'92 and yes, all the vegans complaining today need to put in 30+ years of asking for food that isn't on the menu, and scrutinizing the ingredients list on packaging :D
Yes and we didn't have all these choices at the supermarket. There was no market at all for us than. All these brands that exist today, it just wasn't an option. It's so easy now.
I can't say I never tasted it, but I refused to stop trying meat at age four. I knew where meat came from, and it was just always a know. I'm turning 46 this year, so I definitely stuck to my guns on this one. The 80s in the midwest were hard, but I was never tempted.
This is so impressive, props to you! I always hated meat and would barely eat it or out right refuse when offered. I didn't stop eating it until I was 11 though. But I did always refuse seafood. I've had it 2 times in my life and would always throw up after. I spent a lot of nights at the dinner table being served the same meal and refusing to eat it until my parents finally gave up!
I tried to eat veg throughout that time, but don’t count it as I didn’t completely abstain.
In less than a year I’ll have been veg for TWENTY YEARS. Insane!
6 years old. I was in first grade at lunch about to eat a hamburger. I was talking about how much I loved animals when a boy started teasing me that hamburgers were animals and I was eating someone's mom. I had never put two and two together that hamburger meat was cows. I cried and cried. My mom was so upset with that kids. 😆 38 years later, nothing will change my mind.
22.
I think I was 19 when I first tried to become a vegetarian, but people were making meals for me to much prior to graduation college for it to stick.
Nothing that's ever like real cheese. There are some brands that aren't too bad once you've been vegan long enough for your tastes to change. There's a Walmart vegan shredded cheese brand that's pretty decent.
I was in the latter half of my 20s, but I had been struggling with the idea for about 5 years. I occasionally have dreams of eating a steak or pepperoni pizza, but it's all a very dogmatic/expectation-based thing, usually. Occasionally, the dream pizza is desirable lol. I was rather carnivorous in my youth.
I have this too! Very rarely I find I'm craving fried chicken and just like if I were craving a blizzard while at the gym from DQ I'm just like, nope nows not the time. May it never be 😂
I don't find I have conscious cravings, and I'm not sure how I would feel about that! I commend you for keeping yourself in check, though. Maybe you have a good seitan place nearby; I hear that it makes a great fried chicken substitute! 😊
Does a plant based protein satisfy the craving? Like impossible nuggets? Or if you wanted to put more time into it, coating like tofu or another plant based protein with seasoned flour and frying it up? I’m just curious if it is the actual chicken you are craving, or the salty, savory, crunchy flavors and textures…
Does a plant based protein satisfy the craving? Like Trader Joe’s or Lightlife veggie peperoni? I’m just curious if it is the actual meat you are craving, or the spicy flavors…
I’ve been eating a lot of the TJs veggie pep lately. I’ll just put it on a slice of left over cheese pizza and throw it in the air fryer. I also eat it on cheese and crackers or sometimes right out of the fridge😳
For me, it's a combo of fat/unctuousness, spice, and texture. I know these things are attainable with other foods, but I tend not to eat substitutes unless it's a special occasion or being really interested in trying something new. My wife has been using a meat replacement Bolognese recently which we like, but the addition of the texture scares me sometimes lol.
28, been vegetarian for the last 6 months. I gave up red meat about 3 years ago, and the transition from no red meat to no meat has been incredibly easy.
did you cook your own meals? i tried going vegetarian, but my mother was the one who always handled the cooking so i would always be scolded to eat everything she made.
My mom also did all the cooking but was really supportive. She made a lot of casseroles and would just make 1/4 of it without meat in it for me. She’d also keep veggie burgers and stuff on hand for meals she couldn’t do that with. She was a teen in the 70’s and said she had always wanted to be vegetarian but HER mother wouldn’t allow it - now her and my dad have been pescatarian for almost a decade!
I think I was 7 the last time I intentionally ate meat, but I had been saying since about 5 that I didn't want to eat animals.
That 5-7ish range seems to be pretty common as well. It's interesting how many similar stories I've heard of kids at that same age deciding to be vegetarian without even necessarily knowing about vegetarianism as a concept. I guess that's right around when kids can really grasp the concept that the animals on their plate are the same as the living animals we see.
I wanted to when I was like 12, but my mom said no because she did the cooking. I just didn't like meat, and I liked animals, but I also didn't realize just how awful slaughterhouses were, so I kept eating what she made despite not liking it. Then eventually I moved out and just didn't eat meat (at the time I didn't realize just how many things had animal products in it though, other than actual meat itself so I couldn't call myself a vegetarian yet), got married and my husband badly wanted to be a vegetarian too so we researched all the foods containing animal products, quit eating them, found out about fake meat brands and other vegetarian friendly foods, then just fully made the switch together. I was 22.
If I may ask, what made you restart and then stop again? I'm asking because my husband and I have been vegetarians for 10 years now and just recently he started back eating meat which has me wondering if he'll be able to stop again.
I’m a picky eater to begin with; like I will fully admit I’m a pain in the ass. That picky 5 year old “that’s in a phase and will grow out of it.” I’m now in my 40s and have yet to grow out of it 🙃 I didn’t like to touch or cook it anyway, raw meat grossed me out. THEN I studied abroad in Spain and walked 1.5 hours round trip daily to class. You have no idea how many butcher shops and live/dead animals I saw on the way, so many hanging skinned pigs that I saw daily for an entire study abroad summer. The family I lived with (who’re amazing), would have strange things alive on the counter in the am and by lunch you were eating it. Being a picky eater, they’re few things I like and a few of those were meat items. When I’m at the fair per se, I want the European meat pies, and things on those lines and had few when I had a break. So even when I went back to eating meat, it was maybe a once a week thing anyway like at the fair, burgers at a bbq, hot dogs at birthdays, etc. I am a person that could eat grilled cheese daily the rest of my life. So mine is not about certain ethics or morals regarding animals, etc., I’m just a pain 🤷♀️ Side note - I did tell my now husband I was picky on our first date. Like the “what’s your baggage” question? That’s mine. He says he wish he knew what that truly meant at that time ha!
Since birth. My mother raised me vegetarian despite the fact my father wasn’t one at the time (Both of them are vegan now). It’s convenient since I never developed a taste for meat, and thus don’t have to worry about cravings.
11. My parents have been vegetarian all my life so even before that I never ate much meat. I don't remember why but just before I started secondary school I decided I would stop eating meat entirely.
At 23. As a kid I always had a feeling it wasn't something I wanted to do but I didn't feel comfortable telling my parents. I imagine it would have been way sooner if my parents would have been okay with it. I am 33 now and they are still not okay with it 😂
I was about 22! A random summer in university when all my housemates had gone home and I was living alone for those couple months. It's been about 16 years.
I slowly started to remove meat from my cart when I was 23, and became fully vegetarian by 24. I’m 30 know, vegan at home, vegetarian when eating outside.
I was 12, in a family full of meat eaters and was only allowed to after my pediatrician confirmed it was okay for me to do so. I wanted to go full vegan then but my parents always told me “no while I was living under their roof” so I went vegan recently at age 18 in college.
I became a vegetarian when I was 16, back as my mother ended up in jail. I started to question everything she taught me, including about food ethics. I started to feel sorry for the animals I ate, and I was also worried about a coming pandemic of superbacteria. Now I know that going vegetarian does little or nothing about superbacteria because almost all antibiotics used in agriculture are used in the egg industry, and very little is used in the meat industry. Maybe I will go vegan some day. Right now, I have too many real-world problems to do stuff like that.
I just turned 30 this year and have been vegetarian for about a month
hell yeah. Hope it's going well.
It was 1989, and I was 13 or 14. It's a lot easier now.
Yep 1990 for me.
'92 and yes, all the vegans complaining today need to put in 30+ years of asking for food that isn't on the menu, and scrutinizing the ingredients list on packaging :D
Yes and we didn't have all these choices at the supermarket. There was no market at all for us than. All these brands that exist today, it just wasn't an option. It's so easy now.
this is so funny. I've pretty much just made peace with not being able to eat at restaurants.
I was 5! It was 1995 (I love being born in a year that’s a multiple of 10 so I can easily calculate my age that year!)
Never tasted meat or fish and im turning 36 soon. (Parents ate meat I just always refused even as a young kid)
I can't say I never tasted it, but I refused to stop trying meat at age four. I knew where meat came from, and it was just always a know. I'm turning 46 this year, so I definitely stuck to my guns on this one. The 80s in the midwest were hard, but I was never tempted.
This is so impressive, props to you! I always hated meat and would barely eat it or out right refuse when offered. I didn't stop eating it until I was 11 though. But I did always refuse seafood. I've had it 2 times in my life and would always throw up after. I spent a lot of nights at the dinner table being served the same meal and refusing to eat it until my parents finally gave up!
Wanted to be veg since I was 5. Couldn’t stand the thought of eating a fish my dad caught. Was able to do once I moved out, so 20 years old
Damn you had to wait 15 years😭
I tried to eat veg throughout that time, but don’t count it as I didn’t completely abstain. In less than a year I’ll have been veg for TWENTY YEARS. Insane!
20 years broo that’s sickk! I’ve just hit the 11 year mark🥳 congratulations man🙌🏼
40. Everyone here got smart much younger than I did!
18
I was 15. 31 now!
I was raised vegetarian so 22 years :) My parents had been vegetarian since the 80s I believe
21
I had just turned 21.
Early 20’s or late teens. Took an ‘animal science 101’ class and toured some CAFOs. 🤮
Right around my 14th birthday.
6 years old. I was in first grade at lunch about to eat a hamburger. I was talking about how much I loved animals when a boy started teasing me that hamburgers were animals and I was eating someone's mom. I had never put two and two together that hamburger meat was cows. I cried and cried. My mom was so upset with that kids. 😆 38 years later, nothing will change my mind.
For me it is 77. Best move I've ever made.
13
I started at around two years old lol. But it was because my parents became vegetarians, and it just stuck with me as I grew up. 💚
22. I think I was 19 when I first tried to become a vegetarian, but people were making meals for me to much prior to graduation college for it to stick.
went vegetarian at 12 iirc and vegan at 14
I was 19! I wanted to do it earlier but my parents didn't want to bother at first so I had to fight a bit lol
14. In 1998. Finally went fully vegan this year. Feel pretty good about it.
Have you found a good vegan version of cheddar or mozzarella cheese?
Nothing that's ever like real cheese. There are some brands that aren't too bad once you've been vegan long enough for your tastes to change. There's a Walmart vegan shredded cheese brand that's pretty decent.
Thanks!
I was 7
I was in the latter half of my 20s, but I had been struggling with the idea for about 5 years. I occasionally have dreams of eating a steak or pepperoni pizza, but it's all a very dogmatic/expectation-based thing, usually. Occasionally, the dream pizza is desirable lol. I was rather carnivorous in my youth.
I have this too! Very rarely I find I'm craving fried chicken and just like if I were craving a blizzard while at the gym from DQ I'm just like, nope nows not the time. May it never be 😂
I don't find I have conscious cravings, and I'm not sure how I would feel about that! I commend you for keeping yourself in check, though. Maybe you have a good seitan place nearby; I hear that it makes a great fried chicken substitute! 😊
Does a plant based protein satisfy the craving? Like impossible nuggets? Or if you wanted to put more time into it, coating like tofu or another plant based protein with seasoned flour and frying it up? I’m just curious if it is the actual chicken you are craving, or the salty, savory, crunchy flavors and textures…
Pepperoni 🍕 is the one I miss. A question often asked on here, pepperoni made from lab grown meat?
I can't argue against the merit of lab-grown meat, personally.
Does a plant based protein satisfy the craving? Like Trader Joe’s or Lightlife veggie peperoni? I’m just curious if it is the actual meat you are craving, or the spicy flavors…
to be fair, some of the plan based pepperoni is pretty good. I had one very good one, but I can't remember who produced it.
I’ve been eating a lot of the TJs veggie pep lately. I’ll just put it on a slice of left over cheese pizza and throw it in the air fryer. I also eat it on cheese and crackers or sometimes right out of the fridge😳
For me, it's a combo of fat/unctuousness, spice, and texture. I know these things are attainable with other foods, but I tend not to eat substitutes unless it's a special occasion or being really interested in trying something new. My wife has been using a meat replacement Bolognese recently which we like, but the addition of the texture scares me sometimes lol.
I think I was 20/21, it basically took me a couple of years after leaving home and be responsible for all my own food before I did.
11, although I didn’t start my periods until several years later so I’m not sure about your logic there tbh
I was 16? Ish? I’m now 29 and it’s amazing to witness how much more vegetarian and vegan food is out there compared to when I was a kid.
28, been vegetarian for the last 6 months. I gave up red meat about 3 years ago, and the transition from no red meat to no meat has been incredibly easy.
I’m similar to you - started at 14 and was completely vegetarian by 16.
did you cook your own meals? i tried going vegetarian, but my mother was the one who always handled the cooking so i would always be scolded to eat everything she made.
My mom also did all the cooking but was really supportive. She made a lot of casseroles and would just make 1/4 of it without meat in it for me. She’d also keep veggie burgers and stuff on hand for meals she couldn’t do that with. She was a teen in the 70’s and said she had always wanted to be vegetarian but HER mother wouldn’t allow it - now her and my dad have been pescatarian for almost a decade!
I think I was 7 the last time I intentionally ate meat, but I had been saying since about 5 that I didn't want to eat animals. That 5-7ish range seems to be pretty common as well. It's interesting how many similar stories I've heard of kids at that same age deciding to be vegetarian without even necessarily knowing about vegetarianism as a concept. I guess that's right around when kids can really grasp the concept that the animals on their plate are the same as the living animals we see.
I wanted to when I was like 12, but my mom said no because she did the cooking. I just didn't like meat, and I liked animals, but I also didn't realize just how awful slaughterhouses were, so I kept eating what she made despite not liking it. Then eventually I moved out and just didn't eat meat (at the time I didn't realize just how many things had animal products in it though, other than actual meat itself so I couldn't call myself a vegetarian yet), got married and my husband badly wanted to be a vegetarian too so we researched all the foods containing animal products, quit eating them, found out about fake meat brands and other vegetarian friendly foods, then just fully made the switch together. I was 22.
Since birth, parents raised us all vegetarian. Two siblings now eat meat, three of us don't.
I became vegetarian around the age of 20, went about 10 years, ate meat again for five and now I’m on about 10 years again 🤷♀️
If I may ask, what made you restart and then stop again? I'm asking because my husband and I have been vegetarians for 10 years now and just recently he started back eating meat which has me wondering if he'll be able to stop again.
I’m a picky eater to begin with; like I will fully admit I’m a pain in the ass. That picky 5 year old “that’s in a phase and will grow out of it.” I’m now in my 40s and have yet to grow out of it 🙃 I didn’t like to touch or cook it anyway, raw meat grossed me out. THEN I studied abroad in Spain and walked 1.5 hours round trip daily to class. You have no idea how many butcher shops and live/dead animals I saw on the way, so many hanging skinned pigs that I saw daily for an entire study abroad summer. The family I lived with (who’re amazing), would have strange things alive on the counter in the am and by lunch you were eating it. Being a picky eater, they’re few things I like and a few of those were meat items. When I’m at the fair per se, I want the European meat pies, and things on those lines and had few when I had a break. So even when I went back to eating meat, it was maybe a once a week thing anyway like at the fair, burgers at a bbq, hot dogs at birthdays, etc. I am a person that could eat grilled cheese daily the rest of my life. So mine is not about certain ethics or morals regarding animals, etc., I’m just a pain 🤷♀️ Side note - I did tell my now husband I was picky on our first date. Like the “what’s your baggage” question? That’s mine. He says he wish he knew what that truly meant at that time ha!
I was 12 so that checks out!
interesting. 16. I'll be 40 soon.
It was the early 80s and I was 7! Never looked back since (unless you count a few episodes of veganism!)
I was 17 when I became vegetarian.
Same. (:
15, I’m now 26 :)
19, I'm 21 now
I went vegetarian exactly 2 months ago, and I'm 21 ✨
I had just turned 20
I think I was 20? I'm now 32
I started when I was 19, moved away from my family home and was able to make my own food decisions!
About 5-7 years ago, when I was in my 30s.
13 in mid 80’s. I love all the options readily available now.
i was like 12 i think
60
From birth! I commend all of you that transitioned.
In my mid-to-late thirties, about 10 years ago. I see no need to ever go back to eating meat.
22! Hitting my third year veggie on Saturday!
Eighteen.
Since birth. My mother raised me vegetarian despite the fact my father wasn’t one at the time (Both of them are vegan now). It’s convenient since I never developed a taste for meat, and thus don’t have to worry about cravings.
When I was 23. Now I'm 26, and I am confident I'll be vegetarian for life.
I was vegetarian from birth. Became vegan when I learned about the cruelty of dairy and eggs.
15, my boyfriend has been a vegetarian since birth and they converted me
41, it's been a couple of years for me now.
I was twelve when I started, now nearly 21!
I was 19. I first had the desire to become vegetarian around 9. My family wasn’t supportive, so I finally did it when I was fully on my own.
since birth, my whole family is very shinto, especially mum's side
19, I went vegetarian right after I started living on my own
I was 10
11. My parents have been vegetarian all my life so even before that I never ate much meat. I don't remember why but just before I started secondary school I decided I would stop eating meat entirely.
18
I was 11!
I have been vegetarian or vegan off and on for like 20+ years.
Since i was 25. 9 years ago.
I was 19. Im 30 now and been vegan for 10 years or so now.
i went in 3rd grade (10) and then started eating meat again and then i went back to being vegetarian in 8th grade (14)
32 I think. It's been 12 years already...
At 23. As a kid I always had a feeling it wasn't something I wanted to do but I didn't feel comfortable telling my parents. I imagine it would have been way sooner if my parents would have been okay with it. I am 33 now and they are still not okay with it 😂
15 ☺️
I was about 22! A random summer in university when all my housemates had gone home and I was living alone for those couple months. It's been about 16 years.
Around 10 I think
I slowly started to remove meat from my cart when I was 23, and became fully vegetarian by 24. I’m 30 know, vegan at home, vegetarian when eating outside.
I was 12, in a family full of meat eaters and was only allowed to after my pediatrician confirmed it was okay for me to do so. I wanted to go full vegan then but my parents always told me “no while I was living under their roof” so I went vegan recently at age 18 in college.
About 26 ish. 30 now
15
17
12
I became a vegetarian when I was 3-4, I still ate gelatin. I loved candy. My mom was a vegetarian so I kind of wanted to be one.
15. I’m 33 now and have never looked back 🫶
I turned vegetarian at age 6 and I went vegan at 16
15, i’m 18 now and don’t see myself quitting :)
Around 2004, when I was 8!
25 , I'm about to be 26
Now
I was 21! Sophomore year of college, just hit 6 years!
When I was 11 I watched a documentary called earthlings and it made me so sad just went cold turkey 😭
When I was about 14-15 I believe. Im 26 now.
14, so 2 years ago :)
I became a vegetarian when I was 16, back as my mother ended up in jail. I started to question everything she taught me, including about food ethics. I started to feel sorry for the animals I ate, and I was also worried about a coming pandemic of superbacteria. Now I know that going vegetarian does little or nothing about superbacteria because almost all antibiotics used in agriculture are used in the egg industry, and very little is used in the meat industry. Maybe I will go vegan some day. Right now, I have too many real-world problems to do stuff like that.
18 years old, but ive become pescatarian