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Has Anyone Eaten Meat After Being Veg?


jesscarmel

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jesscarmel Enthusiast

Hi

I have not eaten meat/fish since the age of eight and my naturopath is recommending i try some meat due to my low iron and low adrenal functioning. i was going to start with a little chicken- has anyone tried meat after so long...will i get sick? feel wierd?

any insihgt would be great!

thanks

Jess


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Ann1231 Enthusiast
Hi

I have not eaten meat/fish since the age of eight and my naturopath is recommending i try some meat due to my low iron and low adrenal functioning. i was going to start with a little chicken- has anyone tried meat after so long...will i get sick? feel wierd?

any insihgt would be great!

thanks

Jess

YES! I was vegetarian for years but couldn't get my blood sugar under control. I was also anemic. I started with fish and had terrible burping (sorry). I then tried chicken. It went much easier. I only had a few bites at a time but within a week or so started feeling better. I have added some beef (not much though), lots of seafood and chicken. I feel so much better. My blood counts have all improved too. It took me a week or two more for the mental aspect of eating meat than the physical. I don't think I'll go back to vegetarian even though it seems tempting at times. I feel much stronger, more alert, mood is much better, etc. with the way I'm eating now. I'm eating a paleo style, meats, vegetables and fruit. It's the best I've felt in years.

Of course you may feel totally different but this has been my experience.

Best of luck to you!!

Ann

RiceGuy Collaborator

I tried some meats once or twice after just a few years of avoiding them. They tasted disgusting and I felt physically awful too. I had originally eliminated them from my diet because I felt better when I didn't eat them, and the quality from the markets was getting worse and worse anyway.

For iron, proteins, etc, I eat legumes, nuts, seeds, and dark leafy greens like spinach and such. Take note that iron absorption is multiplied up to six fold when accompanied with adequate amounts of vitamin C.

Here are some good articles to consider:

Iron:

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link
Open Original Shared Link

hez Enthusiast

I do not have personal experience but my mom was a vegie for a while. When she started eating meat again it did not always sit well with her. It took several months for this "feeling" to go away. Keep in mind she was not dx as celiac yet so that might have had something to do with it as well. Hope you find better health with or without it!

Hez

AndreaB Contributor

We were veg or vegan for 8 years.

We've added meat back in due to all our intolerances. Amazingly we didn't have any problems picking back up on meat products. We buy our beef and chicken from www.uswellnessmeats.com

Wonderful meat.....100% grass fed.

Start out slow just in case though.

BTW, we all feel much better eating meat than not eating it. I really think it depends on each person. Some do better with, some do better without.....you have to listen to your body.

jesscarmel Enthusiast

thanks for everyone reponses. i'm also blood type O which is supposed to eat meat. i hate meat, it grosses me out but im gonna try and see- maybe i wnot feel exhausted all the time.

thanks :)

key Contributor

I feel for you. I haven't eaten meat ever in my life, but now that I can't eat SO many things and I am so sick of the stuff I do eat after two years, I have seriously considered it. I just wouldn't have a clue how to cook it. Plus, I am scared my body wouldn't know what to do with it. Beans don't seem to agree with me very well and that is what I have been eating alot of the past two years. Goodluck trying it and let us know how it goes.

Monica


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RiceGuy Collaborator
Beans don't seem to agree with me very well and that is what I have been eating alot of the past two years.

What kinds of bean and/or bean products have you tried?

luvs2eat Collaborator

My middle daughter didn't eat meat for probably 10 years. She wasn't a strict vegetarian, but simply didn't eat meat. Not too long after she was diagnosed, she began to eat it again, fearing she couldn't get the protein she needed. It didn't take her long to begin saying, "Man... I missed this stuff!!"

gfp Enthusiast

I was a pretty lax vegetarian for a couple of years.... my girlfriend was so I only ate meat viviting parents etc.

I had a friend that was vegetarian strictly for 7....

I think if you think its disgusting its going to sit badly... regardless...

As an example I always haten fish, especially fishy-fish (if that makes any sense) but after diagnosis I ended up eating sushi...

First few times I really gagged... it was a struggle to just keep it down and after it felt like lead...

I'd say the main thing is quality meat/fish in small amounts... better a little organic beef than a burger or steak of supermarket meat?

Overall I'd say why not just gradually introduce it as a subsistute in your normal veggie diet...

A little in a stir-fry instead of a steak .... some chicken in a fajita with LOTS of vegetables. etc. ??

We require amazingly little meat to get our daily dose... of proteins... so I don't think either the standard meat 3 times a day or strict vegan is healthy .. rather sometihng inbetween in moderation...

Personally now I tend to eat meat once a day... sometimes a huge steak but sometimes just a bit of chicken in a risotto or something... So instead of making meat meals make meals with some meat???

Felidae Enthusiast
thanks for everyone reponses. i'm also blood type O which is supposed to eat meat. i hate meat, it grosses me out but im gonna try and see- maybe i wnot feel exhausted all the time.

thanks :)

For me, I buy organic free-range chicken and my conscious feels better about it. First, if you can afford it, organic tastes really great. Second, at least I know they had a quality life before they went to market. I only buy one or two chickens a month. This gives us three meals of chicken. Then I make stock/soup with the leftover carcasses. I also eat fish and shellfish.

I tried beef after not eating it for many years and I didn't like the taste anymore. Even though I like pork, I just can't bring myself to eat it anymore.

Nancym Enthusiast

Start slowly! Your body needs to gear up to produce the proper enzymes to digest the meat. Might take a couple of weeks to adapt.

I was once vegetarian, had horrible problems with blood sugar. Would probably be diabetic by now if I'd kept it up. I'm finding the Paleo diet is doing me a lot of good.

brendygirl Community Regular

I ate red meat when my boyfriend said, "Baby, there's nothing on this menu you can have!"I ate steak strips on a salad. (It was late at night and I hadn't eaten all day, so a salad wasn't going to cut it.)My stomach hurt.

And since then, I've eaten it once or twice a week with NO problems.

I only eat good quality steak and good quality ground beef, and pork ribs.

It was weird cooking it, to be honest.

btw-- b4 dx, when iron was too low to give blood- I was perplexed since I ate so many dark green veggies, and do you know what the blood bank people tell you to eat to raise iron? CREAM of WHEAT!! It has TONS more iron per gram than any meat or veggie!! I ate it, was so sick(didn't know about celiac yet), but my iron skyrocketed in just a few weeks!

jesscarmel Enthusiast

so i had a few pieces of chicken last night- just two bites really was all i could handle mentally. i didnt get any weird stomach aches so thats good. i guess ill slowly just increase it to three bites and then four bites- it tastes so weird!!

jerseyangel Proficient
so i had a few pieces of chicken last night- just two bites really was all i could handle mentally. i didnt get any weird stomach aches so thats good. i guess ill slowly just increase it to three bites and then four bites- it tastes so weird!!

Glad at least it didn't make you feel sick :)

I went about 10 years only eating chicken or turkey occasionally. No red meats at all--I was prettty strict with it. When I tried steak for the first time after that, it tasted odd--very strong and the texture took some getting used to again.

I'm glad I went back to eating meat because since I've been gluten-free, I can't tolerate plant proteins at all.

I think your plan is a good one--go slowly and carefully to see how different things sit.

kbtoyssni Contributor

I just started eating meat again after five years of being veggie. I find that meat sits well in my stomach. I never feel sick after eating it. Veggies and grains do not always sit well, I think because they're harder for the body to digest. It's frustrating because I want to not eat meat, but I know it won't make me sick and on days when my stomach is already upset, I don't want to eat a bunch of veggies and make it worse. I do buy free range/hormone free.

Oh, the one meat that doesn't sit well is beef. That always seems to upset the stomach so I don't eat it. Chicken, turkey, fish, etc seem to be ok.

  • 2 weeks later...
Teacher1958 Apprentice

Groan...I'm dealing with this right now. I've been a vegetarian for 30 years, but with my current problems, I am running out of foods to eat. Several of my friends have been suggesting that I should start eating meat again, but I just can't imagine it. I'm not a radical vegetarian by any stretch (one of my friends is a deer hunter), but when I visualize eating meat again, I just picture myself throwing up all over the place. My vegetarianism is real tied into my identity, plus I have a real aversion to meat. I am going to try eggs this weekend, though. Maybe that will be enough.

GeoffCJ Enthusiast

I credit eating meat again for helping me figure out my Celiac!

I had been vegan/vegetarian/pescatarian (in that order) for 12 years, and been having celiac symptoms for about as long. Last September, while in England, I fell off the wagon when a favorite aunt made a favorite child hood meat dish. Loved it.

Starting eating meat again, a few weeks or a month after returning, went on the South Beach diet to lose weight, something I'd never consider before because I thought it would be too hard as a vegetarian. Lot's of things started feeling better. One thing leads to another, and I figure out the Celiac and get diagnosed.

My wife likes to joke about the 3 weeks she's known me where I could order anything on the menu.

Nancym Enthusiast

What's so funny is how I remember eating vegetarian things that were meant to taste like meat. You'd think it'd be just a quick hop back to real meat...

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    • knitty kitty
      Blood tests for thiamine are unreliable.  The nutrients from your food get absorbed into the bloodstream and travel around the body.  So, a steak dinner can falsely raise thiamine blood levels in the following days.  Besides, thiamine is utilized inside cells where stores of thiamine are impossible to measure. A better test to ask for is the Erythrocyte Transketolace Activity test.  But even that test has been questioned as to accuracy.  It is expensive and takes time to do.   Because of the discrepancies with thiamine tests and urgency with correcting thiamine deficiency, the World Health Organization recommends giving thiamine for several weeks and looking for health improvement.  Thiamine is water soluble, safe and nontoxic even in high doses.   Many doctors are not given sufficient education in nutrition and deficiency symptoms, and may not be familiar with how often they occur in Celiac disease.  B12 and Vitamin D can be stored for as long as a year in the liver, so not having deficiencies in these two vitamins is not a good indicator of the status of the other seven water soluble B vitamins.  It is possible to have deficiency symptoms BEFORE there's changes in the blood levels.   Ask your doctor about Benfotiamine, a form of thiamine that is better absorbed than Thiamine Mononitrate.  Thiamine Mononitrate is used in many vitamins because it is shelf-stable, a form of thiamine that won't break down sitting around on a store shelf.  This form is difficult for the body to turn into a usable form.  Only thirty percent is absorbed in the intestine, and less is actually used.   Thiamine interacts with all of the other B vitamins, so they should all be supplemented together.  Magnesium is needed to make life sustaining enzymes with thiamine, so a magnesium supplement should be added if magnesium levels are low.   Thiamine is water soluble, safe and nontoxic even in high doses.  There's no harm in trying.
    • lizzie42
      Neither of them were anemic 6 months after the Celiac diagnosis. His other vitamin levels (d, B12) were never low. My daughters levels were normal after the first 6 months. Is the thiamine test just called thiamine? 
    • knitty kitty
      Yes, I do think they need a Thiamine supplement at least. Especially since they eat red meat only occasionally. Most fruits and vegetables are not good sources of Thiamine.  Legumes (beans) do contain thiamine.  Fruits and veggies do have some of the other B vitamins, but thiamine B 1 and  Cobalamine B12 are mostly found in meats.  Meat, especially organ meats like liver, are the best sources of Thiamine, B12, and the six other B vitamins and important minerals like iron.   Thiamine has antibacterial and antiviral properties.  Thiamine is important to our immune systems.  We need more thiamine when we're physically ill or injured, when we're under stress emotionally, and when we exercise, especially outside in hot weather.  We need thiamine and other B vitamins like Niacin B 3 to keep our gastrointestinal tract healthy.  We can't store thiamine for very long.  We can get low in thiamine within three days.  Symptoms can appear suddenly when a high carbohydrate diet is consumed.  (Rice and beans are high in carbohydrates.)  A twenty percent increase in dietary thiamine causes an eighty percent increase in brain function, so symptoms can wax and wane depending on what one eats.  The earliest symptoms like fatigue and anxiety are easily contributed to other things or life events and dismissed.   Correcting nutritional deficiencies needs to be done quickly, especially in children, so their growth isn't stunted.  Nutritional deficiencies can affect intelligence.  Vitamin D deficiency can cause short stature and poor bone formation.   Is your son taking anything for the anemia?  Is the anemia caused by B12 or iron deficiency?  
    • lizzie42
      Thank you! That's helpful. My kids eat very little processed food. Tons of fruit, vegetables, cheese, eggs and occasional red meat. We do a lot of rice and bean bowls, stir fry, etc.  Do you think with all the fruits and vegetables they need a vitamin supplement? I feel like their diet is pretty healthy and balanced with very limited processed food. The only processed food they eat regularly is a bowl of Cheerios here and there.  Could shaking legs be a symptom of just a one-time gluten exposure? I guess there's no way to know for sure if they're getting absolutely zero exposure because they do go to school a couple times a week. We do homeschool but my son does a shared school 2x a week and my daughter does a morning Pre-K 3 x a week.  At home our entire house is strictly gluten free and it is extremely rare for us to eat out. If we eat at someone else's house I usually just bring their food. When we have play dates we bring all the snacks, etc. I try to be really careful since they're still growing. They also, of course, catch kids viruses all the time so I  want to make sure I know whether they're just sick or they've had gluten. It can be pretty confusing when they're pretty young to even be explaining their symptoms! 
    • Scott Adams
      That is interesting, and it's the first time I heard about the umbilical cord beings used for that test. Thanks for sharing!
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