"If you are a vegan or vegetarian, I don't think you really want it to taste like meat anyway, would you? Idk."
Good point. - OR, a person (moi) avoids it solely for health reasons. That can be said of a lot of things: sugar, dairy, eggs, etc., depending on what you're trying to achieve or lower risk of, i.e, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc., - OR - trying to build and improve, i.e., immune system, strength, health, etc.
When you're young it's likely a fad. When you're older, it's more than likely for health reasons. When you're deathly ill, it's necessity if you so choose.
Or people do it for environmental reasons, or just their feelings about animals. My sister has been a vegetarian for many years because she has an ultra-soft spot for animals (drives me nuts to the degree) but that doesn't make her any healthier if she hits hard on bad carbs.
It's extremely hard eating vegetarian. Unless you have a healthy garden it may also be expensive to get organic foods.
I still like the taste of beef and not being ultra-rigid we will occasionally eat it. We found out quickly our stomachs know when we cheat.
My wife suffered from extremely painful diverticulitis, as do other female members in her family. Her sister came close to dying and spent a long time in the hospital. I feel when that happens, it's time to think about changing the way we eat. When she has just a cup of my green smoothies her stomach feels great. Any sugar, chocolate, nuts or meat and I see her in pain. Still, it was very difficult weaning her away from meat, just as it would be for many here. It took a lot of steady, and subtle effort on my end to win her over. Now she sees the benefit and is all systems go.
Me? My dad and both his parents died of cancer around 80ish. My brother died of cancer at 70 (I'm six months away). My other sister had a full mastectomy at around 50. I just made up my mind after my dad died 14 years ago, that I wasn't going the same way.
Sure, something will be the end of us someday, maybe, but why encourage it when you can at least try to prevent it and feel much better at the same time? I don't feel deprived in any way. I feel I've physically over-worked my body in many ways and paid the consequences. It's time to heal.
Backtrack two years, just before Covid, my wife's wonderful aunts and uncles (who LOVE meat) all chided me for eating vegetarian. Her aunt even went so far as saying she would rather enjoy eating meat even if it cut her life shorter. These past two years we have seen them go through all sorts of health issues and being miserable.
Still, we can't convince them, so we just enjoy them...while we have them. Wonderful people! |