I Stopped Eating Meat for 6 Months and THIS HAPPENED.

If you’ve hung out with me in the past for even a small amount of time, you’d know I love certain types of meat. In particular, I love fried chicken and cheeseburgers. I’ve never been that much into pork or steak and recently, within the last few years, was introduced to and fell in love with fish by my wife. So, why would I decide to stop eating my favorite things? 2 main reasons:

1. My stomach always hurts after eating it.

2. I love animals.

As an experiment, my wife and I both decided to stop eating meat on November 5, 2019. We didn’t go full-vegan because of well…cheese. (Plus, if I have to have a job, cows should too.) We did have a small suspicion that dairy could be contributing to my stomach aches though, so when we could, we ate vegan cheese. I preferred the kind we would buy from Market Street or the Whole Foods brand.

We also switched from regular milk to oat, almond, and soy milk. I used to think I hated those non-dairy options, but I think I was making up my mind without actually trying them as I love all three now. My favorite became almond milk as I think it has the best taste in coffee.

Side note: I’ve had many people tell me how bad soy is and how it contains estrogen. To clarify, soy products have phytoestrogen which is not the same as normal estrogen. Phytoestrogens are naturally-occurring plant compounds that show up in other foods you may eat such as berries, seeds (particularly flaxseeds), grains, nuts and fruits.

“Unbeknownst to most consumers, in addition to well recognized soy products such as soy milk, tofu and tempeh, soy is found in upwards of 60% of processed foods [280]. Textured soy protein (50–70% soy protein) is a meat substitute found in hotdogs, hamburgers, sausages and other meat products while soy protein isolate (90% soy protein) is used to enrich energy bars, sports drinks, infant formula, cereals, granola bars, imitation dairy products, ice cream, cheese and even doughnuts. In addition, textured soy protein is used to fortify numerous products in the school breakfast and lunch programs as well as other federal assistance programs [274,243]. Soy is a popular food additive because it is a cholesterol-free, vegetable protein rich in complex carbohydrates and unsaturated fats, high in fiber, and free of lactose. It also contains upwards of 100 or more phytoestrogens.”

— US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

Anyways, back to our six month
vegetarian adventure…

The idea was to not solely skip the consumption of meat, but to replace it with more greens and healthier foods in general. In other words, not just eat crackers and chips the entire time. When others asked why we weren’t eating meat and we told them, we received two main responses:

1. “So, what do you eat then? Just lettuce?”

2. They would want to argue why meat is okay to eat. Somehow, when you tell some people you’re vegetarian, they take it as an insult and want to argue. It’s really strange. We weren’t throwing buckets of blood on random humans or picketing for Oscar Meyer to shut down. They asked, so we told them in a non-confrontational way.

I realize I didn’t go full vegan but when else would I use this vegan meme saved to my computer?

So what happened to my body when I started this lifestyle? My stomach started feeling better.

My weight stayed the same throughout, but my body did feel good on the days I ate mainly greens and plant proteins. To be fair, there were a few nutrients I was scared I’d miss so we got vitamins specifically tailored toward being vegan/vegetarian. I ended up taking one per day and this could have also minorly affected the way I felt since I was more than likely deficient in those vitamins. I found throughout this process that there were multiple contributors to my belly pains. The main causes were greasy foods and heavy amounts of dairy. Notice: I didn’t say the meat was necessarily the main contributor.

To make this a true layman’s experiment, I had to eat meat again after all this time, so on May 5, 2020 I ate grilled chicken. I was a bit afraid it would hurt my stomach, but it didn’t affect me at all stomach-wise, (though it did make me gag while consuming it). The next day I got fried chicken and low and behold, there was that upset stomach I remembered. However, fried tofu never gave me inner belly issues and fried seitan (wheat gluten) did.

I’ve come to 4 main personal realizations after wrapping up on this experiment and they are as follows:

1. Fried foods aren’t by their own nature the issue. It’s mainly the amount of grease that’s on/within the food. In other words, GREASE BAD. TUMMY NO LIKE.

2. Too much meat in my diet makes me feel sick mentally and physically and both affect each other negatively.

3. I will do my best to stick with non-animal food products as often as possible as it seems to make me feel the best. (Plus, animals are fun to love and stuff.)

4. Dairy seems to not agree with my well-being and although I think cows should work if I have to work, I’ll be passing cow milk as often as possible, except in the occasional non-vegan cheese.

One last thing though…

This experiment was based on what happened in 6 months, not an entire lifetime. It also focused on how I felt as opposed to what was actually going on inside my body. After watching a documentary called, “Game Changers” and looking up the claims the movie had pushed when looking at a full humans life of eating meat, most if not all seem to check out. If you haven’t seen it, you should, as meat, in general, is not very good for you and red meats/deli meats are absolute trash foods which often lead to diabetes, heart complications, various cancers, and more.

Are you vegan, vegetarian, or an avid meat eater and have a comment? Leave it below! As for me, I’ll probably stick closer to the veggie crowds than the meat ones. Thanks for reading!