I tried to give up meat for like a year, and it was just too hard. There were lots of reasons I attempted the feat — environmental concerns, ethical reasons, my health — but eventually I returned to answer the sweet siren call that was bacon, hamburgers, and honey ham piled as high as it could possibly go. Because I never got to the place where I thought meat was “gross” that many other vegetarians and vegans get to. I always missed its flavor.
Which is one reason that I was fascinated by the below video of vegetarians attempting to eat meat again after (in some cases) decades! Would they fall off the wagon? Would they vomit? Just how would they react to eating something that they had been morally opposed to for years and years? Had their palate changed to reject the savory taste of meat products or would it be just like riding a bicycle?
The result is watching vegetarians gamely trying various meats from bacon wrapped sausage to veal and giving their opinions. And mostly I just felt bad for them. They pointed out the strange textures, chewiness, and taste of meat, and most of the time were fairly revolted by the act of consuming it. I had this strange sensation of anxiety while watching them, like I was viewing a horror movie and wanted to yell at the heroine not to go in the basement.
“Ma’am, you need to run. The smell of hamburger is coming from inside your own house. I repeat, the hamburger is INSIDE THE HOUSE.”
Afterwards, the vegetarians were even more steadfast in their conviction that eating meat is just so not for them. And hearing their criticisms, I almost wanted to join them. Eating the flesh of other animals IS kind of weird, I thought. Maybe it’s time I gave vegetarianism another whirl, I exclaimed out loud to my office coworkers — my dog and my cat — who stared at me blankly and wondered if I was saying something related to feeding them.
Watching this video I almost had myself convinced that this was it. It was time to jump back on the wagon and give up the meat.
But then I remembered bacon, and well…a person only has so much strength.
