How and why do people go back to eating meat and fish after years of being vegetarian?

I'm just intrigued! I've been happily vegetarian for the last 22 years - I have absolutely no inclination to eat meat, ever. But I know there are people who eat meat then suddenly decide to go vegetarian (for health, ethical and religious reasons) and then one day many years later, they decide to start eating meat again. How and why?

How does your body react when you first eat meat again?

(I ask because I was violently sick after being force fed meat when I was 10, having not eaten it since I went off it when I was a toddler).

Why did you decide to start eating meat again? Did you miss it while you were vegetarian?

To explain to endive1977 - I was an average baby and eating normally. When I was 18 months old my mum fed me brussel sprouts for the first time on Christmas Day. I was violently sick and apparently refused to eat for 2 days. After that, for some reason she couldn't get me to eat meat (and a huge amount of other food which I'd eaten before!) - since then I've had issues with not being able to bring myself to eat foods that I've never eaten before - it's a deeply psychological thing.

I was vegetarian for years, and then I moved to Spain.
It was 15 years ago and I was treated like a complete alien.
Every mealtime was an adventure. At first I stayed with my husbands family and his mother shook her head sadly when I tried to explain again and agin why I didn`t want steak.
They thought I had some weird medical condition.
Restaurants were even worse , in those days.
I once asked for a salad , it was full of ham when it came and I told the waiter I was vegetarian and he said " but it`s good Spanish ham, you won`t get fat with this" when I insisted I didn`t eat meat he sighed theatrically and picked out the bits of ham with a fork himself.
Some people were downright rude to my face....."you don`t eat meat, that`s ridiculous! what`s the point of it?"
or "don`t make me laugh ,just get it down you"

Anyway I stuck to my guns for two years and finally cracked under all of the carnivorous pressure. I started off with a plate of anchovies and was as sick as a dog!
The day I tried my mother in law`s steak was practically declared a local fiesta, and when I ate chicken in the works canteen I got a round of applause. The mad Englishwoman saw sense at last.

These days I don`t touch red meat,I just don`t like it (sorry Spain!) just fish with a bit of chicken.....the mother in law still tries though...............

I think that as mentioned by several others thus far, that peer pressure tends to be part of it. I guess its like asking why someone takes up smoking in the first place. Friends/family members encourage them, and then sooner or later, the habit starts. This doesn't apply in my case because I have grown up in a vegetarian family, and our tradition calls for vegetarianism so all my relatives are as well. I have never eaten meat and fish in my life. However, my cousin has been vegetarian for the first 17 years of his life or so but then tried mutton with friends in Bombay. (apparently it wasn't a mistake, he just wanted to try it/his friends peer-pressured him or something, idk details). If I remember correctly he told my mother one time about having duck soup, and he married a non-veg girl so I guess maybe he was just curious to try meat? I could be completely wrong about why he wanted to try meat, esp. because he clearly was doing fine without it, but these are just possibilities. Someone else told me he just liked the way meat tasted. So anything is possible.

After about a year of being vegetarian, someone said to me "After a few years you'll eat meat again, thats what happened to me"

I don't know why people do though. The thought of eating meat sickens me, I can't stomach it.

If you're force-fed anything you will likely get sick. Have you heard of that guy that was constantly force fed and now he only eats cheddar cheese? That is a really bad thing to do to a child, borderline child abuse.

They probably were not serious about it to start off with. And the pretence of keeping it up is more difficult than just eating a good steak, or a delicious roast joint. Roast potatoes just don麓t taste the same without the meat and the gravy.

I Have to be the opposite to most here.

When my daughter started eating normal food, she hated meat, so rather than force her we found things she did like, and as a family we joined in too, all red meat was out, preferring only perhaps chicken and fish for us, my daughter having mostly veg.

When she became a teenager she opted for the totally vegetarian diet, which was ok by us.

I started to develop problems both digestively and neurologically.

The more veg I ate the more I suffered from gastric reflux, which subsequenly developed into Barretts Oesophagus - a pre cancerous condition.

Additionally I started to develop allergies to many fruits and vegetables, and to some bread flours.

I am unable to digest the starches in potatoes and Pastas, and now live on a diet of mainly boiled chicken and fish.

On the rare occasion that I eat beef, pork or lamb it has to be a little and well chewed, but it NEVER, EVER gives me any problems.

Some people just can't handle the all veg diet. Sorry.

Well, 17 thumbs down for the first answer says a lot !

I've been veggie for 27 years and could not imagine eating meat.

I'd die of starvation before eating meat.

Maybe they forget why they first became veggie, maybe they have unimaginative cooking skills, maybe they decide that pain, cruelty, torture and death is OK after all..who knows.

But certainly there is no need to return to a meaty diet for health reasons, thats just a cop-out and weak-minded.

Can't ever imagine giving in to peer pressure or the taste - how weak is that !!

Good question. I haven't really been a vegan for that long but so far I've had no inclination to eat meat (quite the opposite actually). I also found it easy to give up dairy and eggs on the whole but I do find it hard when a delicious looking dark chocolate is presented to me and I cannot eat it because it has bloody butterfat in it (WHY do they feel the need to add it?).

Anyway, went off track a bit there. My point was going to be, that I know a woman who (even though I don't go on about the fact that I don't eat meat) always bangs on about how she was a vegetarian for 10 years (it's gone up each time, at first it was 2 years) but she was 'literally starving' and simply had to go back to meat for health reasons. Yeah right. Is that why she eats meat almost every meal? If you were morally against the killing of animals but felt as though it was essential to your health you would only eat it occasionally, but I've watched her wolf down many a rabbit stew.

I know I actually put on weight when I first went veggie so lord only knows what she was eating to be 'literally starving'.

I think that people go back to eating meat because they get bored of it or simply stop caring, but draw the 'it was affecting my health' card so often that they begin to believe it themselves.

I have sometimes contemplated eating meat, occasionally i have slipped up as well and not checked packaging when i've eaten something.

Sometimes the pressure of people bugging me about being vegetarian makes me want to eat meat to shut them up but I think im stronger than that

I was once tricked into eating meat and as soon as i started chewing i felt physically sick.

I think that maybe when im older and have a family that i might start eating meat again, it depends, i do miss it. I've always said that if i could afford to, i would have my own farm and raise and slaughter my own animals and then i would eat meat again for definate.

Wow, I am amazed by the responses you received. I am surprized by the people that have went back to eating meat because of peer pressure and it not being common practive. I remember when I was a child hearing Dennis Weaver talk about being a vegetarain. He lived to be 81. He was a vegetarain for 48 years. Now that was almost 50 years ago and it was not acceptable then. I suppose when someone becomes a vegetarian or vegan, it鈥檚 for a lot of different reasons. For my family it was first because of the horrible conditions of factory farms. Then, we remained vegetarians after we educated ourselves and found that meat was not a requirement for a healthy diet and farms were actually hurt the planet. We found it was a cruel to raise another life only to take it for food. I personally could not make myself eat meat. The few times right after I became a vegetarian and I discovered someone I had eaten had animals/animal by-products in them, I became deathly ill. I was hospitalized on one of the occasions. I couldn鈥檛 eat anything without gagging and then throwing up. I can鈥榯 imagine allowing peer pressure to get me to eat meat. I am not going to allow anyone else鈥榮 ethics or lack there of to become mine. I do not push my eating habits on anyone else and will not allow anyone to push theirs on me. I check the labels closely and when in doubt, I go without. I am a vegetarian for me, not because Ben Franklin may or may not have been or remained one. I also missed where your parents forced you to be a vegetarian. My family and I have yet to fall sick because of being vegetarians either. My children have been healthier then ever. Thank you for asking the question. I plan to check back to read any other responses you receive.

I haven't gone back from vegetarianism, but I was vegan for about 3 years before going back to lacto-ovo. I was in college, and it was just too hard to be vegan and maintain a social life, especially since I had a boyfriend whose family was in town, and we ate at their house every week. I would assume it's a similar reason why people go back to eating meat, although being lacto-ovo is WAY easier and more "accepted" than being vegan.

because they cant go with out a certain food that goes in their body. for example when you go on a diet you do with out chocolate for years maybe but then you g back to it and there is nothing you can do about it!

i have no idea they should stay vegetarians I'm 13 and became a vegetarian at 12 i intend to become vegan and i will neeeveeer ever eat meat again i love animals and i will fight so that they can have freedom!

I've been vegetarian for nearly twenty years, the thought of eating meat makes me feel really ill. I'm feeling sick just writing this now!

A few months ago I kept on having dreams about eating meat, I was so relived when I woke up to find it was only a dream!

I lived in Australia for a while, and they are really big meat eaters, and most could not understand why I was veggie, and it was really difficult finding vegetarian food. So many products contained animal fat etc, when I came home to England the first thing I did was to go to Tesco's and buy a Linda McCartney lasagna!

I'm a misnomer...a veggie South African. I tried t eat some meat when I went home last (I was wasted, otherwise I wouldn't have accepted the bet!), it was at my family's braai. I chewed twice on an ostrich steak (I used to love them) & had to run round the lapa & chunder!
NEVER AGAIN

Perhaps they did not GO VEGAN really, in other words ~ they did not see thru to compassion in the GREATER sense of it all.

I was Vegan for five years and I did miss meat during that time and quite simply my interest in ethics waned and I got a job in catering and ultimately became a chef and now regularly handle raw meat. In my teens I wanted very much to do the right thing but when you are male, you soon learn that your role on this planet is to impregnate a woman so that she may conceive. As a sensitive young man, this can seem a very aggressive act and so, you grow up to believe you are quite a brutal lifeform and this conflicts with any notion of ethics you may have. You accept yourself as somewhat destructive and hostile and get on with the business of living. In the event, I never did learn to feel comfortable having sex with women and grew closer to men instead. Having now had done to me what I feared to do to others, I am probably more ready to discuss ethics once more.

Good Question! I've been a vegetarian since I was nine. Coming from a Cuban family I get A LOT of pressure to eat meat. Its hard to go to Thanksgivings and spend 20 minutes explaining why I still wont eat lechon (pig)!

I can relate to the person that responded about their time in Spain. We went to Cuba and the people there could not understand how a person that has access to meat wouldn't eat it. They would joke how they were vegetarians too(only because they can't get meat)!

I have cracked a few times under pressure and your right I have been sick every time. The worst is when I tried shrimp! EWWW makes me sick thinking about it.....

Well, sometimes it's peer presure. for instance, my dad was a total vegetarian! 9 years straight without meat...until he met my mom. My mom loved meat and wanted him to try it. He felt that she would like him more if he showed her that he can take risks. He tryed some chilli-nachos and loved them! Now (10 years later) he can't be any happier with meat.

i don't know why one one. my mom made me eat a piece of pork a week or so ago besides the taste and the thought that made me sick, the hormones and additives that have haven't been in my body in months made me queezy for 2 days.

WHEN THEY GET WEAK AND FALL IN SICKNESS.

Because it is just so darn good! Beef it's what's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner!