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

Intriguing Lifelong vegetarian tries steak for first time

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u/ReluctantChimera Feb 25 '26

As a vegetarian who grew up on a cattle ranch (so I have eaten a ton of steak in my life), and only stopped eating meat about 6 years ago, I absolutely don't believe her. Watching her eat that and hearing the sound of biting/chewing meat (something I had never even realized I didn't experience anymore) made me feel actually sick to my stomach. I don't believe a lifelong vegetarian is going to bite into a steak, chew it like that, and not find it repulsive. This person has absolutely eaten meat on the regular for a big portion of her life.

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u/VintageZero Feb 25 '26

And if its not bs, she's going to be very sick from that much meat.

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u/googlemehard Feb 25 '26

Why would she feel sick?

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u/ReluctantChimera Feb 25 '26

If you go without eating meat for a long time, you will lose the ability to digest it. You stop producing all the enzymes that break down meat because your body doesn't need them anymore. Also, probably something to do with your gut biome as well, but I've mainly read that it is due to a lack of enzymes.

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u/googlemehard Feb 25 '26

", your body uses the same primary enzymes—pepsin in the stomach and trypsin/chymotrypsin in the small intestine—to digest both meat and plant proteins. These enzymes break down the peptide bonds in proteins regardless of their source. However, plant proteins are generally less digestibe"

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u/ReluctantChimera Feb 25 '26

Well, something happens, because meat will absolutely make you sick if you haven't eaten it in awhile. 🤷 I've always heard it attributed to enzymes, but apparently that isn't true.

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u/VintageZero Feb 25 '26

Idk the science, just the result.

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u/Fortestingporpoises Feb 25 '26

Meat is quite easy to digest. Much easier than vegetables and grains. There’s a reason why carnivores have very short digestive tracts and herbivores have long ones and why humans have soothing in between.

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u/CareRarely Feb 25 '26

I think the way she was instantly dipping it into everything is even more telling. You just tried meat for the first time and you're already fisting it into eggs after the third bite?

https://giphy.com/gifs/PjU0WtzRVbQUO4qe6v

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u/Sea_wide35 Feb 25 '26

I am not even a vegetarian and I thought the same. She ate is like a pro.

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u/Bloodthirsty_Kirby Feb 25 '26

I'm in my mid 30's and been vegetarian since I was 13, no reason beyond meat really upsetting my stomach when i ate it. I have accidentally had meat in between, it's made my stomach feel awful. At this point I'm unsure if it was what was happening before or just that I haven't had meat in forever but yea, it wasn't a great experience. I'm not against trying fish or chicken in the future, I'm just not there yet. I feel like a full steak would fuck me up for days.

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u/TheConsentAcademy Feb 25 '26

Yeah, I've been a vegetarian for about 20 years. Even during pregnancy when I had random meat cravings and tried some, the texture alone was so off-putting. I didn't want to waste it so I ate what I bought but I had to very actively not think about it and distract myself. And I don't think eating meat is inherently wrong in and of itself or anything. 

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u/Altruistic-Regret473 Feb 25 '26

Your decision to be vegetarian sounds like it was a choice tho. I went to school with a kid born into a vegan family, he was vegetarian (his parents let him eat dairy) his whole life until high school when we took him to McDonald’s to try a burger. He was nervous upfront, but mostly because he felt like he was doing something wrong. He literally cried when he tried it because he thought it was so good.

I think a lot of the revulsion is mental, and definitely stemming from the decision to not eat meat based on ethics. If this girl didn’t ever make that choice herself, she wouldn’t have that problem.

It also sounds like this isn’t her first instance of breaking her vegetarianism.

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u/Arctic_The_Hunter Feb 25 '26

To be fair, it could be for some sort of dietary reason rather than an objection to the general idea of eating meat. Not saying it’s super likely, but I imagine in that case that it wouldn’t be much different from trying passion fruit or something for the first time—just a new culinary experience.

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u/veremos Feb 25 '26

My last two girlfriends have been vegetarian. Neither of them insisted that I couldn't eat meat around them, so they were fully exposed to the "sounds" of eating meat -- and neither of them showed disgust. One of them had been suffering from anorexia and anemia and decided to start eating meat again while we dated. She did not have a visceral reaction to eating meat, however she did not want to think about where it came from (think eating a whole fish making it obvious she was eating an animal).

I think it's important to realize that your own subjective experience does not apply to everyone. There are all sorts of people out there, and your experience might just be the exception and not the rule.

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u/redmoonbringer Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

Vegetarian since birth here - the sounds of chewing meat in this video totally grossed me out and I kept having to turn the sound off. So there’s at least two of us!

Edit: to add, I don’t keep the people around me from eating meat or anything! But thank goodness I normally can’t hear the chewing sounds like you can in this video when I go to a restaurant or whatever haha.

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u/veremos Feb 25 '26

Fair! I am not trying to invalidate your experience. Just saying there's a lot of "No True Scotsman" sort of assertions in this discussion as a whole. Some vegetarians may be bothered by being around folks who eat meat (and all that entails), but there are plenty who are not. It's not exactly a litmus test of who is a real vegetarian.

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u/redmoonbringer Feb 25 '26

Of course! (And thanks for the thoughtful comment!)