How a month of abstinence can lead to 'meat disgust' | There are some surprising impacts of cutting out meat, even for a short period, which can carry on well beyond the end of abstinence.

I just eat less meat but I still have sex with my wife.

Meat disgust is really interesting to me. A few months ago, I had steak-shaped TVP, which is basically defatted soy beans that get put into the shape and texture of meat.

I myself prepared it. I saw it go from being dry like a brick to having been soaked in vegetable stock to being fried.
And still, when I took my first bite of it, my body kicked in a gag reflex, because it was convinced I was biting into meat.

I also haven't bitten into meat in 15 years, which is what makes this so crazy to me.
The taste reminded me of chicken (which was ultimately just the protein having undergone the Maillard reaction during frying) and the chewiness perhaps unsurprisingly did remind me of a steak. So, if I had been served that in a restaurant, I might not have trusted it to not be meat. But that's not what happened then. It was just an instinctive reaction to something I haven't experienced in 15 years.

In my particular case, it might also be a form of internalized trauma, because there was a time period, when I already found meat disgusting before going vegetarian (less so than after, but still) and my parents forced me to eat it anyways, because they thought I was just being a silly child.

Definitely a thing. Within weeks of quitting animal flesh, it stopped having an appealing scent. No matter how fresh meat is, it all smells rotten to me now.

The thing that doesn't get talked about enough is how people who eat animals also smell like corpses, to varying degrees. It's strongest right after a meal. And it's quite obvious when someone eats cured flesh, bologna, and/or hot dogs every day, because they emit a miasma.

My partner is vegan. I am not, but since we met I've been eating a lot less meat and animal products because we like to cook for each other at home. I remember walking past a butcher a couple of years ago that had beef cuts hanging on hooks by the window and it made me feel sick - for the first time I was seeing it as flesh instead of "meat".