The Plant-Based Diet Myth: Why I Gave Up Being Vegetarian After 15 Years

A few months into those 15 years, my body began craving fish for the first time ever. I never liked fish at all until I stopped eating animal protein, but I listened to my body and allowed myself to be an occasional pescatarian. Years later, the thought, look, taste and smell of fish began to mysteriously repulse me. I cut it out completely and was fully meatless—even occasionally vegan—until the summer of 2023. 

I had several reasons for going meatless that Lent so many years ago:

1. I thought it would be better for me— as a teenage girl in the late 2000s, “better” meant “skinny.”

2. I thought it was better for the environment—I was learning more about environmentalism in school, and a common refrain was that meat production causes global warming.

3. I thought it was nicer to animals— I was and still am an animal lover and I didn’t want to harm any with my diet.

When I reflect on these reasons as a grown woman, I have a lot of compassion for the girl who made that choice, but I can also spot some major flaws in her logic (including using the sacred time of Lent to try a new dieting scheme). With age, time and most importantly, experience, I can now see how wrong she was. It’s what compels me to make this bold statement: plant-based diets are a scam. Now, allow me to explain.

Let’s start with what happened over the course of my 15 years as a vegetarian. At first, I did get healthier. Before I changed my diet, I was eating like a typical American teen. Think lots of fast food, carb-heavy meals, and general junk food. My mom cooked our family nutritious meals, but I played a lot of tennis, so I was expending a lot of energy, leaving me ravenously hungry most of the time. Plus, I was on the road with my team a lot, and my coach loved to stop at Wendy’s.. When I switched to a vegetarian diet, I couldn’t just get chicken nuggets anymore. The only fast food I could eat were french fries and I quickly learned that subsisting on a side dish (one that relied heavily on seed oils at that) wouldn’t cut it. I had to drop fast food from my diet, which was a good thing. Of course, I lost some weight, but I also improved my nutrition. It was around that same time that I also started learning about the pitfalls of factory farming and the importance of eating organic. In the beginning, I truly was cleaning up my diet.

As the years dragged on, though, I started experiencing major problems. I struggled to build muscle in spite of exercising regularly and avidly practicing yoga. I became severely anemic at one point and spent the better part of a year getting my iron levels back up. Spoiler: it’s hard to do when you’re not eating red meat. But the final straw hit me in the summer of 2022. That summer, I was gripped with panic attacks, the likes of which I’d never experienced before. I battled my anxiety for months, changing elements of my lifestyle to support a calmer mind. By the summer of 2023, I was desperate to put that chapter behind me so I tried the one thing I hadn’t yet: eating meat.

I didn’t take the decision lightly. Not only had I been a vegetarian since 2009, but my husband had been one for over 20 years. Although I didn’t ask him to reconsider this choice with me, he was willing to change alongside me in order to support my healing. He had also been noticing things about himself and his health that concerned him. He complained often of stomach pain and would experience debilitating brain fog after lunch. He began to wonder if animal protein could help, so together we changed. The difference was striking and immediate. My panic attacks completely stopped, we both had better digestion and for the first time, we found that we could build muscle. We didn’t feel faint from hunger all the time. We felt satisfied after a meal. Our workout metrics shot up. Everything was better and still is. Our skin is better, our muscle recovery is better and we generally feel more grounded. But why is that?

Let’s revisit my original 3 points for becoming a vegetarian to explain.

Myth 1: Vegetarianism is better for your health.

While it may seem better at first, in truth, it really isn’t. There are key vitamins and minerals that we can only get in meaningful quantities from eating meat. These include iron, B12, zinc, iodine and more. And then there’s protein. When you’re vegetarian, you can eat eggs and dairy, which provides some protein, but not nearly as much as meat. One egg has roughly 6 grams of protein, whereas a chicken breast has about 43. See what I mean? I used to think I didn’t care much about protein because I’ve never dreamed of being a body builder or a triathlete, but the truth is we all need it. It helps our bodies heal and rebuild, bolstering our immune system and enabling tissue repair. Its amino acids also help our brains produce serotonin and lower cortisol, making it vital to combat depression and high stress levels.

When I was a vegetarian, it occurred to me that I almost exclusively ate carbs. A veggie burger made of black beans or quinoa or texturized wheat protein is just a complex carb. You put that on a bun and you essentially have a bread sandwich. I realized this months before I reintroduced meat into my diet, and it got me wondering if I could give myself diabetes if I didn’t change something. It turns out that increasing protein intake is recommended to diabetics, as it helps regulate and balance blood sugar, too. It sounds obvious to me now, but I had been so brainwashed, it took me years to see it.

Myth 2: A vegetarian or vegan diet is better for the planet.

When people make this claim, they’re comparing conventional factory farming to organic or regenerative vegetable farming. It’s true that conventional factory farming of meat is harmful to our environment, but it’s also true of conventional vegetable farming. They both unleash diseases, antibiotics and toxic pesticides into the air or soil, and they both deplete farmland or exploit animals. Mass mono-cropping of vegetables strips ecosystems of biodiversity as everything but the crop is exterminated. The truth is how something is farmed matters far more than what is being farmed. Make sure your food is coming from organic or local farms no matter what you’re eating. 

Myth 3: A vegan or vegetarian diet is kinder to animals.

This one’s tough because when you eat meat, you are consuming an animal. When you eat only vegetables, though, you’re still harming wildlife. As I said, Big Ag vegetable crops require the land to be stripped of everything that was living there—from insects to small animals like rabbits or squirrels. If you want to be kind to animals with your diet, the best thing you can do is seek food from responsible and sustainable farms. Prioritize farms that practice crop rotation and treat their livestock well, feeding them their natural diet and giving them space to live and roam. This is why regenerative farming, which focuses on maintaining the biodiversity of farmlands and animal welfare, is having such a moment right now. It’s the kindest way to nourish yourself and protect life at the same time.

Knowing what I know now, do I regret being a vegetarian? No, I don’t. Because I was a vegetarian, I was able to clean up my diet and stop consuming factory farmed and ultra-processed foods. I also developed a deep love of fruits and vegetables that I still have as a meat eater. I can’t say any of that would have happened if it weren’t for my 15-year detour away from meat, but I tell my story so that you don’t have to experiment with vegetarianism or veganism to come to the same conclusion. Besides, my path was unique. Many vegetarians and vegans never eat clean. Did you know that Oreos are vegan? That’s not because they’re plant-based—it’s because they’re made entirely of chemicals. Being plant-based doesn’t always mean you’re eating fresh fruits and vegetables. I can’t imagine what state my health would be in if I had been a junk food vegan for the past 15 years. The truth of the matter is this: we’re born to be omnivores, meaning that we eat a diet of animal protein and vegetables. To be healthy on a holistic and complete level, high quality meat simply has to be part of our diets.