text: [Full Text]This HRC study examines key factors in people’s decisions to either adopt or give up a vegetarian or vegan diet, and the first set of findings being released compares individuals who currently eat a vegetarian or vegan diet with those who have been vegetarian or vegan in the past but now consume meat. The findings of the study offer some potentially disappointing but illuminating conclusions that could inform advocacy and outreach strategies. 
   
   Abstract: 
   
   In the US, the population of current vegetarians/vegans sits at approximately 2%, while approximately 10% of the population are former vegetarians/vegans and about 88% have never been veg. This study, published by HRC, looks closely at that 12% of the population that identifies as either current or former vegetarians/vegans, and tries to better understand what makes people lapse, and in turn, what factors might help keep people veg. The findings presented here offer a lot of possible avenues for new strategic thinking in veg advocacy, and how we might move the vegetarian/vegan diet from the margins more towards the center. 
   
   Though there is rarely just one reason for people adopting or giving up a veg diet, it is not completely clear if lapses are due more to social pressures (eating a diet that seems unusual or outside the norm), or based on some other difficulty inherent to the diet itself. That being said, the findings do illuminate some things that many lapsed vegetarians/vegans have in common, such as transitioning to the diet too quickly, not being involved socially with other veg folks, and not being able to address certain food cravings. The study also shows that current vegetarians/vegans have a wide range of motivations that keep them veg, which may mean that more diverse messaging and outreach could have a positive impact. 
   
   This phase of release is part of a larger study of U.S. vegetarians and vegans. You can read more about the key findings, as well as the see the tables and methodologies, in the attached PDFs. ||||| In 1995 I decided to stop eating meat. I could never really quite explain why, I think it was something to do with watching a documentary where they cooked a cat and partly because I had a really crap job working for Wolves Poly and felt my life was slipping away. It definitely wasn't anything to do with any 'vegetarian month'. 
   
   I did a number of weird things. I experimented with stopping washing my hair (it got greasy), I stopped watching TV after catching Newsnight really stoned and deciding that Jeremy Paxman was fundamentally a comedian so there was little difference between the news and Beadle's About. I also stopped eating meat. 
   
   First it was just red meat. I said goodbye in a Birmingham Burger King; the sandwich was greasy and unpleasant and I thought 'good riddance'. 
   
   I found eating only white meat was hard. People didn't know what to cook for me - they'd tell me I was just being awkward. They were right, so there was only one thing for it, cutting out all meat altogether. 
   
   So I simply stopped putting it in my mouth. It was that simple. I didn't feel any different and what I cooked didn't really change as I was a complete povvo and didn't bother buying much meat anyway. 
   
   To be honest, I was the world's worst vegetarian. You see - I didn't really like vegetables very much. I'd spent most of my childhood terrified of them - horrid bland mushy things. It's only as an adult I realise that part of the problem is my mother's cooking - she hates using salt and has a tendency to over boil things. Thanks, Mum. 
   
   So there we are. A vegetarian who hates vegetables and mostly lives on pasta and cheese. Healthy. 
   
   Fast-forward nearly 15 years and I'm a father of two and increasingly aware of my diet. My wife stopped her vegetarian ways when pregnancy brought cravings for meat. 
   
   With her help (this makes her sound like my sponsor in Fussy Eaters Anonymous) I'd managed to eat more vegetables - by the time our second child was in the womb she was having spinach cravings and I didn't complain once about having to eat boiled green leaves every day. For six months. So I was doing better with a wider diet but still no drinking from the meaty cup. 
   
   My four-year-old son has the restricted palate that children often have. He mostly refuses to eat anything that isn't sausages or fruit, so dining out was becoming difficult. There was the small circle of cheesy carbs I'd eat, and the intersection with the circle of sausages that my son wants to eat was - well, if you understand your Venn diagrams you'll know there wasn't much in the middle. 
   
   It was a trip to Hastings that finally did it. At a fish 'n' chip shop pretty much the only thing on the menu I could eat was a microwaved cheese pasty. I simply couldn't face it and ordered fish. 
   
   Can't say I particularly enjoyed it. I found the portion of thick white flesh alarmingly large and I didn't want to think about the skin at all. However it did leave me feeling satisfied in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. Every cell in my body screaming "protein - that's what you need." 
   
   My wife was very impressed with me. She asked me what I wanted to try next and the thing that had been filling my thoughts since deciding to allow meat back into my life was pepperoni pizza. Those little toasted cups of fat that make for a party in the mouth everyone can afford. Although to ponce it up a bit we ate it in Hampstead. Lardy dah. 
   
   Bacon. Let's talk about bacon. There's no meat more glorious than bacon. You can add it to pasta instead of cheese. You can stick it in a sandwich, er ... instead of cheese. Or even rub it on to attract men (a top tip there ladies). 
   
   On telling my friends I was eating meat, one looked proud and said, "Welcome back to Man Club." Although my new macho credentials were severely dented by the admission that largely I'd been eating chicken - "Chicken? Why, us men class chicken as a vegetable." 
   
   I still haven't tried real meat. I can do a spag bog or even a burger but no steaks. I'm still a bit frightened of them. All too fleshy. 
   
   Many people must have had a similar experience. If you're a lapsed vegetarian (or a resurgent meat eater), what was it that made you fall off the vegetarian wagon? ||||| After decades of a growing appetite for meat, U.S. consumption is finally dropping after hitting "peak meat" a decade ago. But while many people are eating less meat, giving it up totally is much harder. Few people stick with their decision to become vegetarian or vegan. 
   
   In an attempt to move animal-free diets "from the margins more towards the center," the Humane Research Council just put out the first study to put numbers to the lapsed vegetarian phenomenon. Their main takeaway is essentially what people have said for years: getting people to reduce their meat and dairy intake will be more effective overall than demanding "purity," or complete elimination of animal products from their diet. 
   
   According to their research, drawn from a representative sample of more than 11,000 adults over age 17 in the U.S., while only 2% of the U.S. population is currently vegetarian or vegan, another 10% used to be. Put another way, they found that only 1 in 5 vegetarians and vegans maintains their diet; a full 84% eventually revert back to eating meat or other animal products. 
   
   The study also shows how and why many people lapse. Most former vegetarians and vegans (65%) said they first transitioned to their veg diet in just a few days or weeks, while fewer current vegetarians (53%) transitioned that quickly, suggesting that perhaps a slower approach leads to longer-lasting results. They also found that the "window of opportunity is limited," when it comes to getting people to stick to their diets: A third-of people abandoned their animal-free diets in three months or less, and more than half abandoned it within the first year. 
   
   Reasons for quitting varied, but perhaps intuitively, a lot comes down to relationships. A third of all former vegetarians lived with a non-vegetarians or non-vegan partner when they went back to eating meat. The study also found that current vegetarians were more likely to cite multiple reasons for being vegetarian—such as animal welfare, environmentalism, and personal health—while many former vegetarians (58%) cited health as the main motivator. In other words, from the advocacy group’s perspective, health can be an effective "foot in the door" approach to increasing the number of vegetarians and vegans, but often not enough to keep people animal-free for the long-term. 
   
   The Humane Research Council also says advocates need to change the culture around being vegetarian or vegan and acknowledge its challenges. More than 60% of former vegetarians/vegans disliked sticking out from the crowd because of their diet, and 58% did not see their diet as part of their identity. Nearly 50% said they found it too difficult to maintain a "pure diet." 
   
   "The latest findings once again show that a message focused on reduction instead of elimination of animal products may be more effective to create an overall decline in animal product consumption," the report says. "Advocates would be well advised to soften their appeals to avoid suggesting the choice is all or nothing."
target: – It seems becoming a vegetarian and staying a vegetarian are two very different things. A whopping 84% of vegetarians end up eating meat again, and most people shift back within a single year, according to a new study. Specifically, 53% of vegetarians are meat-eaters again within 12 months, while more than 30% go back to meat within three months, the Huffington Post reports. Of the 11,000 people studied, 2% were vegetarians, 10% former vegetarians, and 88% lifelong meat-eaters. A major reason for lapsing, it seems, was social: Those who returned to being omnivorous didn't have enough support among friends for their vegetarian lifestyles. Earlier research points to health issues from staying meat-free, the Smithsonian reports. Some 35% of respondents to a separate survey of lapsed vegetarians said their own poorer health drove them back to animal flesh, Skeptoid reports. "I will take a dead cow over anemia anytime," says one respondent. And in the Guardian, a lapsed vegetarian writes about the inconvenience of avoiding meat, as well as the feeling of "every cell in my body screaming 'protein—that's what you need.'" Perhaps the writer would agree with the conclusions of the new study, as Co.Exist reports them: "A message focused on reduction instead of elimination of animal products may be more effective to create an overall decline in animal product consumption." (Read about a veggie burger that "bleeds" like meat.)