if you stop eating dairy and meat, does your body become intolerant of them?

[KurtNYC]

I have heard from vegan friends that they can get sick if they reintroduce certain foods or eat them by accident. But is that a permanent thing or will your body accept them again ?



(i have a fire extinguisher standing by -- not trying to start anything here. just wanted to know people's actual experiences with this)

[ZombieHorde]

1. I became lactose intolorant when I was vegan, but my father and sister are both lactose intolerant,

so I cannot say being vegan made me lactose intolerant.

Every few years I go veggie for a year or two. If I am not careful going back to meat, I will become sick. I have to "work up" to it.

[Tobin S.]

2. That might be more of a mental thing

If you have a serious moral problem with doing something, I could see how doing that thing might make you physically ill. But I'm just guessing.

[KurtNYC]

3. but that wouldn't explain accidentally, un-knowingly, eating something

and getting sick. And that has happened to a friend of mine.

[Tobin S.]

5. It might have been tainted product

I ate an Arby's turkey sandwich one time and became violently ill for the next 48 hours. There are only a few times in my life when I've been that sick.

[vixengrl]

4. I was a vegetarian for only three years and a smidge, and got down to

cutting out a lot of dairy, eating vegan substitute cheese and drinking almond milk. I "fell off the wagon" with a dish of fish and chips, and had no intestinal upset. I started reintroducing a lot of my former foods--all easy. I think it might depend on the length of time. Since I was a vegetarian for such a short length, maybe my body didn't have time to "forget" how to digest the animal products.

For me, a vegetarian diet just wasn't ideal. I eat on the fly, I work and commute a lot, and really don't have access to the time I need to plan a healthful veg diet. Also, I seem to need my proteins and iron and B vitamins a great deal--I know there probably is a way to compensate within a vegetarian diet, but get this: my current spouse is a butcher. I have access to awesome sources of lean animal protein that are, because my spouse is also Italian and a serious cook, ridiculously tasty. I can't see going back. I try to encourage buying meat from better sources, free-range and grass-fed and whatnot--but I just like meat and it tweaks my digestive system less than, say, high-fiber cereals do.

(I have one thing to advise vegetarians--don't think whey protein is great. Daggone--that stuff refined to gas in my digestive system in a heartbeat. Legumes, even if they have a worse rep for gas, really seem to be less offensive in the long run. Your body will adjust to those. Maybe because of the fiber pairing. Exquisite things come from working with beans--like awesomely tasty veggie chili. Whey protein shakes or energy bars are usually gross in flavor and can wreak havoc on the lower GI. Do not want.)

[HopeHoops]

6. Beef and pork are the worst. Just having something COOKED with them can do it.

I've had intestinal problems from eating home fries that were simply cooked on the same grill as bacon. If there's any kind of animal fat in something like a soup, that's also going to cause problems. There is an "intolerance", but it isn't like it is fatal or anything.

[AsahinaKimi]

7. I am

Allergic to meat. I can eat Fowl and Seafoods, but can't eat anything heavier. I love cheese but can only consume tiny amounts. I love ice cream, but have to have a little bit in some soda, because I am lactose intolerant also.

I buy Rice Dream or Almond Dream which I use instead of milk. Coffee has to have artificial creamers. But always been this way.. I can't even have milk chocolates.

[quakerboy]

8. I would imagine, yes

I feel fairly certain that it would happen so, as the natural processes in your body tend to adjust themselves to the actual situations they regularly encounter. So if you cut fatty things out (ie many meats) and then suddenly load a meal with them, you are going to have upset. And then there are the natural things that live in your intestines. I would imagine that they change over time, depending on what you feed yourself as well.

I can say for a fact that the opposite is true. I have been essentially carb free for a year. This last weekend I went off the reservation, and it cost me. Gas and discomfort galore. My body was not ready for potato and wheat.


At the same time, I am sure that it is primarily a temporary thing. If I were to start eating pizza on a regular basis, I am certain that my body would recalibrate to allow for that. Same as a former vegan would be able to bring meat back into their diet if they so chose.

[flvegan]

9. No real personal experience with this, but

I have heard from other vegans that if one is vegan long enough, you could get away with a bit of cheese here and there, but you couldn't jump in to a couple of back to back pizzas. You will regret it. Also, I do know a couple folks that over the years had a bout with what they expected was food poisoning. Come to find out, one discovered she'd eaten something cooked (not to her knowledge) in beef stock, and the other had supposed vegetarian beans that were (again, not to their knowledge) cooked with lard.

The nutritional training I've done seems to support this. The enzymes and flora in our digestive tract aren't the same for everyone. I can see it being devoid of the necessary components to break food like that down right away, but it should be a fairly quick transition back. I don't think that seafood would be that much of a problem, unless you just got absurd with it right away. I also think it would depend just what quality of meat someone started back on. Boneless, skinless chicken breast would probably be easier than a bucket of KFC. A nice prime rib would probably be easier than a bacon double cheeseburger.

It's a good question. I think that there's been a lot of "if you eat meat after being vegan, you'll die" hype on the internets on this topic. I do think one would be ill, even quite ill, but it would pass.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. I was instructed by my Dr. at one point to go back --

to eating meat for "health reasons" -- when I went back on it I had a hard time with it, it was really heavy on my stomach and I felt I wasn't digesting it the way I used to. :shrug: I only lasted three months on meat before I went back to being veggie. Since then, I have had instances where I ate red sauce or soups with an animal base by accident and they too sat heavily on my stomach (that was what usually clued me in they weren't veggie after all).

[hippywife]

11. Many people become lactose intolerant

as they age. It's one of the things we really aren't designed to ingest past a certain stage of growth anyway is what I've read.

Meat just plain gets hard to digest the older you get, too, as your intestines age and become less resilient.

[GoCubsGo]

12. I had no problems.

I was a vegetarian for several years. When I went back to eating meat, I had no digestive issues. I rarely eat it now, and still have no trouble with it.

[Ilsa]

13. I was totally vegetarian for five years, and now I eat poultry white meat.

There was no problem in introducing white meat. If I eat red meat or dark poultry, I have the same symptoms I had before I went vegetarian: red meat burns me when I defecate. Dark meat "slows me down". It's harder for me to digest. But it's nothing new. It was like that before I was a vegetarian.

[Kali]

14. depending on your system, I suspect ANY type of food (or beverage)

avoided for some length of time might become problematic upon reintroduction, especially in sudden large quantities.

[unpossibles]

15. not being used to the heaviness of the grease has upset my stomach a lot

after accidentally eating pork after a couple of decades not. I only had a bite or two before i could tell.

[jobycom]

16. No, but if you start eating meat again your body won't be used to how it feels.

When you give up meat and dairy, your body just feels cleaner. When you start eating meat again, you feel that heaviness again. For some people, it makes them feel sick and bloated. For others, it just makes them feel weak and sluggish. They may think they are having trouble digesting the meat, but it's really just how eating meat feels, and they aren't used to it. After a while, they get used to it. It's like drinking cokes or eating fried food when you haven't in years.

Lactose intolerance is actually a genetic condition, according to some biologists I've read. Everyone has a lactose tolerance gene or they couldn't tolerate mother's milk, but in some people it switches off. If you become vegan in your teens or early twenties, you could become lactose intolerant genetically during that time.

Other than that, the human body is designed to digest just about anything. We are omnivores, meaning we can live off a pure vegetable diet, a pure meat diet, or a mixed diet. Hell, we can live off Snickers and Pringles, even. You don't lose the ability to digest meat just because you haven't used it.

That's not to say you might not get nauseated eating meat or anything with meat flavor or grease. People get sick off greasy foods even when they eat meat regularly. But you don't lose the ability to digest it. Some people just have to get used to it again.