So last week, to earn favour with my crush, I switched to a vegetarian diet for her. I found out the hard way why the world won't be able to switch to a plant-based diet to save the environment. Ever since I switched, I've been doubled over with abdominal pain: IBS, stomach bloating and groaning, indigestion, acid reflux, gas, flatulence, both diarrhea AND constipation. It turns out humans are built to be omnivores: our overloaded intestines can't digest so much plant fiber and it sits there fermenting in our guts (FODMAPs).
Yesterday (the weekend), I spent the whole day in bed in pain. I couldn't walk 5 mins anywhere without needing to go to the toilet. As such, today, I'm giving up on a plant-based diet and ordering a huge bucket of KFC chicken to celebrate my freedom.
I googled and most people won't be able to switch to a plant-based diet because the human digestive system isn't built for it. Yet I see only books extolling how plant-based is the only possible future with no side effects.
I want to know that I'm not alone in failing to be a vegetarian. Are there any books of other people failing to go vegan/vegetarian/plant-based? Looking for humorous autobiographical accounts that deal with the IBS/indigestion symptoms I struggled with, which occur in a plant-based diet.
by Unlucky-Ant-9741
2 Comments
Sounds like you suddenly made a huge change in your diet, and probably with a lot of beans, without giving your body any time to adapt. Believe me, most vegetarians aren’t walking masking debilitating IBS.
Be vegetarian, or don’t, it’s not my business, but don’t set yourself up for failure and then complain you failed. And if you go on the internet looking for validation of _any_ diet you will find it. That doesn’t mean the information is accurate.
Any sudden change in diet can cause those symptoms. Better to gradually reduce your meat intake and not overdose on fiber and other things you don’t have the enzyme to digest yet the first few days.
Ditto for a vegetarian picking up meat. They can’t just slurp down a huge steak. They need to gradually re-introduce meat.