Most Vegetarians End Up Going Back To Meat

John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
The vast majority of Americans who try vegetarianism find that their love of delicious food is stronger than their love of animals and go back to eating meat, according to a survey from the animal advocacy group the Humane Research Council. Craving meat is the main reason why people turn their backs on a vegetable diet, while some said they did it out of love and solidarity with their partners.
The survey of over 11,000 adults with varied diets found that 88 percent have never tried vegetarianism or veganism and that only two percent of Americans are currently vegetarian. While 5 out of 6 people in that two percent will go back to eating meat, 37 percent of ex-vegetarians are apparently feeling guilty and want to stop eating meat again in the future.
The New York Daily News asked a few NY vegans why they found they had to quit, and temptation was the running theme.
“I was a vegetarian until this one time I drank whiskey and ate a piece of bacon at 4 a.m.,” Chelsea Qualls, 24, who had avoided meat for five years until that point, told Daily news reporter Jeanette Settembre. “I took a bite of my friend’s pizza, which happened to have bacon, and then the next morning we went to brunch, and I ordered more bacon because it was delicious.”
As actor and comedian Andrew Kimmer, 31, told Settembre: “I did it for love…” after his wife was told that she had to eat meat for medical reasons. He jokes that, “It’s always the woman’s fault,” but admits that he always found it hard to resist antipasti at his local Italian restaurant.
Many vegetarians say that although they can avoid thinking about the taste of meat, the smell of it is more difficult to ignore. Yet while bacon and steak may give off the most tantalizing aromas, it appears that chicken is high on the list of meats that vegetarians long for.
Katie Busch, 27, said: “I really missed Chicken fingers, probably because I went vegetarian at age 10, so I’d never had most ‘adult’ meats. I went back because meat was delicious … and at that point I realized I’m going to hell for other reasons — may as well give up the ghost and embrace the dark side.”
Chicken, as it happens, is one of the least ethical things a person can eat when it comes to avoiding animal cruelty. “Chicken is the most common type of meat consumed by former vegetarians/vegans,” the researchers say, but “reducing and eliminating chicken consumption will have the greatest impact on the number of farmed animals’ lives saved.”
Whatever the reasons for people’s rejection of their resolution to shun meat, it seems that they take effect pretty quickly – 53 percent of people go back to meat within a year and more than 30 percent within three months.
The Humane Research Council described the findings offering “some potentially disappointing but illuminating conclusions that could inform advocacy and outreach strategies.” They identified some reasons why vegetarians might fail, such as “transitioning to the diet too quickly, not being involved socially with other veg folks, and not being able to address certain food cravings.”
As Huffington Post’s Meredith Melnick points out, it is worth bearing in mind that not all vegetarians necessarily intend to stick with it forever, and the theory that every little thing helps is popular in the age of part-time vegetarians and “Meatless Mondays.” The Meatless Mondays movement started in association with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health because even “one day a week is good for you, great for your nation’s health, and fantastic for the planet.” It is now active in 36 countries.
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