Vegetarian retox?

Make sure you’re ready to make this lifestyle change first before any drastic measures are taken. If you decide to start eating meat again I would try with small portions of meat like breakfast sausage or bacon. Just eat a little bit of that for awhile until your stomach adapts to the changes. Then you can gradually move on to larger portions of different meats. Whenever you change meats though start out with small portions until you think your stomach can handle bigger portions.

A few years ago I started eating fish and poultry again. I ate a small amount of chicken first, to test things out, and I had no problem. Then just a few days ago, I ate my first piece of beef in five years. I expected a problem, but I was completely fine.

This surprised me because my stomach is very, very sensitive.

Everyone is different, though. Try a little at a time. You can also get enzymes at the health food store that may help. Be sure to get the kind that helps you digest meat and protein instead of veggies. They are often sold separately.

Don’t be scared, though! I asked a lot of people this same question before I started eating meat again, and their experiences were similar to mine. It will be okay.

I’m thinking white meat chicken would be the ‘safest’ first meat. Just out of curiosity, why do you want to retox? Juniper, why did you? I’m not a vegetarian, by the way…just interested.

I went vegetarian two years ago because I don’t like the commercial meat industry. After doing it for two years, I fully respect everyone that is vegetarian and once I resume eating meat, I don;t think I’m going to eat meat every day. I know it’s not necessary for dietary reasons.

I’m going back because I’m just a college student…my budget is minimal. The school cafeteria claims to be vegetarian friendly [listen up meat eaters, offering a salad bad every day is NOT vegetarian friendly. If a meat eater was forced to eat at a vegetarian cafeteria that only served hamburgers for meat eaters, you’d get tired of it fast] but overall it;s just hard to do in my life. I’m not rejecting it totally, I think there may be a place in my future for vegetarianism, I just can’t do it right now.

Try lamb, deer, or bison.

I don’t quite get your budget issue when meat and cheese are some the most expensive things you can buy at a grocery store…

@btko. It’s a budget issue because the school cafeteria is paid for. Right now I’m having to buy vegetarian entrees that I like.

As a fellow college student, I definitely understand where Perchik is coming from. A Meal plan means eating three meals a day at the cafeteria… and let’s face it, most college cafeterias don’t exactly cater to special diets. This means that someone who doesn’t get the same amount of choices because of their diet has to go out and buy additional food on top of the meal plan. That can get really expensive. I had to do this for a year because I mostly eat organic and grew up in a family where we don’t cook everything with butter like my cafeteria at school did.

(Exactly what dlm said)

I say just go out get yourself a Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets or KFC tomorrow! After that, you’ll be wanting right back on the veggie wagon again.

If you want to eat meat with less guilt look for meat markets in the farm area of your town. They are typically organic and a good price. You can even get already made burgers or cutlets and freeze them. The places stink and may make you go back to veggies but too many tiimes people pay really high prices at fancy food stores and forget about local meat.

I think going back to meat can be more psychological than purely physical. like seeing raw meat can make me feel real queezy, but i ate some turkey on thanksgiving and it was fine.

but to be on the safe side you should stick to fish and chicken before you hit up the dead cow.

Also, i just want to offer a few words of encouragement, to maybe persuade you to keep trying to be a vegitarian. As a fellow vegetarian student, i know it can be hard. in fact i complain all the time that there is not enough veggie stuff. but at my cafeteria, just like at all college cafeterias there is a director that you can talk to and share your concerns with. if you know other vegitarians at your school you all can write a letter, or set up a meeting with whoever it is that coordintates the menu.

i am in my last year of school and at my school the vegitarians and student activits have spoken up and slowly but surely i have seen a big improvement.

just something to think about, but good luck either way :)

Start with something less meaty, such as chicken or fish. Then pork, maybe bacon and eggs with toast, or a pastrami sandwich. Then move on to ground beef, maybe in nachos or a burrito. Then finish with the steak. I’ve heard experiences from both sides of the fence here, people who started with chicken and found it very easy to eat, and also people who dived head first into that rare steak after 15 years of vegetarian eating. Since you don’t think you can handle a lot of it, start easy with chicken or fish, even incorporate it into a salad such as a chicken caesar salad. Take all the time you need, no one’s rushing you :)

@alive, The actually do offer vegetarian entrees, but the person who cooks them refuses to taste them. We end up with horrible food. The director is a cocky jerk who responds to all complaints with a joke. “We need better vegetarian entrees” his response “We’ll add stuff to the salad bad ;) ”

Start with broth. Chicken broth, especially. Then move on up. As a college student on a budget, if you cafeteria does soup, start with chicken noodle. Don’t eat too much of it at once. See how that works, and slowly integrate meat back into your diet. Save red meat for last.

Definitely save red meat for last. Poultry is a lot easier on your stomach, especially if you’re already eating fish occasionally – just start slow, and work your way up to things that are harder to digest. Do not go out and get yourself a burger first thing – you’ll be sorry for a week (trust me, I speak from experience!) =)

@Augustian: I started eating meat again because I suddenly began to crave it. I would be reading a book or something and then—BAM—I wanted turkey. Recently the same thing happened, only I craved beef. I just figured, if my body was asking for it like that, maybe I should answer.

I did the same thing. I now refer to myself as a “recovering vegetarian.” I started with Chicken and Fish. I don’t eat much other meat, and find that red meat needs to be eaten in small portions. I also recommend trying to eat organic when you can. It is way better for you (less exposure to the hormones animals are fed, etc) and to me tastes better as well. Plus, if you were veg for ethical reasons, eating organic will help you maintain some of those values.

As nice as organic food may be, there is no scientific proof to support the hypothesis that organic food is “better” for a person to eat than regular food. According to many studies there is no nutritional difference in organic vs non-organic food. If anything, it’s more “healthier” because less farm workers are exposed and harmed by pesticides.

I worked for three years in agriculture and that is my main reason for eating organic food. For starters regular market seeds coming from the likes of Monsanto and others are covered in fungicides and other pesticides, and these things are not biodegradable—meaning they stay in a soil for a long time.

On top of that if the farmer is using genetically modified seeds—such as Roudup Ready Soy beans—then he or she is going to be spraying hundreds of litres of Roundup on their food crop; usually twice before harvest to burn off all of the weeds around the crops. Again, roundup is not biodegradable… a study showed that after 12 days from the time of application 98% of the roundup was still there on the ground and on the beans.

All of those pesticides are going straight from the fields and into you, the ground water, and into all other living systems.

@dynamicduo: except that we don’t have nutrition science down to a, um, ah, science yet.

And we don’t know who is really doing those studies, do we? Remember the tobacco studies funded by the tobacco industry?

forestGeek, yes we do know who is doing these studies. That one article doesn’t give its references in an easily accessible format, but others are easy to find if you actually care to try and find them. Many are large body (governmental) food research industries. Interestingly enough, your point about the tobacco industry research corruption could be compared to the organic industry research groups trying to drum up support for their products too – let’s not forget that bias can come from both sides.

I agree that Bias comes from both sides, but where’s the money in the organic industry? Who really cares about organic food? :) My guess is that these governmental food research group has more money coming from the groups and corporations that support factory farm.

I’ve personally never understood why Americans seem to want the best car, computer, TV, etc, and will pay top dollar for them, but then don’t seem to concern ourselves with the best for our health. If we really don’t know which is better, why not side on caution and buy food that hasn’t been manufactured using a bunch of chemicals? And when it comes to our health, is it really that much more troublesome or expensive to buy organic?

Um… the money in the organic industry IS the industry itself. It has to stay alive or it collapses. To do this they continue their marketing campaign of convincing consumers that their food is healthier, better, more nutritious, more ecologically friendly, etc. It doesn’t matter what they say, if it’s true or not, if it’s valid or not, the bottom line is getting you the consumer to spend your extra dollar on the organic banana instead of the regular banana. As people’s purse strings start tightening due to the economy, people are going to have to make the choice of whether to buy a bunch of organic produce for $20, or the exact same amount of regular produce for $13. I’m sure we’ll (well, not me, but those who consume mainstream media regularly) see a lot more advertisements about the benefits of organic food as the recession deepens. I would trust a government health agency’s analysis more than I would trust an organic farm’s analysis. Of course I wouldn’t trust either of them implicitly without looking into the data myself. Which I have. And that’s one reason why I don’t eat organic food.

I’ve been reading In Defense of Food lately. It is very interesting and really goes with this discussion, however, I haven’t read enough to talk about it here. Still, I recommend it (so far).

That book looks great, I think I’ll go pick it up today! I have been a fan of his “Eat food. Not a lot. Mostly plants.” mantra, but I didn’t know he had a book out, I’m looking forward to reading it.

On the organic issue- organic usually means sans chemicals. Whether or not the chemicals are bad for you depends on the definition of is. I’d rather not take the chance.

@dynamicduo – Sorry, sarcasm lost! Yes, of course there is money in that industry, but my point is that there’s obviously a lot more in the factory farming industry. For every study done that says organic is positive, the other side can produce a study or two, or three saying there’s no proof…and vice versa. I, like you don’t know which to believe, but I guess where we differ is that I very much distrust our government these days. I think what matters most to the majority is the price at the store, and in this economy that is really what has to matter to most. It sad because If more and more people cared about where there food came from, organic would be the standard and not an expensive novelty.

I personally chose to eat organic as much as possible, and am vegetarian (13 years) because I have lived in farming areas, I have worked in the department of agriculture (yes the Forest Service, but forestry chemicals are hardcore – 245T, or Agent Orange, is a close relative of 24D, or Roundup as we all know it) and have friends and family who have grown up on farms. In the past I’ve read studies and books, lived in an orchard the was sprayed with pesticides, worked with strong forestry herbicides and have a close friend whose really sick from arsenic in the groundwater from her family’s farm. Despite there being any solid study proving that these chemicals are really bad, strictly based on my experiences I agree with Perchik, I’d just rather not take the chance. I guess for me it’s more important to spend a little more on food, than getting a new iPod or 48” LCD TV this year. To each there own though.

I haven’t read Defense of Food, but have heard great things about it and will probably pick it up soon too.

Sorry, I hadn’t noticed the sarcasm. Sadly it really doesn’t translate well through the internet, that’s why I rarely use it, or if I do I dedicate a comment directly to it.

I loved reading your experience regarding this. A distrust of everything, let alone government, is always a great thing :) That’s why I also value my personal experiences just as much if not more than studies. I have no doubt that pesticides are dangerous, and I do hope to one day have my own little farm where I can grow my own crops using the pesticide that is my hands, not for fear of pesticides on the food however, but because I want to be as self sufficient as possible and growing my own food on a farm with chickens and a goat is a great way to do this.

I find it’s a crying shame how much misinformation and uninformation there is in the food industry well, the world, but let’s start small here as a whole, including the diet industry. It hurts me when I hear people regurgitating a point without having looked into it themselves, and organic food tends to be one of the ones that people regurgitate the most. For example, many people love to condemn pesticides, but as dangerous as they are the simple fact is our world would not be the way it was today if we hadn’t had the greater food yield that using pesticides provided. Another common regurgitation in this field is the argument against genetically modified food, about how it’s an abomination and horrible. I do agree that there are problems when it comes to modifying seeds such that they die after one year, or trademarking a certain type of superseed. However people ignore the fact that we have been modifying food much more dangerously by sending seeds and plants to hang out in space and growing/eating what is produced, and no deaths or other effects have come from this (in fact, apparently Sapporo Space Beer tastes just the same as regular Sapporo beer). The genetic modifications that can be done in a controlled lab are so much more precise than the sheer randomness that is exposing seeds to the misc radiation in space. It’s like performing surgery with a crowbar and scissors blindfolded, compared with doing so with a state of the art laser incision tool and skilled doctors. So long as we keep testing to make sure nothing bad happens, GM is one of the best keys to ending global hunger. Sorry for the off topicness of this, it’s not really a vegetarian thing eh! :)

I would love to have a deep discussion regarding these topics, and to find ways to increase our knowledge of food growth, nutrition, and healthy living. Like I said I’m heading out to get that book this afternoon, and I’m hoping to chew through it this weekend. I’ll keep my eyes out for any other nutritional information I can get my hands on as well.

I was thinking the same thing dynamicduo…yeah, sorry so off topic Perchik!!

Let us know how the retox goes. I have had friends do it and they’ve all had no problem making that transition. The nice thing is that they’ve all said that being vegetarian has made them more aware of what they eat when they’ve converted back.