is it true that a vegetarian can get sick from eating meat?

Question

i heard that after not eating meat for a long time, it causes you to lose the enzymes needed to digest meat. is it true?

Answer 1

It can definitely happen, but the severity varies from person to person. I've had one friend who was vegan for years, then decided to eat a steak and was fine. Another friend of mine spent a year in Europe right around the first mad cow outbreak. After nine months without beef, she totally lost the ability to digest it. In my own experience, I ate so little protein in college (financial strains and such) that at one point I was even getting sick from cheese. I had to work my way back to meat VERY slowly after that.

Answer 2

The answer is yes and no some people stop eating meat for a few months hoping to become a vegetarian, But keep thinking of that chicken so it's easy to go right back, I'm a vegetarian for more than thirty years, I cook meat all the time without even tasting the pot, Once you're a vegetarian for a long time you don't want to go back.

Answer 3

Yes and no. Some vegetarians do indeed experience GI symptoms if they eat meat. However the 'enzymes' (annoying that non-scientific people throw that word around when they can never specify what it means) are still present; unless you've been eating a completely protein-free diet, in which case you'd probably be dead.

Certainly the high iron content in red meats can irritate the stomach lining - heck, it irritates some non-vegetarians - which could be exacerbated by a long absence of such stimulation. IMNSHO, however, the majority of 'sickness' in vegetarians from meat is psychosomatic; which is not to say it isn't real, just not from a conventional physiological cause.

Answer 4

Yeah, but it also depends on the amount of time the person was vegetarian. A few months, probably not. If the person was vegetarian six months or more, the richness of the meat would be too much for the body to handle and thus...you would have a sick sad vegetarian...who broke veg!

Answer 5

It depends on the person. But, if you're a vegetarian for a long time, than your body might be so used to that type of diet that the sudden comsumption of meat, which it would would be a foreign substance due to the vegetarianism, would make your body sick. This happened to my mother's boss, who is a vegan, when he accidentally ate greens cooked in a meat broth. He said that he felt sick the whole night.

Answer 6

Oh my God yes! After being vegetarian for several years, I made lasagne at my mother-in-laws. I forgot to hold out some of the sauce before adding the hamburger, and was too tired to find something else to eat, so I just ate the regular lasagne. I've never been sicker in my life. My husband said I was sort of "greenish". At the time I ate it, I never thought about it possibly making me ill. But now I assume that, as you said, that my body didn't have the enzymes to digest it.

Answer 7

If you mean a vegetarian attempting to eat an 8 oz steak, I'd say yes, it would block their colon. But why would they want to eat that? Most vegetarians have given up meat because it repulses them. That's why I did. Under no circumstances would I ever eat beef, pork, veal, lamb, emu, ostrich, bison, deer, chicken or turkey again. I already eat sushi about once a month and have no trouble digesting it. I can also eat seafood with no problem.

If a vegetarian gets vitamin B12 in their diet, there is no need to ever eat meat again.

Answer 8

It depends on the person. This isn't just with vegetarians. A lot of times if you eat anything you aren't used to your stomach can have a difficult time digesting it.

Answer 9

I think so. I've heard that too. but eating a little and then increasing the amount of meat consumed gradually at a regular pace can help, coz it gives the stomach a chance to get used to it gradually.

Answer 10

I have been vegitarian for a long time and after my first year I was going to play " smart" and try chicken. I got so sick and I felt dirty wrong learnt my lesson and will never touch it again.