I crave meat, and it confuses me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, this is just really bizarre, and the only possible explanation I can come up with right now is that I’m incredibly stressed due to schoolwork right now.

I’ve been a vegetarian for something like seven years right now. Not a vegan - I’ll eat things with eggs in them but not just, like, scrambled eggs or anything. I occasionally have milk on cereal, and I do eat a little yogurt and a lot of cheese. If you count EasyMac as cheese then I eat a metric buttload of cheese, but I’m not sure that “orange powder” is really cheese.

Anyway, I don’t eat meat, and have eaten no meat for about seven years. It’s not so much a moral thing as an “I don’t like meat” thing, compounded by some health issues I had a few years ago that have now resolved themselves. Even when I ate meat, I never really liked it - occasionally I’d have a burger or whatnot, but was never a “Yay meat!” person. It kind of freaks me out because…it’s muscle, and that’s just a little bit gross in my twisted little mind.

However. For the past few days or so, I’ve had a ridiculously inexplicable desire for meat. Mostly, a cheesesteak, but it’s not a particular craving for cheesesteak in particular. It’s just more of a “hey, <insert whatever meatproduct> would be good right now” thought.

If I were at home in Philly, I’d take care of it fairly easily. Most likely, I’d go and get myself a proper cheesesteak, or an italian hoagie (drenched in oil and vinegar), take a bite, and remember, “Hey, I don’t really like meat.” I did that with eggs this summer, when I ordered an omlette at a restaurant, to my mother’s amusement. But alas, I am at school in New Mexico, and therefore, my only real choice is cafeteria meat, which…doublegross.

sigh I’m obviously just not good at this vegetarian thing. All the sudden. After seven years.

2

I’ve heard, (no cite), that bodily cravings for food often tell us what nutrients we’re lacking.

Could be an old wives’ tale though.

3

I’ve heard the same thing as** FinnAgain**, though no cite. Maybe you just need more protein or iron in your diet that you haven’t been getting lately? I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat much meat, and I find that I get a major craving for a nice steak about once a month or so. I, of course, have no problem with fulfilling my desire for meat, but you might want to eat some iron and protein rich veggies and see if the craving goes away, if you really don’t want to eat meat.

4

MorningStar Farms, the company that makes all the fake-meat vegetarian products, has frozen patties of soy that are supposed to taste like a Philly Cheese Steak. It tasted real to me and, as a vegetarian for 4 years, I didn’t really care for it.

Since you are at college, I’m surprised there isn’t at least one good eatery that caters to vegetarians. Do you go to a smaller college?

5

I heard it as well and I can sort of notice it. I crave meat after a really long dance class when I’m totally wiped out or after a week of really stressful time-consuming schoolwork.
My friend was a vegan for a while then went back to eating meat because she just craved bacon too much…

6

You’re pregnant?

7

I may try the cheese non-steak if I see them someplace. As to a small school: Yes, my school could be described as ‘really really tiny’ and that would not be incorrect.

At this point in my utterly-stagnant lovelife, the only pregnancy that would be concievable (hee, sorry) would be something biblical-like.

Hm. I’m going grocery shopping in a day or so, and I’ll see what strikes my fancy when presented with options.

8

Can you get your hands on canned, pre-cooked chickpeas in yoiur neck of the woods? Should be relatively inexpensive (which I assume could be a consideration as a college student), they’re chock full of protein, and (unless canned by a really terrible producer) they are (IMHO) quite tasty.

Or just hit McD for a quarter pounder and see what happens…

9

mmmm, meat.

If you’re a veg-head for ethical reasons, can I suggest finding a local producer to fill your dead animal needs? Most of the meat I eat now comes from a local elk farm that I’ve been to, and had a good chat with about environmental impacts, antibiotic use, and animal treatment, and other concerns. Plus, elk burgers are yummy yum yum swell.

10

NinjaChick-
Human beings are omnivores. There’s vitamins and such in meat that are vital to health which you can’t get from any other source, save vitamins.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that Europe won’t buy our meat because it’s so laced with chemicals and other disgustibles. If you have a way of finding some pure natural meat, then by all means enjoy it.

Personally, I love nothing more than a rare, juicy steak covered in salt and crushed red peppers. Yes, I like blood. I am a barbarian.

11

Vegetarians have been surviving just fine for thousands of years without vitamin suppliments.

In 2004, the US exported $57,831,000 worth of beef products to the EU. (You can confirm this on the USDA website if you’re really interested.) However, the vast majority of US beef exports go to Canada, Mexico and Japan.

We’re all barbarians at heart, man. Roar.

12

Here’s my take on it. If you have an ethical objection to meat, then by all means resist your urges. Otherwise - don’t feel limited by the label of vegetarian. You’re allowed to eat what you want. If you want to eat meat tomorrow and never eat it again that’s fine.

13

I feel the need to mention that a vegetarian friend of mine got really drunk one night (that wasn’t at all unusual) and decided to tear into some chicken wings. (That WAS extremely unusual.)

She hadn’t eaten actual “meat” or “animal flesh” or whatever in years.

She was sick as a dog for a good 24 hours. IANAdoctor, but I would assume her digestive system just didn’t know what to do with it after so long without it.

Fair warning is all I’m saying. Your brain or your body may be craving meat, but your stomach may not be as cooperative. :eek:

14

Except when there arn’t. Vegans, who do not eat any animal products, have problems with some vitamins. But regular old vegetarians who eat a reasonably varied diet have no problems whatsoever. Indeed, they are more likely to get neccesary vitamins through diet than the average American. Heck, there is an entire country of a billion people who are largely vegetarian, and they arn’t all keeling over dead of vitamin deficiency. Vegetarian, when followed with the smallest bit of good sense, poses no risk to health whatsoever.

I think [b}NinjaChick** probably just needs some protein. a good bean burrito or some tofu ought to solve the problem. When I need protein, I crave scrambled eggs. It’s the wierdest thing because usually I won’t touch them. But then I look back and realize I’ve been living off carbs for a few days and my body needs a protein boost.

15

I know this isn’t GQ, but here’s a rather basic cite.

I’ve seen a few more cites on the web via a google search right now, and it seems that the jury is still out.

16

I did this once too when i was a vegetarian. I was in a bar, and my friend ordered hot wings. He practically forced them down my throat. Well, i like to think that. In reality, it was just pretty much voluntary. I didn’t get sick afterwards, but I still didn’t eat meat afterwards.

I also had a friend that we called a “sober-vegetarian” because when he got drunk, all bets were off. I feel getting drunk and eating meat is a good idea. At least, you have something to blame the next morning.

17

I’m sure it can* be the case that food cravings are related to some physiological need, but I don’t think this is universally or even predominantly the case; They may have worked better too for our ancestors, where cravings could only be satisfied at the end of some kind of action such as hunting, fishing or digging, than they do for us - where cravings can be satisfied (and easily overcompensated for) by merely opening a packet.

I’m especially dubious of claims that pregnancy cravings denote some kind of deficiency - I think they’re more likely the result of things just getting a bit messed up by hormones and generally stressful conditions. I knew a woman who craved raw chicken during pregnancy (thankfully she managed to resist it) - hard to imagine this being provoked by a genuine need to eat uncooked poultry.

To the OP; what LaurAnge said; you can change it if you want to. IMO, you shouldn’t necessarily feel compelled by ethics either way; do whatever you can live with.

18

I was always under the impression that it was a genuine need for something that uncooked poultry could provide, and the need for a certain food was just your interpretation. For example, you may actually need protein, but you interpret that as needing an uncooked steak. In truth, if you took a protein supplement, or some such thing, the craving would go away.

I don’t, however, have a cite for that version of the theory.

19

Raw chicken is a common enough food here in Japan. As is raw pork, and raw beef. (Come to think of it, cured-but-raw beef & pork are found in Europe too, as is steak tartare.)

20

I still maintain that the crave-what-you-really-need explanation is simplistic to the point of being more or less useless; cravings for non-food items such as coal, gypsum, and even toxic items such as cleaning materials also occur. There is no evidence that cravings (during pregnancy) indicate nutritional deficiency and there is little or no evidence that cravings outside of pregnancy indicate nutritional deficiency.

It’s just one of those things that is not actually true, but that people wish to believe because it seems to make so much sense.