Why I Stopped Being Vegetarian After Ten Years

I’d been a vegetarian for about ten years - since I was around 16 years of age. At the time, the dad of a close friend of mine developed cancer and was put on a special vegan diet to help manage and hopefully cure his cancer. My friend started telling me about all the benefits of the vegan diet, and I decided to try it. 

I was as interested in health as a teenager in the early 2010s could be. My immediate family, including my younger siblings, were not in good shape, and my extended family had many chronic diseases that I was wary of inheriting. I remember at one family reunion, I created a list documenting everybody’s health problems, so I could know what I should work on preventing.

With some sense of the importance of maintaining good health, I opted into the physical education classes at school by choice, and for a while, I took up jogging. When I was told that a vegan diet was the optimal diet, I was happy to incorporate it into my lifestyle. I started out vegetarian as an experiment for health reasons. About a month in, I came across disturbing videos documenting cruel slaughter practices and disgusting conditions in factory farms. After that, my diet experiment became permanent.

During the ten years in which I ate a plant-based diet, I cycled between vegetarianism and veganism. I was not plagued with some of the health problems that are often cited by those who have left the vegan or vegetarian diet, like fatigue, severe anemia, or brain fog. I found both benefits and drawbacks of following either vegetarian or vegan diets. Incorporating dairy and eggs seemed to make my skin glow more while eating vegan made me feel lighter and clearer for a time.

Who is right?

Even though I was firmly in either the vegetarian or vegan camp, over the years, I had observed people who claimed to thrive on completely carnivore diets. I have watched my best friend incorporate meat back into her diet after years of vegetarianism, and she seemed to improve her energy levels and health significantly. 

I have also seen my boyfriend’s sister become diagnosed with Ehler-Danlos syndrome, where she must follow a specific diet with very little fibre to help her manage her condition. I recognized the value of her adhering to a personalized food regime even though it ran somewhat counter to mainstream diet advice. It emphasized to me that there is indeed not a one size fits all diet. I have also listened to many podcasts of experts advocating for polar opposite diets and equal amounts of people - vegans and carnivores alike - vouching for the benefits they have experienced.

Amidst conflicting information and ideologies, finally, I have arrived at this conclusion:

There are likely different optimal diets for each person, and what that optimal diet is may change at different points in someone’s life.

The question that naturally followed was, how could I be sure I was following the best diet for me? 

Reevaluating my health

My recent blood test confirmed I was slightly deficient in a few areas - namely iron and B12. Nothing drastic, and probably something I could remediate while adhering to a vegetarian diet if I dedicated a little more attention and energy to it. I didn’t generally feel fatigued - but it was possible that over the last decade, I could have forgotten what good really feels like.

See my bloodwork results and analysis here

And what about the things I could not measure with blood tests? Were the stores of minerals in my bones and body holding strong, or was I depleting them over the years, only to manifest the adverse outcomes later in life? It didn’t worry me too much until I realized that if I were to get pregnant, my baby would be draining some of the reserves that I did have, and if the reserves fell short, both of us could face the consequences. It became evident that I was not just experimenting with my own health but also with the health of my future children. I better be making the right decision.

But the right decision is not obvious. I had invested a lot of time buying into the vegan/vegetarian narrative as the peak of health. However, over the years, I have become increasingly aware of the various groups that feel the same way about their own food protocols. Whether your own worldview borrows from the carnivore, paleo, Mediterranean or some other diet, you’ll find compelling evidence, convincing anecdotes, and medical experts that inspire trust.

Eventually, I figured that in order to know what diet was optimal for me, I would have to take a similar approach to what our ancestors have done all along: experiment to see what makes me feel my best. It was possible that a diet including meat would be the most nourishing for my body.

There is no deathless diet

For a long time, I wasn’t willing to experiment to find out if I felt my best while eating meat because I still didn’t want to kill animals in order to eat. I would have done it if I had to - if I was somehow starved on a desert island with only meat available or if I was declared so completely deficient that only meat could save me. But I was not in such a drastic situation, so I could not justify it.

And I was not upset about not eating meat - to be honest, I had developed quite an aversion to it. Walking by the meat section in the supermarket gave me the ick and made me sad. I did not allow meat to be cooked in my cast iron pan lest the fats become incorporated into the seasoning. I avoided kissing my boyfriend on the lips after he had eaten a juicy piece of chicken or steak.

Only in the past year have I taken the time to sit with the fact that even though I am not eating animals, it does not mean animals are not being killed in order for me to eat. The uncomfortable truth is that there are many ground animals that are killed during tilling and harvesting agricultural practices, not to mention destroyed ecosystems for farmland. It seemed that I would have blood on my hands no matter what I did.

Sourcing meat responsibly

To be honest, I don’t think any method of killing an animal will put me at ease - but that also includes a combine tractor grinding up ground animals and baby deer in a field ripe for harvest. Sadly, I cannot wash my hands of animal death and survive as a healthy human being. (I understand that fruitarians would disagree, but I know my body would not thrive on this diet)

I feel I have the responsibility to source my meat responsibly for both health and animal welfare reasons. I have very specific requirements for the meat that I consume. I purchase 100% grass-fed beef from local small family farms where the cows have access to the outdoors and comfortable, spacious pens indoors. The chicken I eat is organic and ethically raised.

A new chapter

With a source of meat that I could feel reasonably good about, I embarked on a journey to reintegrate meat into my life. This time, more discriminating about where the meat is sourced, how the animals are raised, and my impact on the world around me.

I can only see myself consuming consciously sourced meat in my own home - it’s tough to find in restaurants. I don’t think I will advertise my diet change, just as I didn’t advertise my vegetarianism unless there was a reason to. I do not wish to consume any meat that I have not consciously sourced, and I don’t want to get into an awkward situation where somebody will offer it to me in their home.

Whether I like it or not, being a vegetarian had become part of my identity, both to others and myself, and I will have to untangle that. It was a mental challenge to eat meat again as I spent so many years being disgusted by it - although not as hard as I thought it would be. I look forward to continuing my ever-evolving journey to optimize my health and seek balance in my life - this time with more tools in my toolbox.

Disclaimer:

The information on Better Health Project is intended for educative and informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as professional or medical advice. The content of this site is not written by a medical professional. Always seek the advice of a trusted and qualified healthcare professional before making health changes.