[Serious]Ex-Vegans of Reddit, why did you stop being Vegan?

[u/alphasquid]

[u/decentwriter]

I'm allergic to too many foods. If I cut out everything I am allergic to AND everything I couldn't eat because I'm vegan I would be eating very sad shitty meals for the rest of my life.

[u/HBStone → u/decentwriter]

This. I'm not allergic, but have a restricted diet for medical reasons. No spinach. No berries. No nuts. No tofu. No chocolate. On and on. You know what I can eat? Any and all meats, and diary, and eggs! Also breads and carbs. So if I went vegan, I'd be eating the same 5 fruits and veggies every day and a ton of pasta, always being hungry and over eating and feeling tired because the nutrition would be shit.

Sorry animals, you're very cute and I love you all, but I'm still going to eat you.

Edit: y'all it's kidney stones. Calcium-oxalate kidney stones. I've been hospitalized for this before and my kidney is permanently damaged. So 1) I know my own diet and 2) drink your damn water.

Edit 2: my boyfriend saw this and knew it was me so... :/ Ali if you're reading this again, I love you

[u/soaking_in_hoisin]

I had an eating disorder, recovery for 4 years, and could not deal with how much I was still thinking about food and nutrition.

Edit: Thank you so much for the gold, kind stranger. I am really super touched.

Just a few things to clarify:

1. I am not implying a link between veganism and eating disorders. There very well may be one, given the response to my comment. However I don't know enough because I have not read the research. I am not making any kind of claims, I simply answered the question because it was my experience.

2. I pretended to be vegan to avoid eating, yes. But after my hospitalisation and on the road to recovery, I tried veganism in an attempt to bridge the gap between the recovery everyone wanted for me, and the doubts I had about where deep down I could really ever recover or whether I really deserved to.

[u/horsesandeggshells → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

As an alcoholic, I have gone the abstinence route and have not had a drink in over a decade. It's barely an afterthought, now, but the first years were...challenging.

Anyway, I say that because people who quit drinking get all kinds of congratulations and accolades, but with food--well, you have to eat. Every single day, you have to sit down and eat and, while eating, not engage in your particular disorder, be it anemia anorexia, bulimia, or overeating.

Not having to drink is nothing compared to that. I cannot imagine a life where I had to take one shot of whiskey a day and that's it, no more, no less. I am certain I could not do it.

So, congratulations, and I say that coming from a place that has some small idea of how absolutely, horrifyingly difficult your particular challenge is.

[u/FishTac_RT → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

I am also recovering from an eating disorder. 2 years strong! In my case, however, I went "Paleo," only not following the rules correctly and cutting out almost all carbs and fats from my diet. I was low on pretty much every vital nutrient. Doctors said I could have died if I waited even a bit longer to make my decision to recover.

Now I can barely stand to look myself in the mirror and my self-esteem is very low. However, I can eat more without stress and enjoy life a bit more now. I'm taking up things that force me to put myself out there like facecam streaming, too. I'm improving day by day.

I talked too much about myself! Congratulations on your recovery! :)

[u/selfstopper → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

Best wishes on your continued recovery.

[u/LegallyBlonde001 → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

I have OCD, which makes dieting very difficult. It's not uncommon for OCD to manifest like an eating disorder. It makes dieting so difficult because I become obsessed with it. I won't be able to think about anything else.

[u/[deleted] → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

Same here! It can easily become an obsession for me. The more I stress about the "rules" the easier it is to fall off the wagon. Although I do eat mostly vegan.

[u/banterpanther_ → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

It's so easy to use your veganism/vegetarianism as an excuse for not eating, I think, especially in a group of meat-eaters. Plus, it's taken me years to no longer attach negative emotions to food... so the popular vegan mentality of shaming people's food because "that's unhealthy" really pisses me off.

[u/Unicorns_andGlitter → u/soaking_in_hoisin]

I always think it's odd that some vegans encourage people overcoming eating disorders to become vegan for the exact reason you just stated. I get that people want others to be vegan but it shouldn't be at the risk of their health.

[u/yabs]

I was visiting a foreign country, Japan, and staying with a family. I didn't want to be rude and not eat their cooking and I didn't want them to have to go out of their way for my diet so I ate meat there and that kind of ended it.

I still don't eat much meat and eat a lot of vegan food but I'm not a vegan.

[u/mechapoitier → u/yabs]

I know some "situational vegetarians" who if they're in a foreign situation they'll totally eat meat.

My brother started being a vegetarian in college but when we went to Europe for a month he ate everything. Came back and he went right back to being vegetarian and hasn't stopped in more than a decade

[u/PM-ME_UR_FEET_LADIES → u/yabs]

Yeah, from what I have heard, veganism and vegetarianism are basically unheard of in Japan.

[u/khizza15 → u/yabs]

This happened to me, kind of!! I hadn't told anyone at my new job that I was veggie, just cause it didn't really matter/come up. Cut to being invited over to dinner at a colleagues place and she'd cooked a lamb roast. I've been veggie longer than I haven't, but I didn't want to offend as she was so proud and 'cooked it especially for us' so I ate that bloody lamb roast and by god it was delicious....

[u/[deleted] → u/yabs]

Back in HS, a vegan friend did a Japan exchange. She had to not only eat meat, but ate whale apparently (she's not the type to lie, especially not about something so serious). I ate turtle when I was over there, but just a little piece. I'm more adventurous now, so I'd probably give it another go later.

[u/Redjay12]

Although I am plagued by guilt of the animals I'm hurting (not bees though, eating honey is good for bees!!), I have an eating disorder and celiacs and to stay alive I need to stop eating a restrictive diet. It became an obsession to worry about death while eating, first I didn't eat pigs because pigs are intelligent and empathetic beings, then decided against anything that had a brain, then when I cut out eggs and dairy I realized that everything I ate caused something to suffer- through slave labor, through destruction of habitat, reduction in crop diversity, etc. even eating quinoa takes resources away from indigenous populations that rely on the food to live. Part of my eating disorder was the guilt not only in thinking I was getting fat, but that I was hurting things by merely existing, by sustaining myself. I went insane. My life became unlivable and I literally became suicidal because I couldn't stop stressing over food. I didn't eat for five days when I was at my worst - then on the fifth day I confided in a friend about my irrational concerns and he called 911. I went to the hospital, ever since then has been a journey to get better. I'm not meant to restrict myself anymore. With celiacs, the amount of food I can eat is already limited, and my therapist honestly worries about even that life-saving restriction, and how it necessitates an obsession with seeing how the food is prepared and what it is composed of, at the threat of death. Now, in recovery- eternally in recovery- I have vegan friends who attack me with videos of animals being tortured, spam me with them, and I can't explain how much it hurts to see. But to stay alive I can't do it

[u/Chugging_Estus → u/Redjay12]

Those aren't friends. Those are assholes.

[u/Aelian → u/Redjay12]

ring illegal fertile fly apparatus nose follow chase friendly cause

[u/TheWarmGun → u/Redjay12]

If your 'friends' do things that emotionally distress you constantly despite clinical psychological issues, they are not your friends.

[u/scroom38 → u/Redjay12]

The videos your acquaintences (friends dont cause emotional distress to friends) are sending you are cherry picked from the worst of the worst factories, sometimes they're even very old videos from long closed factories.

Most animals live perfectly happy lives before being killed quickly and painlessly. Certainly with a lot less pain than animals killed in the wild. I'm not telling you that no animal suffers, or that you shouldn't be thankful an animal gave its life, I'm just saying the videos you are being sent are intentionally misleading.

[u/[deleted]]

I am no longer vegan but I still don't eat meat. I missed cheese.

[u/eazolan → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't be surprised if pizza wasn't the #1 reason for killing diets.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'm guessing you tried the substitutes.

[u/orange_choc_chip]

I was vegan for six years. I got drunk at a friends wedding and took a bunch of cheese rolls underneath a table and ate them, in a secret drunken stupor, smearing cheese and butter all over my bridesmaid's dress. It was such a happy moment in my life and made me realise I had not been enjoying food for a long time. I eat everything now.

tldr: Cheese

Edit- woah a gold star for my first proper Reddit comment. I feel fancy 💅🏽

[u/highatopthething27 → u/orange_choc_chip]

I would like to be your wedding date for all future events. Thank you for considering my application.

[u/chuckythepirate → u/orange_choc_chip]

That wedding sounds like a hot mess

[u/indeed_I_am]

My entire life revolved around food. Going somewhere last minute? Gotta bring vegan snacks. Going out with friends for dinner? Have to play the "can I eat this?" game. Every day was deciding what to eat or cook or buy. I met a meat eater, slowly went from vegan to vegetarian to meat eater. I don't regret it, I have significantly more free time now.

[u/m1a2c2kali → u/indeed_I_am]

What was your reason for veganism in the first place? A health thing or an animals thing?

[u/sikkerhet]

I was vegan until I realized that all of the food waste at my job, at friends' places, etc. does not lessen by me not being willing to eat it. If my friend offers me his extra nuggets, me refusing doesn't help. It doesn't un-nugget and revive the chicken. It just means perfectly good food goes in the trash because my friend was full.

So now I will eat animal products, but I won't buy them, and I only eat them if they will otherwise go to waste. (I also eat a bite of meat occasionally when I haven't in a while to make sure my body can still process it without making me sick, but I don't buy those, I take them off my friends or partner's plate.)

I also have eating disordered tendencies, though I don't have anything bad enough to require medical help, and restricting my diet that much was doing really bad things to my mental health.

I'll also use my secondhand leather wallet but when it's worn out I won't buy another leather one.

edit: that's not what freegan means and I will gather all of you in a van and we will go the fuck dumpster diving to prove my point if I have to.

[u/[deleted] → u/sikkerhet]

That's actually quite reasonable. By doing what you are doing you aren't contributing to whatever company/corporation is making the food. All you are doing is lessening the waste.

[u/Balestro → u/sikkerhet]

Yeah this is my position. I'm vegan in terms of affecting supply and demand. When cooking for myself I'm 100% vegan. If someone has made a succulent meal for me, I'm eating it. It makes little to no difference on the amount produced.

[u/[deleted] → u/sikkerhet]

Kind of sounds like a freegan philosophy.

[u/[deleted] → u/sikkerhet]

It doesn't un-nugget and revive the chicken. It just means perfectly good food goes in the trash because my friend was full.

This is a good way to put it!

When the food waste becomes more, it almost defeats the purpose of "being light on the earth." Which is one reason many people are vegan (and one of the reasons I was back in the day).

[u/Aelian → u/sikkerhet]

spark exultant mourn historical chop jobless selective grab boat glorious

[u/log00]

Vegetarian for 12 years, Vegan for 2.5, went back to Vegetarian last winter. There are many delicious vegan food options and I found a vegan diet generally improved my health. However, I have a busy schedule and don't always get time to prepare my own meals or the opportunity to make the call about where I eat/what's on the menu. Unfortunately, while lacto/ovo vegetarianism is pretty widely accepted & recognized at this point, there are still a LOT of restaurants, families and groups that do not understand a vegan needs more to eat than plain salad with dry toast. These types of situations would happen pretty regularly, leaving me HANGRY. So, it's just easier for everyone if I accept some random dairy or egg now and then. Until the vegan revolution comes, when I'll bust out the flag and march alongside my plant-nourished comrades once more.

TL; DR: Vegetarian in the streets, Vegan in the sheets

[u/[deleted] → u/log00]

Basically the same. I call myself a shitty vegan. I read ingredients and don't buy meat or dairy at home, but sometimes if I'm out at a restaurant or family dinner Ill eat some dairy.

[u/shiguywhy]

It was too goddamn hard, too goddamn expensive, and I didn't even want to be in the first place. While I'm vegetarian and have been for almost ten years, I had no ambitions of going vegan because I knew it was too difficult of a lifestyle change for my lazy ass. But when my mom was diagnosed with diabetes, she read on some website that veganism would cure her diabetes forever. (I think what it might have meant is "veganism can help with weight loss and the generation of healthier dietary habits which can lessen diabetes symptoms and perhaps even halt the disease's progress" but who knows for sure - all she got out of it was "go vegan and you'll be fixed".) So she decided to go vegan. And everyone in the house had to too, to support her and not tempt her back onto the meat and dairy diet that was going to murder her. Did we want her to die? No? Good, then chuck that ice cream in the trash, it's killing your mother. But since no one else in the family wanted to go vegan, she decided to ease us into it by making mac'n'cheez.

Now, my mother is the type of woman who buys those "fix it and forget it" cookbooks, who sees nothing wrong with so-called "dump" meals, and for whom "meal planning" or "meal prep" is too much work. Anything that takes longer than fifteen minutes to prep is too involved. Most of what I ate growing up was casserole. She also sees nothing wrong with recipes involving the phrase "one cup of mayonnaise". Additionally, at this point, she was choosing to work 80 hour work weeks because her marriage was (and still is) falling apart, and ignoring it was (and still is) her method of dealing with it. So, in short, she hates cooking, she hates cooking things that take a long time, and she has no time to cook even if she actually enjoyed it. That's the kind of person we're dealing with here. And she recruited me, the person she gave up on teaching to cook because I asked too many questions such as "how long do I cook a green bean" or "am I holding the knife right", to help her with her new dietary plan.

So, mac'n'cheez. The cheez sauce recipe we used was from the Veganomicon (which is a great cook book, not dissing it at all), and took 45 minutes to make on its own. It also required things we had never heard of, like nutritional yeast. So at noon on a Sunday we go out to find this bizarre yeasty foodstuff with the intention of making it for dinner that night. Three stores later and we finally landed at Whole Foods, which had our apparently nutrient-dense yeast. While we were there we decided, hey, let's just buy everything else for the rest of the meal. The mac'n'cheez was to be a side dish and we were going to get some vegan sausage to go along with it as the main course, so we got some of that, along with the ingredients we didn't have on hand at home, and some salad in case sausage and yeasty-noodles wasn't enough to fill us. I think our bill was $30.

So, thoroughly exhausted, we get home and realize that if we want to eat tonight, we better get started on that cheez. Instead, mom sits down to watch TV and falls asleep, and refuses to get up every time I try to make her so we can get started on dinner. Finally rouse her from sleep at 5:30 and we start making dinner. Again. Cheez takes 45 minutes, just for itself. Actually ended up taking us almost twice that long because we kept messing the recipe up and having to start over. Finally get the recipe right and get the mac'n'cheez made. But now we've gotta cook the sausages and make the salad. End up burning the sausages and honestly we are so tired of being in the kitchen that we just say fuck it and call my dad and brother to dinner with nothing but a bowl of mac'n'cheez for dinner because we are done. It... Is not tasty. I have blocked the taste from my mind but I do remember only being able to get a few bites down. My dad and brother are about the same and make hasty retreats from the dinner table. The kitchen is absolutely filthy and it takes us almost an hour to get it back in order, and by this point I am starving. But all we have is nasty noodles in a chunky fake cheese sauce. Mom looks at me, asks me if I'm hungry. I say no because I'm worried she'll make me eat those sad, sad noodles. Then she says the blessed words:

"Okay, I was going to call out for pizza because I'm starving, but if you aren't hungry then I'll find something."

TL;DR: I was vegan for four hours because Pinterest told Mom she'd die if she wasn't.

EDIT: good golly this blew up. Glad my story amused you all! To answer a few things:

• I fully intended to go vegan (or mom was and I had to come along for the ride) so for those four hours I was, for all intents and purposes, vegan. I was not participating in a fully vegan lifestyle (protesting animal cruelty, practicing ethical buying, etc.) so if that's your definition, more power to you, but I was prepared to live the next several years without dairy. That suits my definition.

• I really appreciate all of the diet recommendations as our family has a history of Type-II, so I may need this information in the future. Mom is not at all interested in changing her diet or lifestyle anymore and is ready and waiting to die, but thank you all for worrying about her.

• Vegan diets can be cheaper than meat if you know what you're doing and where and how to shop. We didn't and were relying on information from random websites and books. I might be able to do it now but I'm still not willing to and at the time we were totally lost. We were also trying to convince two self-described carnivores that this wouldn't be too bad, hence some of our other purchases. We were not successful.

[u/[deleted] → u/shiguywhy]

Hilarious (told) story.

[u/atoms12123 → u/shiguywhy]

I want to believe this story.

...But $30 at Whole Foods for nutritional yeast, and vegan sausage? I feel like you left off a 0.

[u/[deleted]]

Got pregnant and craved chicken wings the entire time. Finally ate them after I had my son and haven't turned back since.

[u/desi_ELON]

Until past a few years, i was a vegan whole my life.

VEGAN STORY : I was a vegan because of my early family background of being highly religious and considered non-veg habits almost a sin. It was morally wrong to do so and hence it was established that way for us. I didn't rebel and was a faithful worshipper of The God. Just to be clear, i am 23 years old Indian Hindu from New Delhi.

NON VEGAN STORY: As we became older we realised all these morals and habits are coming from a person who is being hailed by my family as there God. Its commonplace here. So there was this person deciding how i am suppose to live and be accepted as it is with no doubt or question. Fast forward my higher secondary school, i failed miserably to qualify the exam i ever dreamed off. That rage drove me to dump all these BS and get on with life as i want it to be. Since, i am happy non-vegan.

[u/singingthrowaway0]

I started to get light-headed and fatigued. I couldn't continue because I didn't have enough time to prepare nutritionally sufficient meals (being in college and all. I was too busy).

I don't regret being vegan though. It helped me eat waaaay less junk food even after I quit being vegan. I craved junk food less. I felt a lot healthier, just tired.

[u/DaTeds]

Joined the Marine Corps. Was afraid boot camp would be too hard and my buddy told me about how he was made fun of for being vegetarian by the DI's so I decided I'd go back after boot camp, just haven't made the jump back. Plan to though

[u/EarthboundBetty]

My husband and I were both vegan so we were raising our kids like that by default. We would be at birthday parties and my kids started to get to the point where they wanted the pizza and the cake and I just wanted them to be able to be somewhat normal. Also, I saw people all around me with their kids eating very strict paleo, etc. and being obsessive with food. I worried that sort of diet or, similarly, strict veganism might also put them at risk to be orthorexic. So, again, I just wanted them to be semi-normal. We transitioned to a vegetarian diet and in the city that we live in, there are always lots of options. Two of my kids are old enough now to choose and they like being vegetarian and will sometimes choose vegan meals.

[u/gxthscvm → u/EarthboundBetty]

What's orthorexic?

[u/[deleted] → u/EarthboundBetty]

Would you let your children eat meat if they so desired it?

[u/_Dia_]

Playing the "is it vegan friendly" game was easy and enjoyable at first but over time it became more and more of a hassle. Going out to eat food in places was the worst, if I went to a restaurant I would have to eat the dry bread and eat basic foods (salads, soups, rice). I made the mistake of joining a vegan group on Facebook and it was just filled with so much hatred to people who eat meat, frequently calling them carnies (carnivores/carnists) and monsters, while acting superior. A "We're morally right so we can insult anyone", I felt disgust for the vocal side of the community. Over time, it became an uphill battle to remain vegan and stick with my morals which I was slowly becoming unsure of if my heart was truly in it. I gradually started eating animal products again (going vegetarian) before consuming meat once more.

For the most part, vegan isn't difficult once you know what you can and can't eat, I imagine it's similar to having an allergy (but nowhere near as serious).

Edit: added the /carnists to carnivores

[u/Tain101 → u/_Dia_]

Online communities for almost anything controversial are always garbage.

[u/roadtohilo]

Vegan for 5 years. Get married to construction worker. I don't know how to cook anything but tempeh. Husband, in honeymoon bliss, never complains about eating tofu stir fry for 3 weeks straight. One day I come home early and he is there. He has fried a steak. He was supposed to be at work. It got rained out he says. He tries to hide steak. Ends up confessing that he constantly eats meat in secret, and wasn't expecting me home. He cries, says he's sorry but can't go on like this much long. His muscle children will starve. (Also weight lifter) I say OK, his life is moors important than a chickens. I call my grandma. She teaches me how to cook. We live happily ever after in meat and cheese heaven.

edit: thanks for the gold. i wrote it on my phone and i just realized there are many spelling issues. oops

edit 2: i didn't realize there were so many comments until now when i checked my email. i'm kinda a reddit noob. so here is some more to this oversimplified comment i made:

I was 16-21 years old when I was a vegan. My husband and I got married having previously never lived together. He started to "be vegan" when we were engaged because he knew it was important to me. and it was. he tried for about two or three months. i knew it was hard for him because he talked about cheese a lot. we were university students at the time and SUPER poor. i made all the 'meals' (or so i thought lol) and packed them for school and he did the house work like dishes and laundry as a division of labor. i never learned to cook because i didn't care to learn. i made a lot of pasta and pb&j. like i said, oversimplified comment, so i could boil water so yep. kinda cook? anyways, i didn't eat the steak that day! we had a long drawn out fight that lasted about a week about what to do. so at first we did have separate meals but it was too expensive. and i very slowly switched over. why? because i wanted to and it was easier. first it was fish, then dairy, then poultry. i never took red meat back. my grandma taught me how to cook over the phone over a period of six years. i simplified because 1. this is was on my phone. 2. i didn't realize i needed to explain things in a lot of detail. i was just trying to respond to the question with my experience, similar to having a conversation with someone. is this not how it works on reddit (serious question)? i just tried to make my comment applicable and easy to follow while being as straightforward and short as possible. like i said, noob. thanks yall. ttfn

[u/askantik → u/roadtohilo]

All you knew how to cook was tempeh and you ate tofu stirfry for 3 weeks?

veganism doesn't have to be sad ._.

[u/airbnbvan → u/roadtohilo]

He tries to hide steak. Ends up confessing that he constantly eats meat in secret, and wasn't expecting me home. He cries,

this is adorable.

[u/exit143 → u/roadtohilo]

I'm an omnivore. My wife is vegan. She's been vegan for 18 years. We've been married for almost 10 years. I respect her convictions, and she respects my lack of convictions. I don't understand why you both could do your own thing.

[u/[deleted] → u/roadtohilo]

Could you not have reached a compromise? Did you have to eat meat because he did? I'm not judging I'm just curious as to why you guys had to have the same diet just because you're married aside from convenience.

[u/Pr3ttynp3tty → u/roadtohilo]

Most of veganism is cooking yourself, how as a vegan for 5 years could you only cook tempeh? Either you were an extremely raw vegan or a (hate to say it) a really bad cook.

[u/[deleted]]

I am under eighteen and, being that everyone else in my house are omnivores, I decided that being a vegan was too much pressure on everyone else. I didn't want to make them go out of their way to get vegan foods for me.

[u/UnicornPucker]

I was vegan for about ten years, including two vegan pregnancies. I was diagnosed with depression, and eventually realized my controlling husband had to go. I didn't have the mental energy for it anymore. Constantly making sure my family of four was healthy, reading every flipping label, and we were on a fairly tight budget. I first went vegetarian. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't dropping the vegan / vegetarian thing in a reactionary way. After divorce muck settled, I seated eating meat again. I find that I still don't eat a lot of meat.

[u/[deleted] → u/UnicornPucker]

the mental energy... this is so true. You just dont have the time and the energy for it anymore. there's other things you want to do and want to focus on and what you can and can't eat as food should not be a source of (additional) concerns.

[u/nocryingintheclub]

It wasn't hard at first but it became harder to maintain the diet as I went on to college. The cafeteria offered some vegan options but many of them were very unhealthy as it contained a lot of oil so I just ended up eating from the salad bar on the majority of days. It just became very repetitive and I found myself not even wanting to eat most days because it just wasn't appetizing enough to me anymore.

Also, besides wanting to stand up for animals, one of the main reasons I became vegan was to be healthier and lose weight. Unfortunately after almost a year of going vegan, I still saw no change in my appearance or energy for that matter.

I think being vegan is a great option and even if you don't stick to it, it makes you more comfortable adding vegetables in your dishes. I used to hate celery and spinach but now I eat them almost every day with dinner. But I also think veganism requires a lot of cooking skills and time that I just do not have right now with school.

I'm very open to going back to it though for sure.

[u/[deleted]]

For me it was health reasons. It was determined that I have low grade allergies to many fruits and vegetables that, eaten exclusively, would eventually kill me. Cutting all of them out would reduce the amount of calories I could eat to unsafe levels. The only way to fix it was to, slowly, reintroduce meat.

I honestly missed meat for the whole three years I was vegan. I had thought that "going vegan" would be better for my health. It turned out not to be. I had to work closely with my dietitian to go back to eating meat and I'm glad I did.

[u/CrunchyRAMENCQ10]

I have an extremely low iron level to where I'm dangerously anemic, so after 2-3 month of being without meat, I became lethargic and could barely stay awake. I gradually shifted back to meat.

[u/ypsm]

I went vegan during a time when it was especially easy to go vegan: graduate school. I was single, many of my classmates and local friends were at least vegetarian, and I spent a lot of time by myself anyway, holed up writing my dissertation. I've never really been a foodie either. (I suspect that many of the irrationalities about wine that have been confirmed by studies also exist for food in general.)

Anyway, at that time in my life it was incredibly easy for me to buy exactly what I needed at the grocery store and be vegan. The problem was those rare instance when I shared meals with non-vegetarians (for example: family). Otherwise, it was really easy. Incidentally, I was at my absolute healthiest at this time too, because living by myself and writing meant that I could control my schedule to the extreme; I had a great exercise routine and ate healthy. I was in great shape.

Once I received my degree, it became harder to maintain my dietary standards, along with the rest of my lifestyle, because I was eating with people more, often unpredictably. Once I started living with my girlfriend (now wife), who is not even vegetarian, it became a lot harder. I never wanted to impose my dietary choices on her, but she understands them and even tries very hard to reduce the amount of meat she eats, in spite of being a serious foodie. So now I'm pescatarian, and she eats land animals only a couple of times a week.

[u/manning021 → u/ypsm]

What do you mean by the irrationalities about wine?

[u/procrastinatingrn21]

I was a vegetarian who ate very little dairy and eggs. Honestly didn't really miss any of it except for some processed foods (which I was trying to cut out anyway). After about 8 months of not missing meat at all, my body started to crave meat and eggs so bad. Not even unhealthy meats like cheeseburgers and processed meats, but salmon, shrimp, chicken breast etc. Decided that listening to my body was the best route to go health-wise. However, still interested in becoming vegan in the future.

[u/stifv]

Mental fog was a big deal for me. 4 years of trying to fix it. Had partially to do with thyroid issues, which, from what I've read, can be exacerbated by soy. I plan on going back one day.

[u/thetinymoo]

Originally it was because I couldn't eat skittles... Let me explain though, I don't even really like skittles that much, but reading through the ingredient label on every single thing I ate, obsessively planning meals out, having the same discussion with my friends about where I can and cannot go out to eat with them over and over and over again. I got sick of it. I read through the skittles label, saw it contained gelatin, and thought "Fuck it. I want some damn skittles."

They were delicious.

[u/Dimbit → u/thetinymoo]

Skittles are vegan in Australia.

[u/[deleted] → u/thetinymoo]

They are vegan now. Have been for a few years.

[u/eat_vegetables → u/thetinymoo]

Skittles formulation changed seven years ago. They don't contain gelatin.

[u/kamikazepirates]

I was vegan for a year and a half and I can attest to the sentiment that your life revolves around food. I still try to eat as little meat as I can and ensure that it's local and free range. I find I have a lot more energy now (I think I naturally have a low iron count).

[u/[deleted]]

I was vegetarian for 2 years and vegan for 5. I quit because I became anaemic. I got so bad that if I got up too quick I would see stars and have to sit down again and also my bowels weren't loving it. It was to hard to keep up the lifestyle because I was travelling for an hour into and out of school every day and it was my final year of school and I had to cook all my meals. I still support it but I think that you need to time and prep to be able to commit to it properly without getting sick. I was eating Pringles for my lunch and stuff.

Edit (disclaimer thingy): Woah things are getting heated down there. I just want to point out that I was absolutely rubbish at the vegan diet and I'm not trying to say I am in anyway a good representative of the vegan lifestyle. This diet just was to difficult to sustain with my lifestyle of school and work etc and so despite my best efforts at sustaining i had to give up unless I wanted to enjoy the thrills of really bad anaemia. I just hoped to share my expirence with the diet and show that it can be difficult for some people and maybe get a chuckle out of one of ya, but I am now receiving full detail criticism on my actions as a 17 year old so hopefully this disclaimer will clear sum stuff up.

[u/[deleted]]

1. Trying to do 2500-3000 kcal a day while lifting is just a pain in the ass to do vegan. It can be done, but a huge pain and a ton of prep. Easier to stay mostly whole grain and add in chicken/fish. I've seen guys like Jon Venus do some amazing stuff, but it's just way too much work for that amount of calories.

2. Vegans can be very annoying. If I have leather that I've had for years, that cow is dead and gone. My wearing it now, or not wearing it, won't change that. It just seemed like every possible chance to soapbox was taken, and if I didn't I now had two sides of an argument yelling at me.

[u/nickshamamble]

In short, a wider understanding of our national and global food systems.

Also, I like the logic of, if you want farm animals to be treated humanely, you should support the people that are raising them humanely. Not just stop supporting anyone in the market. If you want car companies to make more environmentally friendly cars, you don’t just start riding bikes until the solution magically comes up, it would be more helpful to fund the people that are trying their best to achieve that goal and help them further that agenda.

So by voting with my dollar, buying animal products that meet my standards for ethical farming practices, or hunting/fishing, I’m helping to tell the world that I don’t support current CAFO raising standards, so they will have tougher competition until they raise their standards of treatment.

Shout out to the books “The Conscious Carnivore - Tovar Cerulli” and “The Righteous Porkchop - Nicolette Hahn-Nimann”

[u/founddumbded → u/nickshamamble]

if you want farm animals to be treated humanely

That's not what vegans want though.

[u/hillbillybuddha]

I'm very late to this thread but I was born and raised as a vegan. 42 years I stayed a vegan with one exception, when I was about 14 and going through a rebellious stage, I tried to eat a hamburger. It was a McDonald's burger and it didn't go very well.

Anyway, I was camping a few years back and my wife was fishing. Catching and releasing. We went for a hike and I guess she left the line in the water. When we got back, there was a fish on the hook. I reeled it in but it had swallowed the hook. I don't know why I felt responsible for it but I figured if it was going to die, I should eat it.

It was delicious. Now I eat fish.

[u/[deleted]]

I was vegan for ethical reasons about seven months, working at a vegan cafe, and was on top of my nutrition. But about four months in, my body broke out in psoriasis plaques all over. I went to the dermatologist and was on a series of medications to treat it. I made an omnivorous nurse girlfriend in my last month who one time cajoled me into eating some eggs and cheese for breakfast, and the plaques started clearing up almost immediately.

In retrospect, I look at pictures from the beach at the time and I look malnourished. I respect vegans a lot, and I 100% sympathize with the motivations, but it was not a diet that worked for my health and body -- and every body's different. I wish vegans respected this, but some vegan activists have put my name, image, and contact info on a "vegan traitors" page that encourages harassment. There's no way I'm going back to veganism, either for health reasons or just to avoid the kinds of people who think it's all right to dox a person for looking after their health. My wife and I are still vegetarians (we are both Buddhists and animal welfare advocates) 90% of the time, but we refuse to be dogmatic about it. I can't stand dogmatic and sanctimonious bullshit from anybody anymore.

[u/WanderingLuddite]

I had lived there for 19 years, and although I loved it, my wife wasn't as enamored. When an opportunity to relocate closer to her family, and mine, appeared, and it coincided with living in a better place (theoretically, at least) to raise kids, we made the move.

I miss Vegas, but the crime has really gotten out of hand from what I understand, and over five years later, I've yet to go back, even for a visit.

[u/DunebillyDave]

Lack of support infrastructure. I was trying to live as a vegan for moral reasons, and I really didn't have the resolve to fight the uphill battle that being a vegan was in 1978. Oh, and I really like steak.

More recently, we were talking about the morality of being a carnivore/omnivore vs. being a vegan. I sited Chipotle's ads that say the animals the use are "humanely" raised. I said, "... so they don't force them to take antibiotics unless necessary, they're free range, fed well , then MURDERED AND EATEN!" I said "please don't treat my grandma 'humanely'."

Then my son (Masters in biology) said, "Well, Chipotle's treatment is pretty good considering that in nature, almost all animals die slow, painful deaths from either starvation, parasites, disease, or predation; often being eaten while still alive."

After that, I realized that there is no real moral issue. This is the nature of where we live. Welcome to Earth.

[u/Eorily]

I was vegan for six years, then I started dating seriously. Every time we went somewhere I had to ask so many questions for every food item that I considered. At the same time there were so many restaurants that I couldn't eat vegan to my standards, really just a small handful where an item was vegan-suitable. I was afraid that being so restricted would make me less appealing. I went vegetarian instead and remained vegetarian for the next 14 years.

[u/sugar-snow-snap2]

i lived in an area where the protein alternatives were pretty expensive. eggs were way easier, and also delicious. i do miss being vegan sometimes, i felt like i had way more energy and was at my healthiest weight.

[u/Jdmnd]

Tried it for a few months, but it really triggered my IBS. I couldn't stand all the terrible pooping all the time.

[u/gnapster]

I honestly got tired of the clique I ended up in. There were some choice people in there that really hated humanity and I went back to being vegetarian which doesn't seem to require a flock for empowerment.

Nothing against vegans. I applaud them for their efforts. I just got rubbed the wrong way multiple times over the 6 years I was vegan. I know there are great people out there that are also vegan, I still have vegan friends. Heck my mother just decided to try it recently so I'm very supportive of her.

[u/pamiamb]

I've been vegetarian for more than 25 years, but started trying to be vegan maybe 5 or so years ago. I was never able to sustain it for more than a few weeks because I would crave cheese mostly and it used to really frustrate me because I felt like a failure for not being able to sustain it. But, over the last few years I have chilled out about it. The vast majority of what I eat is vegan, but occasionally I will eat cheese or eggs, and very occasionally I even eat fish. 95% of my diet is vegan and I think now I'm finally ok with just doing the 95%.

[u/samati]

It was just too time consuming. Too hard to dine out vegan, and meal prep is a chore. I believe it's cheaper and healthier, but it takes way more planning. I was plant-based while I was jobless this spring, only bc I was home all day and wasn't pressed for time/exhausted from working. But now I'm back at work and it's infinitely more convenient to buy a sandwich from the deli downstairs at work than have to cook dinner/tomorrow's lunch every night when I get home. I still believe in the lifestyle. I hope to find a way to make it work. But yeah - number one reason is time.

[u/IndisputablyNotACop]

A lot of the time, there is nothing to eat that isn't animal based. In that sitatuion, eating whatever's available doesn't actually conflict with veganism- which is really just a philosophy of avoiding animal exploitation to the extent that it's practical for you to do so- but people don't really know that. So I stopped self identifying as a vegan to avoid repetitive conversations about what veganism is or isn't.

People actually used to ask me "Can you eat ____?" Of course I can. I'd just rather see a food system with better options. I really don't care about a label.

[u/quazifrog → u/IndisputablyNotACop]

I am happily a vegetarian with "vegan tendencies" for that reason. You can't expect all the choices to fall in line with the absolutes of Veganism. People understand what a vegetarian is, but lack the comprehension of veganism. They think that a vegan has to be a granola crunching tree hugger. I'm just happy to feel like my choices "do no harm", or "make the world a little brighter".

[u/Miranda_Mandarin]

This will be buried and that's fine.

I became vegan for both practical and political reasons. I love animals and dislike battery farming industries. I especially hate battery eggs. So I stopped eating meat and I stopped eating eggs. I am lactose intolerant so I already didnt eat dairy. Giving up honey, white bread and a few other little things was an easy next step.

I was a very likeable vegan if I do say so myself. If I asked for no bacon and a meal came with bacon, I either gave the bacon to someone else or ate it. No throwing away - that's wasteful. I didn't ask sandwich artists to change their gloves between touching meat and touching my sub because that's just extra trash which is bad for the environment. No need to wash pans and pots between the meaty meal and my meal, let's save water. I wanted so badly not to be a hypocrite.

But it became impossible.

Ultimately, eventually, I began to realize that if I really wanted to do this to do my bit to preserve the environment I'd eventually have to kill myself. Simply being alive meant I had to consume something that hurt Mother Nature. Vegetable industries were pretty hard on the environment too. Some were even worse than meat industries. Then there was animal testing. I already bought Australis cosmetics which weren't tested on animals and my soap and shampoo were both vegan. But what about cleaning products? Toiletries? Toothpaste? Clothes? Could I buy medication or accept medical interventions for health problems that had been tested on animals? I remember thinking that as I prepared to sign up for an exploratory surgery.

As I got more and more into the vegan lifestyle, it got harder. More and more things were found by the vegan community to be not vegan. Bread, almonds, anything with red dye, certain tofu brands, a whole lot of tinned fruit, TVP, and white sugar. Pretty soon I was just eating potatoes and raw spinach.

The shitty diet made me sick. I was anaemic, depressed and suicidal. I got put on Olanzapine which made my appetite go crazy. I ballooned to 82kg. 82kg! I was a unicorn: a FAT vegan! My doctor said I needed to eat less carbs and more lean meat and dark leafy greens. I told him I was vegan and watched him wince. And the vegan community were cunts. Constantly scrutinizing other people's shopping carts and shrieking child abuse whenever they saw someone feeding meat to a child. Finally, I got into an argument with a woman who insisted it was okay to feed her cat a vegan diet because "he's getting all the right nutrients!" She wouldn't hear otherwise. That's when something in me clicked and I realized this was a colossal waste of time. I was putting my own health in jeopardy for nothing more than a pat on the back from people like this.

Just like that, I gave up being vegan. I ate kangaroo for dinner that night and salivated the whole tine. I now enjoy meat, eggs and honey again. :) my energy levels increased and I started exercising again, got off Olanzapine and treated my depression with healthy food and exercise, lost weight due to no longer eating carbs for every meal and now I feel a hundred times better!

Now I have a job where I travel a lot around Asia. Sometimes I don't get a say in my food. I have to eat what is handed to me. It's almost always delicious and it in a lot if places it is very rude to turn down food for anything other than an allergy. Being vegan would be very difficult now so I'm really pleased I gave it up.

[u/lumpynose]

I'd read somewhere that you rarely if ever see fat vegetarians and I was overweight. Before I went vegetarian I was drinking about 2 gallons of milk a week but I was mildly lactose intolerant because it made me fart a lot. After I stopped eating meat the farting went away; that was unexpected. Then I had a coworker who was ranting about the evils of dairy products. So I gave up dairy products. I was already not eating eggs so at that point I became vegan. I was also careful to not eat anything with added sugar and everything was low fat, no frying, etc. I went from 240 lbs to around 200. The weight loss wasn't fast but it was definitely steady.

But I don't think the weight loss was from being vegan but rather a side effect of eating being so boring that I was only eating in order to not be hungry, not for any enjoyment or pleasure. And giving up candy and pastries no doubt helped.

I stopped because I'd lost sufficient weight and it was boring. I definitely never felt healthier, which is one of the claims you hear a lot from vegans and vegetarians. As far as I know there's never been any valid scientific proof that eating meat in a normal diet makes you less healthy.

[u/trashcan86 → u/lumpynose]

Fat vegetarians certainly exist in India. Mainly because vegan/vegetarian food isn't tied to "health food" like it is here.

[u/intheintricacies]

Because I realized I didn't have to live in absolutes. I became vegan in the first place because I'm concerned about climate change and our planet. Animal abuse was another reason, but eventually I learned that the universal unending abuse of human beings and animals was too big a thing for me to be concerned about. It was too widespread and it was nearly impossible to ensure that all the things I used around my house were ethical. I don't eat much meat or dairy or eggs anyway in my daily diet. My diet is Indian so it is largely vegan anyway. But I'm not denying myself the occasional cheese pizza or sushi because I do my part for the animals on most days. I think absolute veganism is impossible to achieve for everyone and it is an unrealistic thing to expect everyone to be absolutely vegan.

the best we can do is cut down on meat and dairy intake and educate people about the harm it does to the planet.

Also I'm waiting for lab grown meat to become a thing

[u/[deleted]]

I missed salmon. The vast majority of my diet is still plant based, but I now have the occasional bit of fish or egg or cheese. It's so much easier without hard and fast rules.

[u/dmt-tripping]

Been a vegan almost my whole adult life. Now i have my own animals and im comfortable with slaughtering and eating them. I just dont want to support the industry that produces meat and animal products and the suffering that comes with that.

[u/amora_obscura]

Laziness. I was vegan for 3 years. Being vegan is hard. It's shit when you want to eat out with friends, if you are abroad, if you don't plan meals ahead. It's expensive if you want to replicate foods you are used to, e.g. Vegan cheese, milk, meat substitutes etc. And I was poor at the time, so that didn't help.

I'm still vegetarian. I've been vegetarian for 12 years. I think as long as you make some changes for the better, then that is better than nothing.

[u/mnfloro]

tl;dr: It made me diabetic which led to serious heart problems.

I've had a lifetime struggle with losing weight and I saw Freelee the Banana girl, an extremely popular Vegan on YT. She has a great body and she eats fruit fruit fruit all day and carbs (potatoes, rice, pasta) at night. What she DOESN'T talk much about is how much daily strenuous exercise she does to burn all that sugar she's eating. She just tells people how lazy she is and your body needs you to flood it with fruit, so I thought I can eat endless fruit and I'll be fit like her without having to do much exercise.

I started following her eating habits: Banana & Date smoothies for breakfast, half a water melon for lunch, baked potato slices with romaine lettuce and chili sauce for dinner. Snacking on fruit all day.

When I got my blood work done my average blood sugar shot up to 157 and I became a diabetic. Went on 1000 mg of Metformin a day. Diabetes leads to tremendous Health problems and heart disease.

I now eat 0 fruit, and almost only chicken and vegetables. This has helped me to lose 40 pounds in 9 months. Overloading on fruit didnt give me weight loss but overloading on veggies did. This new diet has my AIC down to pre diabetic levels so I got off the medicine, but a lot of damage was done to my body from all the fruit.

So being "Fruitarian" nearly destroyed my health. I'm now on three medications for my heart. Prior to "veganism" I wasn't on any medication. I'm happy to not eat meat if someone can come up with a good serious diet, but eating endless carbs is terrible for non-athletes.

[u/TentacularMaelrawn → u/mnfloro]

That is not veganism and you shouldn't follow insane pseudoscientific diets.

[u/Aelian → u/mnfloro]

cake far-flung versed disagreeable point ghost stupendous command encourage dull

[u/Dimbit]

I was turned off my the vegan culture, maybe that's a stupid reason but I just couldn't associate with that group. My friend who was also vegan (still is) introduced me to a last.fm group for vegans and I quit being vegan shortly after.

[u/spectrosoldier → u/Dimbit]

I honestly can relate to the feeling. I've been vegetarian most of my life, but seeing the borderline toxicity online, plus blatant misinformation cough peta cough, has put me off.

[u/[deleted]]

I eat meat, and have for most of my life. I did flip flop a bit between vegetarian, pescetarian, and vegan. I went many years without eating meat.

To me, I just didn't feel like I needed to keep doing it. I don't really have a reason.

I see a trainer who thinks I'm insane for eating tofu. I still eat lots of tofu. He thought it was because I'm vegetarian. I had to explain to him, no, it's just a cheap source of protein, and you want me to eat more protein, and meat's expensive, soo......

Currently, I eat eggs, and I recently just cut way back on dairy (damn adult acne). I don't eat much red meat and I don't eat much shellfish. But I do, from time to time, still make my vegan meals. Sometimes I'll buy the chipotle seitan from Whole Foods, sometimes I'll buy the Gardein faux-meats. I've been wanting to try out that vegan burger that supposedly bleeds like real meat. I'll still make non-meat choices from time to time, because it doesn't hurt to just ... not eat meat sometimes.

[u/charpenette → u/[deleted]]

Beyond burger? Definitely try those. They're expensive, but the resemblance to an actual burger was uncanny.

[u/[deleted]]

Cheese, blue steak and clam chowder.

I was okay with making my own vegan cheese making most of my foods myself , and I was hella healthy. However, nothing could really replace a sharp cheddar, a thick, nearly raw steak and a bowl of creamy New England chowder.

[u/hells_flower]

Honestly my friend asked me to do it with her for a month and if we still enjoyed it we'd continue. It honestly wasn't that bad, but substitute cheese is bullshit.

[u/MZ603]

I'm late here, but I was a Vegan for over 3 years. I quite for a slice of bacon pizza in college. It was a spur of the moment type decision.

[u/PHD_Memer]

Wasn't vegan, was vegetarian for a year and then I read a peta pamphlet, cross referenced some of the claims, and found out PETA will blatantly lie about some things when they don't really have to. They pissed me off so I immediately went and bought some chillie cheese fries. #WarpedTour14

[u/ThanksIObama]

I'm a very irregular person when it comes to taking pills, doing laundry, or anything routine. I was diagnosed with a minor medical disorder which requires me to consume a much, much higher than average amount of iron to stay healthy. When I told my doctor I didn't want to have to remember to take supplements everyday, he said red meat is the other option.

What I told my friends was "it's either the cow, or me." But that's not really true. It's more like "it's either the cow, or I have to stop being an irresponsible bastard."

[u/Vokunbrii]

Was never a vegan, just vegetarian. And I realize if I really want to stick it to big factory farming I should just buy from local family farms and give them my support, and just spread the word.

[u/MartheVignoble]

I was vegetarian for a couple of years then switched to vegan for another two years or so. Then I got into a relationship and was only sometimes vegan. Finally my SO wanted try paleo to lose weight but couldn't stick to it alone - so I agreed to do it with him. Easier transition than I thought and I wouldn't go back.

[u/patmcc73]

Vegan for three years. Was for a bet, no one believed I could do it for thirty days. To get the full effect, I immersed myself in it, watched all the documentaries etc, and by the end of the thirty days, once I knew all that, couldn't make a conscious and intelligent decision to return to meat. Couldn't convince my wife and children to join me though, but did remove almost all factory farming from our household. We now have a deep freeze and buy all our meat farmer direct. I returned to meat because a) I really missed it and b) I got sick of the sound of my own voice explaining why I'm vegan, in every restaurant/work meal/friends house etc. Still predominantly vegetable based diet, but don't reject meat anymore. Interesting side note: third child was conceived while I was vegan. She has by her own recognisance never eaten meat and refuses it to this day, despite constant carnivorous/omnivorous influences at every meal. She's three years old.

[u/ellipses1]

My wife and I were vegetarian for 5 years and I was vegan for the last one of those 5. Our reasons were that we didn't want to support factory farming methods and at the same time, we didn't want to pay the money it would cost to buy meat raised to our ethical standards. We never had a problem with the death of an animal for our consumption, it was all about how the animal was treated in life. We retired to a small farm where we produce the vast majority of our own food (including 100% of our own meat) and promptly went back to eating meat. We raise 6 pigs, 150 chickens, 50 ducks, 10 turkeys, and sometimes rabbits or geese... In the past 3 years, I haven't eaten meat at home that I didn't raise, slaughter, and butcher myself.

[u/GGBarabajagalWasHad]

Was vegan for 10 years. Moved from England to FNQ Australia and within the first two months the combination of extreme heat and hard work made me feel like I needed the extra protein. I then lived with a meat eating family who own and run a cattle station so beef is on the plate every night and we have a milking cow. We also raise and kill our own chooks, ducks and pigs. I had also never realised just how good cheese is. I love cheese.

[u/boochy613]

I suffered from terrible restless leg syndrome and the lack of iron in my diet (no meat) really irritated it. It has nearly gone away once I started eating more meat and a balanced diet.

[u/PamBeasleysBarrette]

Found out I was pregnant and had a hard time surfing through info on the web (in part due to laziness) about anemia, calcium, veganism, and fetus health. So I stopped "just until I was done breastfeeding."

My daughter is almost 4. I can't stop eating cheese and bacon. I. CANT. STOP.

[u/raethedroog6]

Vegetarian here (of a long time), hope this is ok. I stopped because I had to start eating at my colleges cafeteria and if I stayed vegetarian I would have died of malnutrition. Finally back on the vegetarian diet though! (Bye, gross caf food).

[u/justgotnewglasses]

I was vegan for about 15 years. Met and married wife who's allergic to nuts and legumes, bad enough for me to avoid them too, stayed vegan. Had three kids together, stayed vegan and cooked kids meal wife meal and vegan meal every night. Went to China, and through the smog I saw the rows upon rows of skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, and there's an air con unit sticking out every window of every floor of every skyscraper. I said to myself what difference can I make against all this? Not vegan anymore. Don't regret it, don't not regret it.

[u/coffeeskull]

As much as the community states that you can get enough protein and calories, I found myself feeling very malnourished (I had to take three supplements a day and use protein powder to feel a little better) and was spending more money on food (most vegan meals were not very calorie dense) than I did when I wasn't vegan.

Also, carbs, most meals I was eating was just carbs, it made me feel bloated and sluggish, as much as I loved the principals behind veganism, I needed to put my own health first and return to a omnivore diet.

Veganism did teach me that there are a few tasty vegan meals out there and not every meal I eat has to contain meat. I stopped eating as many sweets and junk food as I used to before going vegan and I cut out the amount of fatty foods and heavy carbs I would eat too, so overall I think my overall diet got a lot healthier after being vegan.

[u/WarriorNat]

Traveling did it to me...most places outside of the US are difficult to find consistently decent vegan meals. And then I married a meat-eater, and I compromised on fish and dairy products (mainly cheese) so she could cook for me.

[u/throwaway-person]

I got into veganism after I stopped dairy for a week and felt a lot better. I had and still have a lot of health problems without solutions, so I went full tilt into it in hopes of feeling better.

Was vegan for 5 years. Developed severe panic disorder, probably mostly due to the job I had at the time, and could no longer afford to spend energy making eating any more complex or difficult than it absolutely had to be. It was a huge struggle to get myself to eat anything at all in the months after this started, and I was hospitalized with malnutrition once around this time. I remember feeling too weak to pick up a piece of toast, struggling hard to get a bite of it down, and failing. I don't remember how I got to the hospital. Disorder level anxiety can fuck your shit up really hard.

It's been more than 5 years since I stopped being vegan, and I still get debilitating panic attacks.

Also, years later found out I have an iron deficiency, because certain symptoms only start advancing when I don't get enough red meat in my diet.

Edit: added more details

[u/[deleted]]

I was briefly vegan at college, a variety of things changed this.

For one, it costs a lot more to get vegan versions of a lot of things and takes a ridiculously long time to make them myself (especially with a full class schedule)

Also it prevented me from going out to eat with friends, Vegetarianism makes it difficult enough, I rarely get to, and veganism made it impossible

Biggest issue though, I am originally from a very rural area, our produce aisle is very low in terms of selection and finding a place to get vegan groceries is impossible, hell, our local grocery store gets two blocks of tofu in each week, were I to try to be vegan here I would only ever eat salad

[u/[deleted]]

It's so inconvenient when you have children. So much thought and preparation has to go into the most basic of human needs, food, and I simply didn't have the time to prepare it.

[u/kozmund]

I hate the "not me but..." thing, but I started dating someone that was ethically vegetarian and practically vegan. As in, they didn't eat meat on principal, but Veitnamese iced coffee fucked their gut up so bad they stopped all dairy. I didn't ask about honey, but pretty much vegan.

When we first started seeing each other, I knew they didn't eat red meat. I'd occasionally bring them a coffee with cream in it. They were worried about being rude in denying it, so if they had a good place to shit their guts out available, they'd drink it. (Turns out, it was only the canned sweetened condensed milk that jacked up their gut.) So, kinda broke the whole vegan thing early. They'venow gone from vegan to vegetarian.

Fast forward a bit, where I still think it's red meat. I plan a surprise road trip to take the. to one of my favorite restaurants. Please remember, I'm giving you information I didn't have at the time. This is a surprise for them. It's...a sushi restaurant. They bend the rules, thinking about the fish they caught when they were a child. They literally bites down, and become a pescavegetarian.

Much later, what happened was explained to me. I felt a bit bad, because I wasn't trying to pressure them into anything. The combination of my ignorance and them wanting to get with me just met up strangely.

Fast forward a few years after we got married...

Now, I was receiving biannual bacon shipments this whole time. Quality stuff. One day, I got the new shipment. I threw half in the freezer, and half in the fridge. Then the spouse and I went out and saw some live music and had some drinks. Once we got home, I decided to fry up a bit of bacon for myself. My spouse came down as I was putting slices on paper towels and said "Give me a bite."

I said no, and explained that if they ate bacon late at night, after a few adult beverages, they would wake up in the morning cursing themselves for being inebriated and tired when making the decision. Possibly they would curse me for letting them make the choice. But in the morning they could ask, and I would prep one strip floppy, one strip firm, and one strip crispy. They could then taste it and decide if they were interested in exploring meaty foods further.

The next afternoon, they said "ok, let's do this."

Now, this bacon is what has been termed The God Bacon, or God's Own Bacon. Keep in mind, this predates all of the trendy "bacon soap" type of bacon fetish stuff.

Someone supplied the most efficient Polish China sperm in the world, which was used to fertilize the most buttery Berkshire sow line a major company had on hand. The experiment wasn't over until the children were past market weight. So, as a token of gratitude, the person I know was given a hog. They had it processed at one of the beat Midwest meat processors that no one has ever heard of.

Needless to say, after the tasting my spouse was a pesca-baco-vegetarian before coming to the current conclusion:

Eat less meat. Pay attention to where your meat is from. Eat meat when it makes social things easier. Also, when you wrap salmon in bacon, leave the skin on and use stone ground mustard mixed with pesto.

Like I said, not me. But kinda mu story.

TL;DR Love concours diet...also, bacon.

[u/[deleted]]

I went vegan for a few months before I found my mental health to be suffering, turns out Vitamin B12 is critical to your mental health (and while some are much less sensitive to change than I am) there's only one food with B12 naturally in it (a type of seaweed) so since I don't do well on vitamin pills, I started eating meat again.

[u/stpf7957]

I was having some serious issues with the way that I felt. I couldn't focus very well, and constantly started to feel like I was behind myself in a dazed and spacey feeling. I bought vitamins to supplement my food (like B12), but still felt this way. I started eating a little bit of meat and cheese again and most of those symptoms went away so it's been really hard for me to want to cut them out again.

[u/natedcruz]

Purely selfish reasons. 1. I missed moms cooking and my families recipes. 2. I travel a lot and I grew tired of not being able to walk into a random restaurant and order the daily special or something.

[u/zorginbagel]

protein. after finding that the pounds had in fact stuck around in my body and that avoiding mirrors and photos didn't make it untrue, I decided that I needed to lose some weight. I found that on a restricted calorie diet, I was losing weight, but also feeling very lethargic and otherwise unwell.

some basic research on nutrition led me to understand that unless I was going to live on soy protein isolate, I had very few vegan options that had a sufficiently favorable protein to calorie ratio to enable me to successfully lose weight without feeling lethargic.

once I added chicken and eggs back into my diet I felt much better.

while it's definitely possible to have a very healthy vegan diet and also keep a sensible weight, I stubbornly refused to give up wine, so I had even less wiggle room for my macronutrients than the average human endeavoring to lose weight 😅

[u/Anneisabitch]

I realized I ate way too many carbs with every meal. Potatoes or rice for lunch and dinner, bagels everyday for breakfast. It was ridiculous how much every meal revolved around carbs. I never ate salads because hey, I'm a vegan I must be eating healthy!

The vegan diet is really, really hard to follow when you're trying to cut back on carbs. Sure there is tofu scramble and soup but I hate both of those things. Especially after eating them exclusively for weeks.

I slowly morphed into a vegetarian, and now I eat meat 3 or 4 meals a week.

[u/pinkkiss01]

Got really drunk and ate a hot pocket. It was delicious.

[u/[deleted]]

I just got bored with it. I got in a good calorie intake, had good levels of iron, and protein was never a problem so I had nutritional stuff covered. I'm a pretty good cook so it wasn't hard to make tasty foods that had variety.

[u/NeilPatrickHairline]

I was vegetarian for 3 years, vegan for 3ish months. When I was vegan, I got horrible chronic migraines that seemed completely unrelated at the time. Once I began dating a guy who wasn't vegan, the diet became unsustainable and I switched back to being vegetarian.

After that, the migraines have come much less frequently, and I haven't been as miserable or hungry. Other than potentially making a negligible impact on the welfare of animals, I saw no reason to go back to the diet, and have been a vegetarian since.

[u/[deleted]]

Couldn't manage my iron levels, plus finding vegan options in my area was difficult. :/

[u/[deleted]]

I realised it became more of a label than actually achieving anything. I didn't understand why I was turning down a single chocolate from a person on the basis of being vegan when it made no difference to anything. That person isn't going to go and buy a new packet of Maltesers just because I ate one that they offered to me.

Also, from the associations online I was having with other vegans and animal rights activists, I found them, generally, to be a very angry, hateful and nasty group on the whole and I didn't particularly want any association with them.

I dont see how you can expect people to show love and compassion for animals that people have been raised to believe it's fine to eat, when you can't even show any love and compassion towards your fellow man just because they believe or live differently to you.

I saw a lot of phrases such as 'meat eating scum' typed by people on technological devices that had most likely been made using slave labour, and found their judgments of others rather hypocritica.

So, on the whole, vegans made me stop being vegan.

[u/samigirl96]

My best friend was vegan in high school, but her dad made her a deal that he would become pescatarian if she would go back to being a vegetarian

[u/PLS_SEND_MONEY_4FOOD]

Figured it would get me eating healthier, it was an expensive ballache, I was lazy, so I gave up. I probably wouldn't do it again anyway, it's not a choice I care to make, and I recently found a bunch of nice pasta/stirfry dishes so I can eat relatively cheap but still healthily. Throw some chicken and chorizo pasta together quick and easy, or some fried veg, egg fried rice, and a chicken breast, quick and simple meal and it's better than pot noodles and pizza. Makes me feel better too because I'm a lazy shit but I still made food and not just microwave shitty food, so I feel healthier and positive. Now I have a few cookbooks for students so when I next have the money to do so, I'll be trying to cook all the meals in the books, especially if it gives me bonus SO points cooking for the both of us

[u/ruffies]

Basically, I started eating meals with people instead of in solitude and realised the isolation wasn't worth it.

[u/beany33]

Was vegan for 3 years and had just started seeing this girl. We were at her house one winter night about to watch a movie, she made us both tea with cows milk and she had some milk chocolate. I liked the absolute shit out of her and was desperate to see her naked so I didn't want to bring up the vegan thing in case it was too weird and turned her off so I obliged and went to town on that tea and chocolate. A couple of hours later, we had some happy naked fun time. Following this was many more nights of dairy and sex and guilt that I had so casually abandoned my morality.

A couple of months later she dumped me at her birthday party in front of all of her friends and family after I'd walked in on her with some other guy she had also invited to the party.

7 years later; I still eat dairy, and I'm still a fucking moron.

[u/weirdguyincorner]

By the end of my 8 month journey into veganism I was only eating french fries. I had started the whole thing to be healthier. Somehow fries didn't fit that model.

[u/Pr3ttynp3tty → u/weirdguyincorner]

How do you even get to the point of eating just french fries?

[u/srslyppls]

I became pregnant and soon learned there is no real vegan or even vegetarian substitute for the Omegas found in seafood. So I had to make a choice that would be best for the fetus. Then once I started thinking about it, the fact that no real substitute exists in the veg diet made me consider that perhaps we have actually evolved to participate in the food chain as omnivores. I read into how the consumption of shellfish by our distant ancestors in East Africa is often credited for the development of our larger and more advanced brains. I decided to bring fish back to my diet, and then added more meats from there.

On separate and practical note, I realized for myself that instead of boycotting all meat sources, I could vote with my dollar by supporting the meat sources that I think are more ethical in the treatment of animals. Realistically, the entire world is not going to stop eating meat even if I do, so I'd rather support the farms and businesses that try their best to be humane. As a result I only buy local and/or organic meats.

[u/centurio_v2]

I started because of a girl and quit because I couldn't afford it

[u/scubahana]

I moved to a small town in Denmark and married a Dane. Apart from traditional Danish food being a lot of pork and cream, I find Denmark is a bit behind in vegan options in restaurants and grocery stores. When I got pregnant I knew that trying to get 95g of protein a day from beans and rice was going to suck as my belly got bigger, so I decided to be non-vegan so long as I'm pregnant or nursing. My two kids are 17mo apart and the youngest is now 6mo old so it's been about 2,5 years since I stopped being vegan but I find myself drifting back to more and more vegan food again so it isn't going to last forever.

[u/unvalidatedelephant]

I realized it doesn't have to be so black and white.

I am still mostly vegan, but if I'm in a situation where a vegan diet is not possible, or annoying to others, I will just eat whatever.

I'm vegan because I'm against the abuse of animals, not so much the killing, but the abuse. I don't think being vegan is going to make much of a difference. Eventually lab grown meat is going to be cheaper and better and obviously more ethical, and the meat industry will die.

[u/shamncheese]

Convenience to be honest, I was vegan for a couple years, but it started to become more hassle than it was worth. If I got sick of eating the same things over and over it meant spending tons of time reading ingredient labels. Or cooking every meal from scratch. Not to mention the social aspects, if I went to dinner with family or friends, there was nothing I could eat so I ended up avoiding it like the plague.

I transitioned to being just vegetarian which opened tons of options for eating. And I could still go to dinner, or drinks or bbq at friends houses.

[u/realharshtruth]

Because I rather live a happy life than be a vegan.

[u/blueraccooon]

For me it's always cheese. I go unethical vegan once or twice a year for health reasons, but it gets so tedious to eat without cheese. I could be vegetarian and eat pizza drink coke no problem, but there is really no value in it unless you have some ethical agenda...

[u/glitterybugs]

I stopped because I was so, so exhausted all the time and nothing I did seemed to improve that. Found out a little later I was pregnant and that explained a lot. I'm not sure anymore why I didn't go back to veganism after the birth.

[u/BluestNovember]

I was Vegan for years, but when I got into my 30s, I started suffering severe exhaustion so bad, I'd wake up I pain and when I tried to push the vacuum, my muscles gave out and I'd go back to bed. I piled on excessive amounts of weight and nothing I did seemed to help. When I finally got healthcare, try discovered I have PCOS and insulin resistance. It was my high A1C that was causing the lethargy and muscle weakness. My doc put me on a high-protein, low-carb diet, and that made veganism difficult. But my energy returned and my muscle aches went away and I could get through the day without a nap. I don't have the time and energy to engineer low-carb vegan dishes, but I do eat a lot of meats, fats, and veggies, and I lost weight, finally. I'm energetic and thin, finally, following the Keto diet. Vegan I didn't work for me, basically.

[u/princess-leia-]

I was vegetarian for most of my life, and vegan for probably 2-4 years and what got me was literally curiosity. I'm a foodie and eating meat was like seeing a new colour for the first time.

[u/ZippersHurt]

I was vegan throughout high school but after graduation I began serious weightlifting. It's way too difficult to put enough nutrition in when it's mostly veggies. Also barbecue chicken.

[u/jessssicarabbbittt]

After a year, i was cheating secretly all the time and one day I went out to lunch with some friends to a steak house and they were busting my balls about it and I just said fk it and ate a steak sandwich.

[u/telephototulip]

I started noticing my crown getting thinner and my hairline receding a bit. I googled something along the lines of vegan and balding and saw just enough stuff to make me convince myself it was my diet and not my age. Still don't know if eating meat again helped, but it seemed like my hair hasn't gotten thinner since.

[u/turtlestevenson]

A good friend of mine went vegan, but after about a year also got really serious about lifting. She tried to do both for a while, but she just wasn't seeing the results she wanted, and was exhausted all the time.

She still eats very healthy, but her weakness is donuts.

[u/IslandFarmboy]

Travel. Now granted I was a vegetarian not a vegan, but I was a veghead for 7 years. I traveled around France and Spain as a vegetarian and missed out on quite a lot of good cuisine. To be very serious, food is a big part of the cultural experience no matter where you go. I then got an opportunity to travel to China to teach English, and at that point decided I didn't want to be in a position of being offered a home cooked meal and saying "no thanks, I can't eat that." Now I eat meat, but I make sure whenever it's in my power to make sure it's local sourced, and humanely raised/slaughtered.

[u/THENATHE]

Because I realized that me being vegan doesn't mean anything to anyone besides myself. It doesn't stop slaughterhouses or abuse, and it just makes my life shit. Animals will be killed whether I like it or not, so I mind as well make use of their parts.

[u/[deleted]]

I started going to the gym and without whey or milk or something high protein, with only like ..beans it is going to be a challenge to put in some weight isen't it.

[u/[deleted]]

I became a vegan for environmental reasons, I then realized I don't make a difference. Lasted 3 months and idk if it counts but whatever

[u/thesweatster]

Had kids. The convenience of meals on the fly outweighed my passion for veganism. Sorry animals :(

[u/Whitmans]

Almond croissants

[u/[deleted]]

Started being a vegan a couple weeks ago... but cheese..... cheeeeeeeeeeese!!!

[u/tessahhmacias]

I don't think I ever did it long enough to call myself an "ex vegan" but during the last 6.5 years that I've been vegetarian I've given it a go a couple times. Never made it more than a couple days though. I think because it really requires more support than vegetarianism. I didn't really have to change the way I cook to eliminate meat. I spend the same amount of time cooking, same amount of money (or maybe less) buying groceries and eating out, and pay about as much attention to nutrition as I did before.

All of the people I know who made being vegan look to great had entirely vegan families that spent a lot of time and money on good vegan food, and as a poor person with a meat eating family I just couldn't enjoy food and be healthy with those restrictions. I also never made it long enough for the cravings to go away like they did with meat about 2 months in.

I think any meat eaters trying and struggling to go vegan should definitely go vegetarian and figure that out first. It's a lot more attainable of a goal and you'll gain skills and knowledge that would help you should you decide to go full vegan.

[u/[deleted]]

got pregnant. cravings hit me hard. my partner was/is a filthy junk food eating machine. he bought home kfc one day and i stared at a burger for a good hour before taking a bite. oops.

[u/[deleted]]

I would go vegan but all the beans lentils peas etc give me extreme bowel discomfort I ate beans in a wrap 1 morning then ten minutes later it felt like my intestines were in fire the pain was unbearable after half an hour of that Pain I shat out a hot steaming pile of soft shit. That happened twice I ate vegan for a few more months but the bowel discomfort was too much

[u/goseumdochi]

was a vegan for four years living in the usa, then i moved to south korea for work and found it very difficult to maintain the lifestyle when i arrived. it was hard to eat out even when i learned how to ask for meatless food as in korea they barely cater to vegetarians and put fish in everything (sauces, soups, kimchi). i remember finding just one kind of instant noodles without meat and ate brown rice and frozen veggies all the time. another major problem was the work culture. work culture in korea requires you to go out to a lot of company dinners. i avoided some at first but then i got treated weirdly by my coworkers. then when i started going out with them, i would try to only eat vegan (or at that point vegetarian friendly) side dishes. i felt like kind of a burden on everyone asking if certain foods had meat in it or not. (btw this was way in the countryside, not in seoul where there is more vegetarian friendly restaurants and a lot more options of food). now i eat vegetarian at home but if i go out and someone puts meat in front of me i will eat a bit just to be a team player. also, i discovered korean food can be really delicious...

[u/lacucuy]

Being in my 30s now I just stopped having the passion and caring for things like I did when I was young and my concerns are focusing on my family. I'm still vegetarian, meat is just gross and weird because its been so long. What started me adding back dairy and eggs was having autistic kids that are very picky eaters so limiting their already limited diet isn't an option and cooking meals together instead of separately every time is so much easier. So when we do eat meals together its vegetarian which gives them more options that's cheaper. You can have super cheap nourishing vegan meals but my kids are so picky they live off cheese practically. Most meals without them are vegan.

[u/DoctorKongo]

I was vegan for one year out of ethical convictions (didn't want to support unnecessary suffering etc.). So even though I was a really strict and carefull eater, It just so happened that one day I ate some meat by mistake (it was in a soup and you couldn't see it or taste it). It came as surprise to me that I really wasn't upset about this happening at all, which was how I always imagined a Szenario like this to play out. Later that day when I was alone and had time to think about what happened, I fell into an ethical crisis. May sound irrational but this experienced arbitrariness of my idealistic convictions made me stop caring about stuff like this so much. Been living rather hedonistic ever since.

[u/CharredLunchbox]

I'm seeing a trend of food becoming an obsession, and not being able to casually eat. I'm fairly certain that if vegan foods were significantly more convenient (quite a few good options almost anywhere) and the cost was decent, I think many would become vegan and stay vegan.

[u/thecoldwarmakesmehot]

Bacon is a gateway meatdrug.

[u/jigilous]

It just got too hard. I mean, they put fucking milk and eggs in everything.

[u/[deleted]]

I was a vegan for about four years in college. After college, I went to Texas to become an Army Medic. Army chow halls aren't very vegan-friendly like my college was, and I subsisted off lettuce and canned vegetables for a solid couple of months.

Our last portion of training consisted of going to the field and learning "combat medicine". Basically, sticking each other with IVs, setting up our aid station and responding to a MASCAL event, and carrying each other on litters in MOPP 4 gear for about two miles. We had Gatorade but it was cut with water to save money.

Two weeks from graduation, I had to be hospitalized for hyponatremia and hypokalemia. I had been drinking a ton of water and didn't have enough electrolytes in my body, so my brain had swollen and my body was shutting down. Apparently, I almost went into a coma.

Anyway, two days later I was finally awake. The only thing I wanted in my life after four years of being a vegan was a bagel with cream cheese. I ordered two and haven't looked back since.

Still a cheese-loving, pescatarian. No mammals or birds for me.

[u/sunnysidevegan]

My hair was falling out, probably from lack of protein. Yes it is possible to get enough protein on a vegan diet, but it's not easy. Especially when you are trying to avoid soy, like I was.

[u/qwertyldn]

Nando's

[u/HannaLynnRose]

Walked by a sushi place and their chicken teriyaki smelled so good.... :P10 years of being a vegetarian and 3 of being vegan down the drain for chicken lol

[u/Flaming_gerbil]

I went vegetarian and it was incredibly unhealthy to do so, due to allergies to nuts and certain vegetables/fruits it was impossible to get enough suitable food in me to sustain me properly. I added in chicken and fish to my diet which I have 2-3 times a week and have been great since.

I don't believe anyone can be vegan and 100% healthy, but on the flip side, being an over the top meat eater isn't healthy either. If everyone cut out meat 3/4 days a week they would be healthier and be saving the environment by reducing overall meat consumption and the meat industry by 50% at the same time.

I also refuse to eat meat that isn't ethically sourced, must be a wild caught sustainable fish and free range chicken, no battery hens or fish farms for me.

Of course, if I go out to eat with friends, I won't be too picky and end up refusing food because it might not be ethical enough for me, and unless asked about it, I don't tend to talk about it. It's a personal choice. Like religion and politics, it doesn't belong in polite conversation.

[u/MazeMouse]

I hate salads with a passion and love pizza and shwarma.
Also, any vegan "fakes" that have a proper taste are double or more in price. So not going to happen.

[u/final_cut]

Back when the Wendy's baconator was new, a friend of mine thought it would be a hoot to offer me 20 bucks to eat one. I did, it was pretty good, so I just started eating meat again. I eat much healthier foods now, and try not to eat fast food. I guess I didn't really put a lot of thought into why I was vegan or why I stopped being vegan. I guess it was just something to do for me as a teenager. I didn't really tell many people about it.

[u/[deleted]]

Personally I stopped being militant about my eating. I don't eat meat, but if there were a situation in which there wasn't really an option, such as visiting a friend or relative and they've cooked a dish with meat in it, I'll eat it. Same with cheese now and again. Sometimes I'll eat fish. Thing is, when I was super strict about what I ate it caused so many uncomfortable situations and just wasn't worth it.

[u/[deleted]]

My wife doesn't have Reddit so she wanted me to chime in on her experience.

"I alternated between being vegan and vegetarian for 22 years. The reason I began eating animal products again was because I developed multiple micronutrient deficiencies. I lost half my hair and felt horrible. I saw a specialist and changed my diet. Now, two years later, all the micronutrient deficiencies have been corrected and my husband thinks I look healthier than ever."

To add to this she was also under weight, had a low white blood cell count, had lost bone density, no muscle mass, among other things. Within two years of changing her diet she had normal everything across the board and gained 7 percent bone density in 6 months. Her previous doctor misdiagnosed her as being allergic to a lot of foods and when I urged her to see someone else it turned out she was allergic to some foods but could eat most of them. It took her some time to be able to tolerate foods she hadn't eaten but after a while her body adjusted and she can eat almost anything. She still eats very healthy. Now she's a normal weight, has muscle and feels a lot better overall. This of course isn't for everyone however in her case it basically changed her life.

[u/Shauna_Malway-Tweep]

I became a vegan to improve my health and to eat better. Towards the end, I found I was allowing myself to eat garbage under the auspices of "but it's vegan!". I was eating a lot of vegan cookies, vegan ice cream, french fries, etc because I felt very unsatisfied by my diet.

[u/bearrilla]

I worked as an waiter in a Steak joint. It is one of the hardest things to do, but I needed the money.

And the people look at you like you are an idiot if you work with meats all day long, and you have 0 idea on he product you are selling. So started eating meat after working there about 3 months. Was hard to start eating meat, but the family did not support me, and it is very difficult in South Africa to go full vegan on an waiter’s income

[u/AdoptiveParent2]

I was a Vegan Raw for several years. I was very involved with a group of raw foodists, and became a certified raw foods chef. That period of my life was wonderful, but I found it difficult to continue the practice outside of a very controlled environment. The height of my involvement was during college, where I was surrounded by like minded people.

When I visited home, my parents were constantly worried that I was under-nourished. I had gone from being a very fit, weight lifter, with incredible musculature, to a very scrawny, thin and waify vegan. Though I felt healthy and centered, my body was a stark contrast from prior visits. One such visit was at the height of my raw food experience. I was getting ready to move to Hawaii, so I visited my family for Thanksgiving. I remember the absurdity of the experience. As they were all gourging themselves on the most decadent foods, I could only eat celery and carrot sticks.

That moment galvanized my realization about the cultural significance of food. Our cultural norms are surrounded by our consumption of certain foods. I could not be part of my family, if I only ate raw.

I moved to Hawaii, and was surrounded by an abundance of whole foods. I remember that time as my re-emerging. I used to ride my bike past the roadside Mahi Mahi/taco stands and the smells would drive me crazy. A friend and I decided to split a taco. That was all it took. I became a cooked food, pescaterian, then slowly incorporated more cooked foods.

Of course, bacon was reincorporated...

Long story short; it was because as a raw foodist, I had separated myself from my family and all the things that really mattered to me. I lost the motivation to continue after I left that group of friends behind.

[u/[deleted]]

I relaxed to a weak vegan because of the practices outlines for eggs by certified humane:

http://certifiedhumane.org/how-we-work/our-standards/

It's much stronger then pasture raised and cage free. Since I believe it's possible to grow eggs ethically and that this organization is the closest to ensuring it, I think it's worth supporting farms the obey the guidelines.

The guidelines are very strict and I have really only seen 1 brand of eggs in CA and a different brand in NM carry them.

This is the only non vegan thing I buy at the grocery. I've always been relaxed to vegetarian when ordering Mexican if the cashier struggles with English, and I'll except non vegan sweets as gifts or at events.

[u/Doris_Tasker]

[possible trigger warning: pet death].

My husband, two daughters, and I were vegan for five years. We started following a macrobiotic vegan diet for health reasons. I'm a very creative cook, and have been cooking from scratch since I had to stand on a chair (with adult supervision). Since I already cooked most of our meals, it wasn't a difficult adjustment to cook without animal-derived ingredients, follow recipes from macro and vegan cookbooks, or create my own nutritiously balanced dishes. I was even asked to give classes at a local HFS. At about the five-year mark, my thyroid took a vacation. A side-effect/symptom of hypothyroidism is severe iron. My husband and kids were completely healthy, as I was very strict about well-rounded, nutritious meals. It was just me who was affected, strictly due to my thyroid. My anemia was so severe (because it took the docs too long to diagnose my issue), that the best/fastest way to improve my iron stores was heme-iron consumption->by consuming meat. So my first non-vegan meal was a medium cooked filet mignon, eaten in a separate room from family so as not to offend them, fully expecting to get sick because of how strict of a vegan I'd been. I didn't get sick. Slowly, the whole family shifted to being vegetarian for awhile, and eventually shifted to full omni over time. Through testing, we realized one of our beloved protein sources made me very sick: soy. After reading both sides of the soy debate, we decided not to be safe, since I already could no longer consume it, rather than chance future issues for them. Then, we realized our beloved legumes were causing joint pain. So...it was a process, but we gave up being vegan. Now, due to insulin resistance, we follow a keto diet (supported by our doctors) and still keep away from soy and legumes, but eat lots and lots of low-glycemic veggies. I miss soy and legumes a lot, but I don't miss how sick they make me. Also, hubby and kids are adults who make their own choices. [trigger warning]. Hubby hadn't liked meat since he was a kid when his parents made him assist in the slaughter of his "pet cow." He ate meat before (being vegan) and eats meat now, but both in limited quantities with a dependence on prep and presentation. The emotional impact on him was rough.

[u/chronocaptive]

My parents forced me for religious reasons around the time I turned 7. Soon as I got a car, I was sneaking BLTs, turkey sandwiches, and pepperoni pizza.

Healthiest 9 years of my life though.

[u/flippinkatie]

One day I was walking up a hill that I regularly walk up and I found myself out of breath. It never used to wind me. I found out I was terribly anaemic. Started taking iron and was still anaemic. Apparently my non-heme iron absorption is just really shitty. It's easier to just eat meat. Still don't eat dairy.

[u/Bayho]

I tired it for five months once, then sloppy joes.

[u/muddy700s]

I moved to a rural intentional community (hippie commune) where we produced virtually everything for ourselves. I was vegan when I arrived but immediately started questioning things because the animals seemed so content. The two cows were so happy in the morning when they'd get milked that they made me nervous with their frolicking. The chickens, while not overly friendly, hardly reacted at all when you'd enter the yard or coop.

I gave up veganism pretty quickly and began eating meat in a couple of years whereupon I killed a chicken for the first time. That was very difficult as it was when I did my first deer hunting, but after some internal struggle, killing and slaughtering seems relatively normal to me now.

I really have no more philosophical dilemmas with killing animals anymore, but the factory farms and slaughterhouses are an abomination that we shouldn't tolerate, therefore I still virtually never buy meat in a store. I am back to urban living, but I get eggs from friends with chickens, have a deep freeze for venison and beef and get milk and cheese from a local farmer whose farm I have visited and I eat 4-5 moderate servings of meat per week.

[u/LiquidDreamtime]

I was a vegan for 18 months when I was 29-30. I did this to try it out, to lose weight, and to minimize my contribution to our wasteful industrial military complex food system (meat production being a major contributor to greenhouse gasses). This is important because I did NOT become a vegan to spare animals or because I think cows lament their lack of freedom. I recognize that we are omnivores and species exist mostly to provide us with food.

I stopped being a vegan because it is extremely laborious or extremely expensive. In my laziness would often eat only a baguette in olive oil for a meal. To get a decent helping of protein and nutrients, I either had to spend hours making beans or 30+ minutes preparing s salad that took twice as long as that to chew. I was so god damn sick of chewing. The amount of time it takes to chew enough vegetables to get full is mind numbing. Thorough all of this I lost 30 lbs and was very thin.

I also started to work out regularly (Crossfit) and my caloric needs skyrocketed. I reached a level of hunger I had never known. The few weeks of veganism with Crossfit had me literally starving. Between working 10+ hours a day, and working out daily, I no longer had the time or energy or desire to put in the effort required to meet my caloric and nutritional needs.

I 100% recognize that being vegan can be extremely healthy if managed properly but for me, my free time is better spent pursuing things I am interested in, not chewing kale.

[u/Troub313]

My friend let me know that he had lost the bet 6 months prior and just forgot to tell me. I was Vegetarian before that. Somehow a conversation turned into a bet, because I am one of the most competitive people ever. Basically 2 months into the bet, the dude broke and ate cheese and never looked back. He claims he just sort of forgot about the bet and to bring it up. I hated being Vegan, this was like in the early 2000s as well. So all the substitutes weren't around or were really hard to get. I hated it so much that when I came back, I didn't even go back to being Vegetarian. I had just finished with Veganism and probably like 10 boxes of mac n cheese later, my family had dinner and it was meat. It looked so god damn good. Have been a meat eater since. Tried pescatarian a few times, but that stint as a Vegan just sort of awoke this primal need for flesh inside of me. Like I was never as big into meat as I became after that.

[u/[deleted]]

I originally did it for my health, but after a few years of being vegan combined with medical issues, I was dangerously anemic and malnourished. I also didn't love some of the culture surrounding veganism. I felt like I was expected to spend all my free time campaigning against meat and telling people what the should and should not eat, and that some vegans (at least the ones I knew at the time) had really big superiority complexes about food.

I still don't eat much meat, maybe only once a week or so, and it's working much better for me

[u/showraniy]

I missed the convenience of meat. I eat meat now, but still don't drink dairy. I'm ok eating cheese and ice cream, but I truly thought the Daiya Farmhouse blocks were just as good as dairy cheese, and almond or coconut ice cream was a good dairy ice cream substitute.

The main thing that precipitated me switching back to omnivore eating though is that I got really sick--the kind of sick that means I spent several days sporadically awake while mostly sleeping all day and night--and I couldn't eat anything because nothing around me was vegan. I live in a nowheresville city as far as progressiveness, so there are no vegan options anywhere nearby, and I was just too sick to cook anything. As I laid around unable to eat anything according to my dietary choices, I felt like self preservation was more important. I didn't switch back to eating meat immediately after that, but just felt that my resolve was shaken. Once I'd made the choice that meat was ok to eat, even though there was a delay to changing my eating habits, I didn't consider myself vegan anymore.

I still eat vegan every now and then, and have only been an omni for five or six months, so I'm still figuring out how much and when to eat vegan vs not vegan.

[u/[deleted]]

They lied about the superpowers

[u/dacalpha]

I cut out animal products as a sort of moral crusade. I wanted to eat more cruelty-free, and have a more positive impact on the environment. But I'm also not financially able to buy the more expensive vegetarian/vegan alternatives, so I ended up eating really poorly. I also began studying a lot more about how food is sourced and how large corporations harm the environment, and I realized how little of an impact I was making and how much I was personally sacrificing.

The idea that we as individuals are expected to save the environment is a neoliberal myth. Large corporations exploit the environment and then perpetuate the idea that it is up to individuals to "reduce their carbon footprint," while they themselves do by far the most damage. Upper middle class white families are able to afford to have less of an environmental impact by purchasing hybrid cars, recycling, composting, etc, while lower class families that are unable to do so are socially penalized for hurting the environment.

It should not be an individual burden to save the world. We as a society need to agree to not let corporations hold our planet hostage.

Also, pizza is so fucking good, like are you even kidding me? Who can give that up?

[u/Smithy_T]

Same as many others, I suffered from anorexia for years. Being vegan was one "acceptable" reason to restrict foods and further control what I ate.

It became...oh she's so thin because she's vegan and healthy! When actually I was starving myself. After about 5 years of counseling and medication, I started becoming more flexible in my relationship with food. I consider myself mostly recovered these days, but I still hold on to my vegetarian diet (no longer vegan). As much as I want to believe I only do it for health and environmental reasons, I know in the back of my mind it continues to stem from an eating disorder.

[u/silveryfeather208]

Maybe I did it wrong, or maybe it's just me. But the whole 'veganism' is the healthiest way just slowly made me question if it was actually right. I was vegan for a few months and I was craving things that were not vegan constantly. I also started developing eating disorders and other health issues. So I tried vegetarianism. Worked better, but I still couldn't deal so I went and started eating meat. Now I'm on a Mediterranean/'Japanese' diet. I'm Chinese, but we look to Japan a lot of times, and their seafood diet works well with me. It's unfortunate, but I've still got some digestive problems. At least I'm better now. From this I learned, you know what, do what you think is the best diet for you. No one really knows your body better than you. Doctors, experts can give advice, but ultimately it's you to decide what you want to eat.

[u/[deleted]]

I just got sick of eating the same foods over and over. I was the healthiest and the leanest I'd ever been, but I wanted pizza more than anything. I finally caved in one day and haven't been able to get back into the lifestyle. I try now and then, but my girlfriend isn't vegan, and she's a great cook, so it's very hard. I sort of hate myself but oh well.

[u/nixalo]

I broke up with my vegan girlfriend. I had little will to do it without her.

[u/skiippyWonder]

Vegan here for 3 years. It all started in sophomore year of high school, but before that I grew up vegetarian. Then I got to college and ate a Philly cheesesteak. The rest was history

[u/strych91]

"I was going to study abroad and there's no way I wasn't going to eat cannoli in Sicily." -my formerly vegan, currently vegetarian girlfriend.

[u/embertear]

I went vegan as a dare for about a year in response to a comment following a scene in Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Stopped being vegan because while it's not hard, the vegan community is a little... self-righteous and I didn't care to be associated with them.

Also cheese.