Dear Science,
It drives me bonkers when vegetarians make a HUGE deal out of how if one tiny morsel of bacon or one drop of chicken broth enters their system, it would make them instantly vomit all over the place because “Yeahhhh, I can’t digest that because my body doesn’t produce those enzymes anymore, sooo…” They’re full of shit, right? Surely it takes more than, say, four years of vegetarianism to FUCKING CHANGE HUMAN EVOLUTION. Right? Surely if they do get sick, it’s psychosomatic. Surely they’re just looking for something to yap about. I feel the same way about 50 percent of the people who claim to be lactose intolerant.
Obviously, I could be completely wrong, but this is my gut feeling. I no longer have the enzymes in my gut to digest these people’s horrible yapping. JUST EAT A CHICKEN IF YOU WANT TO EAT A CHICKEN. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR BODY IF YOU CAN’T DIGEST SOME FUCKING PROTEIN AND FAT? AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Omnivore Pride!
The vegetarian lament is half true: People who have not eaten meat for years (and I mean years—make that decades of not eating meat) really do lose the ability to digest it properly. So bloating and maybe some diarrhea and really stinky farts are all part of the punishment (or reward) for slipping up. Not barfing, however.
What’s changed in your vegetarian nemeses/friends isn’t human evolution, it’s the mix of bacteria in the gut. A goodly chunk of human digestion is actually done by the bugs that live happily within us. When someone stops eating meat (for decades), that person loses the meat-digesting bacteria; the bacteria starve. Then that person farts and poops liquid when he or she eats meat.
People can regain these bacteria if they restart eating meat. How? By kissing. Hence moms kissing their kids: to give bacteria (and love, I suppose). Another means is by people not washing their hands after pooping. (If you want poop bacteria, eat poop. Just make sure it’s HEALTHY poop. And only a little bit at a time.)
This is also one idea about why people are becoming more obese really rapidly. There is a “genetic” component. Some of that is the bacteria you inherited from your family. If they’re really efficient digesters, you eat a little and absorb a lot of energy (and become unfairly fat). If you were endowed with bacteria crappy at digesting, you can eat ice cream for dinner and stay skinny. (And probably pack awful-smelling farts. Think of that when you see a picture of a supermodel.)
So vegetarians kissing omnivores makes the world a better digesting place. (Let’s not discuss sex acts between vegetarians and carnivores that aid the transition back to meat eating.)
Floraly Yours,
Science
Send your science questions to
dearscience@thestranger.com.
If obesity can be related to intestinal flora, wouldn’t that make it communicable?
Great as always, but microbiota is a better term than flora. Show us microbiologists some phylogenetic love!
Interesting. I didn’t know. Been vegetarian for 14 years now. I wonder if the bugs are dead yet.
I did find that I became lactose intolerant pretty quickly after I stopped eating dairy. I understand that lactase production would probably resume if I started eating it again gradually and tolerated the GI issues for a little while. But I don’t feel any need to test that.
My boyfriend is naturally very skinny and he has abnormal amounts of horrendous farts. Maybe I should not kiss him too much, so I don’t spread my (presumabely more efficient)bacteria.
It took me only 3 years to have said effects, and only 6 months to overcome them when I went back to meat.
intestinal flora (this microbiologist prefers flora to microbiota) is not easy to ‘change’ in most people. It’s an amazingly complex, and highly populated environment. 3-4 pounds of bacteria on average in the adult human gut. Hormones can alter the population, as well as long term eating changes like vegetarianism, and some antibiotics can kill off most of them with disasterous effects (look up C. diff)… The only time that the teensy amount of bacteria spread by kissing or poo eating even would be able to take hold, is when there are nutrients that current bacteria aren’t using: For most people, this is at birth when they are still mostly ‘sterile’ and they inherit their parent’s oral, gut, skin etc. flora. And perhaps… when a vegetarian starts eating meat again. Of course, perhaps their ‘meat digesting’ bacteria are just in low supply, and have to make a comeback when the food source… comes back. That means, strict vegetarians could be made ‘sick’ by a few bites of meat in years, not decades, and could recover in much less time as well.
Not convinced that kissing transfers enough mircobiota to influence the threshold.
I’m a born and raised vegetarian who has NEVER had meat… and now my boyfriend has a medical excuse to kiss me all the time. behehe
Dear Science, who is Mr. Golob? What is your background? Can we cite some references? First, most vegetarians eat animal protein, so perhaps we’re just talking about vegans? Second, you advise kissing to reconstitute flora? As if vegans and vegetarians don’t kiss all the time? And not washing your hands after pooping? You’d only get your own bacteria. The bacteria starve? After years? You think the bacteria were just living on fumes for years? They can’t go that long without food; the issue would need to be competition for the ecological niche.
Interesting. I have been a vegetarian for 20+ years now, but have never been militant about it. (Not Vegan, mind you… garden variety ovo-lacto).
I do all of the “due diligence” required to keep myself vegetarian 99.9% of the time. However, even with that, every rare so often (maybe a couple times a year, maybe once ever couple years)something gets by the goalie, and I find out after the fact that I consumed dead animal. Never really too much (I would notice otherwise and immediately stop).
I have never to my knowledge suffered any ill effects of this (admittedly trace) consumption. Perhaps gas, but honestly with all the beans, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.
My biggest gripe is just those (few) people (family usually) that won’t give it a rest. That get offended that I am being “overly picky”. I don’t require anyone else to be vegetarian, so please don’t require that I be omnivorous. I also don’t require special cooking. I do just fine by tactfully doing without, if nothing is appealing to me.
I was a vegetarian for about six years and I started eating meat a couple months ago. (Dick’s deluxe was the first beef I’d eaten in almost 10 years- yum !) I was pretty much fine. I felt a little bloaty and I’m still not comfortable eating lots of meat but basically I had no ill effects. So there’s some scientifically useless anecdotal evidence for ya.
I’ve been a vegetarian for several years now, and I can honestly say that I have said the “no thanks, I might vomit” line before to save my meat-offering hosts the awkwardness of hearing about potential GI tract difficulties.
No, you don’t vomit. You do have diarrhea, REALLY stinky farts, corpse-like bad breath, and uncomfortable bloating.
I actually think I prefer a quick puke to that.
“If you were endowed with bacteria crappy at digesting, you can eat ice cream for dinner and stay skinny. (And probably pack awful-smelling farts. “
ok that explains a lot, actually. i stay skinny no matter what i eat and how much, which is nice i guess, but im bloated all the time its fucking annoying. does this article say i can reduce my farts by being more slutty?
I was a vegetarian for 17 years and started back on chicken with no problem, fish a little trouble (which shocked me — I thought it would be easier than chicken), but the first time I ate red meat I felt stuffed and bloated so quickly, and then had diarrhea a few hours later. Yucky! I still tend to avoid red meat out of fear that the side effects might not improve.
Could have done without the shit eating recommendations, especially since that part of the answer makes no logical sense.