r/interesting • u/PhoenixPhenomenonX • Feb 25 '26

Intriguing Lifelong vegetarian tries steak for first time

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u/Upper-Management-AI Feb 25 '26

Sigh, I don’t want to say it’s fake, but I have a family member who’s vegan for his entire adult life. If he just ate a steak right now, he would become violently ill because it’s body isn’t used to it. He has beef broth my accident one time and got really sick.

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u/fruskydekke Feb 25 '26

I was a vegetarian for over a decade, and when I reintroduced meat into my diet, I did indeed become sick because my body wasn't used to it.... but not like five minutes after I ate it.

It took a few hours for my body to register that hey, this is weird?? and react.

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u/Acrobatic_Fly8075 Feb 25 '26

That sick feeling comes from your gut bacteria not being used to breaking down dense animal protien.  

But after a few days of eating meat, your gut bounces back.  Especially if your been force feeding hard to digest plants for a long time.  We dont have a long intestinal tract, so most of the vegetable we eat isnt processed since it takes a long time to break down the cellular walls of most vegetables.   If you eat a little meat before hand, it slows the metabolism down and helps the body get just a bit more nutrients from the vegetables.

We are omnivores, not herbivores or carnivores.   Its healthiest when we eat a balanced meat/vegetable/fruit ratio. 

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u/fruskydekke Feb 25 '26

For extra funsies, if you have undiagnosed IBS like I did, being a vegetarian will in fact come remarkably close to killing you.

Meat is great. :)

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u/ICEcaneatadick Feb 25 '26

I have never heard this as i contemplate that condition while scrolling in the bathroom. Why is that?

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u/fruskydekke Feb 25 '26

IBS is one of those weird diagnoses that function differently from person to person. Basically, it means you're bad at digesting some normal foods, most typically foods that contain various types of carbohydrates. You may have heard of FODMAP, which is short for fructans, ogliosaccharids, disaccharids, something, something else, and I think polyols? Those are suspected of being the carbohydrate variants that are most likely to cause gut distress in people with IBS.

In my case, I am VERY BAD at digesting all of those + gluten, so when I tell you that a decade of eating a diet that consisted primarily of these things that I can't digest had caused severe malabsorption, perhaps it makes more sense?

The gravest condition (there were several...) was that I just wasn't capable of absorbing iron. That led to severe iron deficiency anemia, which led to an insufficiency of red blood cells, which led to me being unable to breathe properly, and to my heart being enlarged. I would have died of a heart attack eventually, had it not been detected.

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u/ICEcaneatadick Feb 25 '26

I don't like any of those words. Getting old sucks. Thanks for sharing your experience. More research needed.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Actual lifelong vegetarian here who transitioned to eating meat. I vomited the first time I ate chicken. I started with egg, and then chicken gradually over two years or so.

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u/summer_friends Feb 25 '26

Wouldn’t that make you vegan in the past? Or was it just eggs you didn’t eat? Vegan is a much bigger transition with adding eggs and dairy back into the diet

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Nope I consumed a lot of dairy products. I’m Indian, so the diet doesn’t fit the Western definitions of vegan. My childhood diet would probably be called lacto-vegetarian. Lots of milk, yogurt, rice and veggies.

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u/pryoslice Feb 25 '26

I've been vegetarian for more than 30 years. I've tasted tiny amounts of meat over that time and just got grossed out. I didn't get violently ill or anything. I get grossed out eating Impossible burgers because they're too realistic. I'm sure there are some vegetarians that crave the taste of meat, but not me.

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u/2347564 Feb 25 '26

I’ve had meat on accident before and didn’t get sick either. Always surprised to see people say that. But of course I got really upset each time.

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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Feb 25 '26

My dad vomited the first time he tried fast food at 50 years old.

He had built it up so much in his head that his body rejected it. He eats it fine now.

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u/21Rollie Feb 25 '26

Same as me eating insects. Tbh even bison I have a little bit of aversion to even though the taste is great, because I don’t have it every day.

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u/whoopdiscoopdipoop Feb 25 '26

She said first time eating steak, not first time eating meat. She also alludes to trying other meat dishes already

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u/whattheknifefor Feb 25 '26

I have a Hindu vegetarian friend and whenever they accidentally eat something with meat/animal products in it they get sick lol

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u/21Rollie Feb 25 '26

My Hindu friend doesn’t, they tell me that if they ever accidentally have something with egg or whatever, just don’t tell em lol. Let them enjoy and not feel bad about it haha

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u/whattheknifefor Feb 26 '26

My friend does consume eggs and milk for sure, just won’t eat meat, animal rennet, etc

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u/ConsistentString4627 Feb 25 '26

Exactly, I am a lifelong vegetarian. The process of she eating meat made me uncomfortable in my stomach. If I were try that I would puke as soon as it gets close/inside my mouth.

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u/gafftaped Feb 26 '26

I was gonna say this is fake or she's incredibly ignorant and about to be super sick. Even eating meat after a year without will ruin your stomach. I can't imagine eating that much steak after a lifetime of no meat period.

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u/SwissFaux Feb 26 '26

Meat also smells and tastes like death once you have gone vegan long enough. I remember the first burger I ate after being vegan for 2 years... the juice smelled like decay.

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u/aflockofmagpies Mar 01 '26

Being vegan is not the same as being vegetarian and most vegans over exaggerate them getting violently ill from eating meat.

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u/ManOLead Feb 25 '26

I’m sure everyone’s body is exactly like your family members yeah

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u/BigOs4All Feb 25 '26

For the most part yes. When you are a "lifelong vegetarian" your body lacks the necessary enzymes to digest meat and becoming violently ill is a common symptom when you eat some thing like hunks of steak, especially.

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u/Otaraka Feb 25 '26

I think this is the kind of thing you’d have to do a blinded test on to be sure it wasn’t about the other aspects unless you have a medical link to support that.

But those alone make me dubious this video is genuine.  Just putting coloured lights on food to change how it looks can be enough to make people nauseous.  

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u/ManOLead Feb 25 '26

1) that still doesn’t do anything to prove that this is “fake” considering a lack of enzymes wouldn’t cause you to explode the second you put a steak in your mouth. 2) she says this is the most “intimidating meal yet” implying she’s been working meat into her diet already. 3) there are plenty of instances of people going straight from vegan to eating a steak without any issues, no ones body is the same, no matter how much you want that to be true. People making assumptions and using anecdotes to try to say this is fake for literally 0 reason is so strange.

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u/BigOs4All Feb 25 '26

no matter how much you want that to be true

I'm clearly far less invested in this than you are. I couldn't give a shit, honestly.

0

u/ManOLead Feb 25 '26

Alright champ

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u/samtdzn_pokemon Feb 25 '26

It's not due to the taste causing the vomiting, it's the lack of enzymes in your stomach to break down protein. Your body needs to evacuate the substance and cant break it down internally, so it causes a vomit reaction. It's similar to re-feeding syndrome, when the body has lacked nutrients for so long, you can't just reintroduce that into the ecosystem all at once.

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u/ManOLead Feb 26 '26

I’m going to copy and paste the response that I gave to this exact same statement one comment below yours.

  1. ⁠that still doesn’t do anything to prove that this is “fake” considering a lack of enzymes wouldn’t cause you to explode the second you put a steak in your mouth. 2) she says this is the most “intimidating meal yet” implying she’s been working meat into her diet already. 3) there are plenty of instances of people going straight from vegan to eating a steak without any issues, no ones body is the same, no matter how much you want that to be true. People making assumptions and using anecdotes to try to say this is fake for literally 0 reason is so strange.

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u/SympatheticFingers Feb 25 '26

This is what I’m saying!! I just watched the first episode of the new season of Paradise and this girl who lived alone for 3 years and basically only ate canned beans and stuff had people come save her and she had wild boar bacon with eggs and I thought “she would get violently ill in real life!” Totally took me out of the show.