Myth #43: “But I crave meat.”
This might be news to you, but your powerful meat-cravings are not a reason to continue eating meat, they are actually a sign that you need to STOP …
It is true that most meat-eaters end up feeling a bit “down” &/or low on energy if they don’t eat meat for a significant period of time. And many of them choose to believe that this feeling comes from no longer ingesting the protein &/or nutrients in meat that they “need to be healthy”. Of course, science has now clearly shown that meat is actually damaging to human health (see Myth #16), so where do these “meat withdrawal” feelings of malaise & discomfort come from? As it turns out, the muscle cells of meat contain Hypoxanthine, inosinic acid and guanylic acid — all substances that have a chemical structure similar to caffeine & nicotine. Indeed, theses substances are all powerful chemical stimulants, and they are all highly addictive. In addition, the blood in meat contains albumin, hemoglobin and gamma globulin — all of which activate the opioid receptors in the human brain.
So know you know — You don’t crave meat, my Friends; you are addicted to it. It is an addiction that might feel good, and yet it is an addiction that is killing you nonetheless. Heroine addicts might feel great while they are “shooting up”, and alcoholics might feel fantastic while they are “sucking down”, and yet these are not justifications for continuing these extremely dangerous & very deadly habits … and the same is true for you and your cravings for meat.
But how can you break this nasty addiction? Well, for starters, sheer willpower is quite effective. Essentially, if you can force yourself to go meat-free for only two weeks, your withdrawal symptoms will significantly dissipate and you will crave meat no longer. Indeed, once your body goes that long without ingesting the flesh of another being, you will return to your natural state of being — and actually start to feel repulsed by the mere sight of meat.
In addition, a great help in making it this far is regularly remembering that you weren’t eating “meat” in the first place … A few days after an animal has been slaughtered, its flesh begins to turn gray-green — because the natural rotting process has already started. Freezing the flesh helps to slow down this decomposition — and the meat industry uses nitrates & carbon monoxide & other poisonous preservatives to make your “meat” appear red in the store, and yet nothing can change the fact that your “meat” isn’t “meat at all, but is rather the dead parts of what was only recently a living animal. And if you are going to eat pieces of rotting flesh, then you should call it just that. It’s not “meat” that you are eating, my Friends — it is rotting flesh, and you are definitely NOT designed to eat rotting flesh. Humans are not carrion feeders, so we should leave the dead flesh of dead animals to those who are – to the vultures & the hyenas & the worms & the bacteria.
Current status of this Myth: Dethroned
Justification it provides for eating animals: NONE
P.S. Of course, the very best way to beat your meat addiction is to simply remember that it’s not your meat to begin with; that meat is in fact the dead flesh of someone else … someone else who wanted to live.
“It is sometimes difficult to understand the level of arrogance and callousness that are required to calmly say, “My pleasure is worth your pain.” ~ unknown
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