the road. This concept of bio-individuality explains why some people thrive on a vegetarian diet while others, like me, really struggle with it.
But explaining why I did well with meat didn’t make me feel better about eating it. In fact, initially it made me feel worse. My biological wiring wasn’t making it easy to live according to the values I set for myself.
With a little more investigation, I learned that there was indeed a way to eat meat and feel good about it on an environmental and ethical level. Perhaps my innate instincts were turning me on to an important lesson in broadening my understanding of the issues at stake.
I, like many people, lumped “animal foods” into one big category. I’d seen the horrifying images from inside feedlots. I’d seen the stomach-turning videos of abusive treatment to animals. I was well aware of the major contribution ruminants make to water pollution and climate change, not to mention the energy intensity of raising them. What I wasn’t aware of was a whole other source of meat, eggs, and dairy, grown by a small but growing group of independent farmers.
Farmer Joe Salatin of Polyface Farms and his grass-fed herd
These farmers are using traditional farming techniques that not only preserve but enhance their environments by increasing biomass and using minimal, if any, external inputs. They treat the animals humanely, allowing them to engage in their natural behaviors and eat the food they’re biologically designed to eat. One such farmer, Joel Salatin, has become quite famous for the methods he uses on his farm Polyface Farm. Many others are working with similar models throughout the country. Now this is meat you can feel good about!
As a wonderful bonus, not only is this an environmentally responsible choice and makes the health and welfare of its animals a top priority, it also provides meat, dairy and eggs that are far more nutritious. As one example: beef that comes from grass-fed versus feedlot cows is higher in the all-important Omega 3s, lower in fat overall, and contains CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) that promotes healthy weight, lowers triglycerides, and has been linked to cancer prevention. You’ll find similar differences in the nutritional profiles of wild versus farmed fish, eggs from pastured chickens versus those raised conventionally in battery cages, and so on.
I immediately became very selective about what meat we bring into our home. You won’t find standard supermarket fare in our house. Yes, it’s more expensive, so we eat less of it to compensate.
The great news is that when I’m eating this way, I feel fabulous. My energy levels even out, my digestion ticks along like a well-oiled machine, and I feel lean and strong.
And then, every once in a while, hearing the vegetarian model aggressively promoted yet again, I start to question myself. I start weaning out the meat, I eat a few more grains (whole grains now – I’ve moved away from my junk food days) and a few more beans; I increase the veggie content even more than normal (50-70% of all my meals are vegetables regardless), and whaddaya know… the digestive complaints come back, I’m overstuffed but still not satiated after meals, and I start to bloat. Turns out that a plant-based diet really doesn’t work for me after all.
Digestive issues and constant hunger aside, I kind of miss the simplicity of my vegetarian days. It was so easy to just label anything that came from an animal as “bad” and end the conversation there. Unfortunately, the reality is a lot more complicated, and not nearly so black and white. Ultimately it depends on your individual biology and it depends on the source of your meat.
Here are three ways your body could be telling you it needs animal protein:
1) After a plant-based meal you experience great digestive distress.
2) After a plant-based meal you feel excessively full but still hungry and not satiated.
3) You experience powerful sugar cravings in the afternoons and evenings.
What’s your body telling you?
If you’re body is like mine and does better on an omnivorous diet, here’s a starting point for finding quality, pastured meat, dairy and eggs: www.eatwild.com
Related posts:
- When an egg is not an egg: What’s on your breakfast plate?.
- Underneath cravings: What’s your body telling you?
- The skinny on saturated fat: Six important roles for this maligned nutrient
Great post, Margaret! I have such a similar story, although I could never manage to cut meat out for very long because I was just never satiated and had such low energy.
I wanted to give a shout out to Dey Dey Ranch in Buellton, CA, a few hrs north of LA, who are farming in the model of PolyFace. I was really excited to find someone on the Central Coast doing this!
Good luck on TED! I know you’ll be great!
Almost all meat, dairy and eggs found at the grocery store, or served at a restaurant,
comes from animals raised on intensive factory farms. Because no federal laws
protect these animals during their lives on factory farms, they are intensively
confined, mutilated without painkillers, and subjected to an array of other abuses.
Cage-free doesn’t mean cruelty free. While the animals are given more space,
because there is no government regulation on the term “free-range” or “cage-free”
most of these animals are still crowded by the thousands into filthy sheds, are
mutilated without painkillers, and violently slaughtered.
A vegetarian diet is the best way to protect animals from cruelty and honor
kindness, compassion, and mercy to all creatures.
Please see ChooseVeg.com or MeatVideo.com for information on adapting a more compassionate lifestyle.
I was veg for 4 years…(occasional fish) and was always hungry! The second I reintroduced I lost the bloat, the extra 15 lbs…and FINALLY felt satisfied when I eat. Yum! My body def needs animal proteins. Great to hear this perspective from a “professional”
Thanks for the post!
Oops…*reintroduced red meat
@Danyelle, You’re right – it’s difficult to find meat, dairy and eggs that have come from animals that have been cared for with compassion, but it’s not impossible. Cage free and free range certainly aren’t all they’re promised to be. I recommend people research into the actual farms, visiting them if possible, or sourcing their meat/dairy/eggs from resources that are specifically helping these small farmers doing good work reach their market.
Unfortunately a vegetarian diet doesn’t work for everyone and to suggest that it’s the only solution is simplistic. We are natural omnivores. This doesn’t have to mean we support or condone intensive factory farming. In fact, that’s exactly what this article is explaining.
Great article.. so very well said. Dr. Rosedale gets a lot of questions from vegetarians, and as he treats disease with diet, it is always a delicate conversation with a passionate vegetarian. What you eat is SO powerful it can change genetic expression.. the correct diet will reverse type II diabetes in about 3 weeks for most. Cancer, heart disease.. these ‘names’ really are just symptoms, one must get the core issues of the why, treating the why will get miraculous results. Your post was wonderful, coming from a once passionate vegetarian and testing and sharing the results on yourself is priceless for others to learn. We have to eat life, many see plants of not as living as animals, when in fact plants are way more complex than animals, and without plants ‘we’ would not survive.
Thanks so much for your great feedback, Fiona!
What about all the stuff in the movie, “forks over knifes, and all the scientific Research Dr.Campbell, mcdougall, fuhrman, Barnard, clapper, essylstein,, etc.
They all did not start out as vegans until they did all this research. It is really confusing on knowing what is true and good.
Thanks,
Peggy
Hello,
Saw forks over knives film. What about all the research, scientific, Dr. Campbell, Dr. Fuhrman, Bernard, Klapper, essylstein….ect.
It is so confusing. They talk about how very bad animal proteins are? How to know what is the truth?
Thanks,
Peggy
Hi Peggy,
You pose a great question and it IS very confusing. Incredibly confusing. Here’s a link to one of the most comprehensive and balanced reviews I’ve come across of the film so far, which explains a lot about the science and how it was interpreted (or in some cases, mis-interpreted) in the film. Warning: it’s LONG. But it’s worth the read.
Now, for my short answer – it really comes back to bio-individuality and context. A vegan diet is a very therapeutic cleansing diet – can be excellent in the short term, especially for certain maladies. In my experience with clients, over the long term, it doesn’t work so well and during preconception/pregnancy/lactation years can be quite detrimental to the health of the mother. AND every body is different. I know people who are living a more vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and loving it and thriving. I was not one of those people.
Ultimately, it’s most important to listen to your body. And honestly, in the film all of the people eliminated not only animal products but PROCESSED food altogether, which is the key in my opinion. I bet if they still included some animal foods (only from healthy, sustainably-raised, pastured animals) while still eating lots of veg and no refined foods, they’d have similar results. I see it everyday in my practice.
Helpful?
Oh sorry – I forgot to post the link after all that!
Here it is: http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/09/22/forks-over-knives-is-the-science-legit-a-review-and-critique/
Applaud your slightly better than conventional meat eating habits, but you shoulda ate more WHOLE grains not flour products and starches like potatoes and sweet potatoes. There are way more studies that potatos curb hunger more than a hunk of animal in your gut. And make your own beans in a slow cooker, no digestive problems.
Also you need to cut way back on the fats, oils and cheeses and nuts. Ornish levels baby.. Funny people always blame rice or noodles when they eat stirfried marinated tofu or olive oil marinara. I think its programmed into us from childhood to reject the healthiest part of the meal and blame it.
As far constant hunger, eat more and more often. Whole plants are way less calroic dense than the hunk of fat your body is trying very hard to digest all day long.
Thank you very much for sharing your story.
I am also a recovering vegan, and have struggled with eating animal foods for about 8 years. That quote “What a horrible choice: feel good in your body but guilty about the impacts of your choices; or feel good ethically and miserable physically.” hits the nail on the headfor me and I feel great sorrow when I admit to myself that I have to eat meat (the doctor told me to after my health started diminishing. Although I chose to ignore it it got quite bad and so I went to him and did what he said).
Its hard, for some reason. Its not like meat can’t be tasty. But I couldn’t care less about the taste. I feel like less of a human being when I eat meat, as though I am doing a shameful act.
Keep loving life
I appreciate the conversation conducted in a civil and sympathetic manner, which I find in Margaret’s post. I hope however, that other ex-vegetarians or enthusiastic omnivores who criticize “aggressive” vegetarians will also look in the mirror.
I have had terrible experiences and been treated with utmost cruelty by “traditional food” advocates simply for identifying as a vegetarian. I have sometimes wondered if those “obnoxious” extremist vegans eventually become “obnoxious” extremist Weston Price followers (extremists tend to swing radically).
I have been informed by “traditional food” advocates that I am bound to sicken and be riddled with degenerative problems by following a vegan diet. I have been a vegetarian and then vegan for 28 years. Well, I am in fantastic health, have no health problems in middle age, great skin and hair and just yesterday was taken to be 30 years old. Very recently I was surprised to find myself pregnant, at age 48. (I’ve already had 1 vegetarian and 1 vegan pregnancy, with beautifully healthy children). Now, really, how debilitated can I be for this to happen?
I’m also of Northern European heritage and Type O negative. So it’s not that I come from a naturally vegetarian genetic line, as has been suggested to me.
Anyway, Margaret, thank you for including the thought that not every diet works for everyone. For some people veganism works beautifully, promotes health, well being and longevity, and as much as omnis would like understanding for their diet, it would be lovely to see some understanding (instead of invective and criticism) for vegetarians.
Merit, thank you for the thoughtful comment. I agree – often we go from one extreme to the other, and espouse the new paradigm as “the truth” to be shouted from the rooftops. Dangerous territory when it comes to something as complex as food in our bodies. Delighted to hear that you’re listening to your body (the only true guide!) and have found a way of eating that works beautifully for you. ~ Margaret
Good article, Margaret. My own experience has been that ‘you never can tell what you’re going to need down the road’!
In my case, I was a vegetarian through most of my 20′s, (simply because the smell of cooking flesh repulsed me), but when I was pregnant for the first time at 33 years old, I became famished. I started eating nuts by the handful, all day long, but even that wasn’t helping. So I began eating a little meat, every few days. For the next 10 years, my meat consumption was minimal, but when I got a cancer diagnosis, I turned to veganism to cleanse. And I felt wonderful – so lean, so lithe and energized. After a few years though, my energy began to lag again, and once again I turned to meat as a sometimes supplement.
Now, five years later again, it’s time for change. I recently took gluten out of my diet, and was quite surprised at the refreshing changes that produced. Gone with the bloat, the constipation and the tired fuzzy thinking! But it brings its own problems – for the first week or so I was starving – and then I realized that I need to remember to eat fats, like avocados, and legumes and beans on a regular basis. And I am still eating small amounts of meat every three or four days. Blend, blend, blend…it seems I am taking what I need from all the available sources – I sometimes feel like a hunter-gatherer trying to make sure I get enough to eat before nightfall!
At the end of the day, I have to agree with you – there is no one right answer for everyone, and perhaps not even for one individual all the time. And so it’s unfortunate that we have made food issues such a target for judgement and fervor.
I am so very grateful for this article and the responses!! Thank you!!
I don’t really think you guys get the concept of “vegetarian.” Vegetarians don’t eat fish, and they don’t “cheat” by eating meat. Once you are a vegetarian (and truly, a vegetarian, not just someone who happens to have not eaten meat for five years) you cannot eat meat again. I was once a “vegetarian” who thought about meat and how much I missed it. I once ate pasta carbonara with bacon in it because I felt forced to (in a small foreign country with a family feeding me and a mis-communication due to language barriers), and I remember thinking, “Oh, this won’t be so bad, I remember I liked bacon…” but when I put it too my lips I saw the life of that animal flash before my eyes, and I was utterly mortified. I puked and cried for hours. That is the last time anyone’s flesh has ever touched my lips, and you can be sure it never will again. I mean, don’t get me wrong… it’s a process. It takes a while for you to be completely rid of your addiction to flesh. I went through the same thing with cheese when I became a “vegan”. For a while, I still occasionally had cheese. But I was not a vegan when that happened, and I wasn’t a vegetarian when I still thought of animals as food, regardless that it’d been 4 years since I’d eaten another living being. The point is that you can’t be a vegetarian and also still think of flesh as food. I’ve never met a real vegetarian who has become a meat-eater. It’s just not something you can do.
I think the real difference between your “vegetarianism” and mine is that to me, vegetarianism isn’t about a diet. It’s not a diet, it’s never been one. To some people, perhaps it is. But vegetarianism isn’t about what you eat, it’s where it comes from. And I won’t eat anyone who has a will to live, period.
Vegetarianism is about peace, love, and respect for others much more than it is about you. That’s the problem with treating it like a diet… it’s not about your body, it’s about respect for someone else’s.
Vegetarianism is a way of looking at all living beings. Once you have accepted that we have evolved to leave behind the ways of our ancestors, you cannot de’evolve.’ Imagine, living without internet. We can’t. Some of us have progressed in our minds to see infinite connections between living creatures that prevent us from thinking of other creatures as food. I have lived as a vegetarian for the past 20 years. Now I have shed all animal products from my life. I don’t wear or carry leather, silk or pearls. We should be able to find a sustainable mode of living that does not affect life around us. Hunger, beautiful bag, … very many reasons we can attribute to our choices. But clearly, willful cruelty to any living creature need not be our choice. Good blog
There is a pattern here and it has to do with the difference between human beings and active VB12 which comes only from meat products and inactive VB12 which is found in a few plants. Your own body if it has the right gut bacteria can make ACTIVE VB12. The brain and body of a human being requires ACTIVE VB12 as it functions to move other nutrients into the body. If you grew up eating meat you have enough active VB12 to last a few months or years depending upon the bacteria in your gut. The sign of a loss of ACTIVE VB12 is irrational thinking and overly emotional responses to normal life situations. When this occurs you need to consume VB12 the active kind immediately and rebuild your levels. Just like a lack of VC causes scurvy a lack of Active VB12 causes the brain to become weak. You cannot get ACTIVE VB12 from plants. One can see this effect in long term vegans who become overly emotional about eating a so called “sentient being”. This is a made up term by human beings to stop other human beings from eating what they need. To date 12 million children die each year from lack of high quality protein and meat in their diets. What human beings should not be eating is any gluten based product as it destroys the lining of the gut making it more difficult for nutrients to be absorbed. PeTA and other animal rights groups are dangerous to the health of our children by railing against meat. AS IN ALL THINGS BALANCE IS IMPORTANT. WE DO NOT NEED TO EAT MEAT EVERYDAY NOR SHOULD WE EXPECT PLANTS TO TAKE THE PLACE OF THE NUTRIENTS FOUND ONLY IN MEAT. IF WE FOLLOW OUR GENETIC HISTORY WE WOULD EAT MEAT TWICE A WEEK ONLY AND NEVER EAT GRAINS OR GRASSES. WE DON’T REALLY NEED A LOT OF CARBS OR FOOD. THE MODERN HUMAN IS TRYING TO FOLLOW THEIR GENETIC HISTORY WHICH IS TO EAT WHEN YOU FIND FOOD BECAUSE THE EARLY HUMANS NEEDED TO DO SO. BUT THE MODERN HUMAN BEING IN THE WESTERN WORLD SHOULD DROP THAT GENETIC IMPERATIVE AND EAT MODERATELY INCLUDING MEAT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP YOUR BRAIN CELLS FUNCTIONING.
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