A pair of hands serving a black burger with red chili horns on it, symbolizing the devil © iStock | niolox

World-renowned plant-based physician Dr. Michael Klaper addressed the problem in situations when vegan diets don’t work in a Q&A video interview with Plant-Based News.

He says there are two reasons people on a plant-based diet go back to eating an animal-based diet.

The first reason is largely from social pressure — they just get tired of being the odd person out at the restaurant and home or cooking two meals for their spouses or whatever, so most of it is social.

The second reason is that if we’ve been eating meat throughout our lives, we’re going to become dependent on the carnitine, the creatine, and the muscle-based nutrients that come from animal flesh food.

Our body can make these nutrients, but since we’ve been eating meat all along, it’s been coming in preformed, so our body’s genes downregulate their own production.

So when we suddenly stop eating meat, our body will cause us to have meat cravings, and we will strongly desire it.

And as soon as we get to eat meat, the preformed nutrients wash into our tissues, making us feel great again.

Many also say the steak’s aroma and taste are “really good!” and that they could never give that up.

Man loving the aroma of cooked steak © iStock | YakobchukOlena

Problem

Dr. Klaper explains that the above condition is not normal human physiology.

It is an acquired dependency created by feeding humans with animal flesh from infancy to adulthood, while we grow up, along with a bunch of diseases that come later on with this diet.

No primate does that. No gorilla does that. No bonobo does that.

Most people on a healthy and balanced whole-food plant-based diet can naturally gear up their genes and enzymes to start synthesizing their own carnitine and creatine.

But for some folks, this process might be a bit slower — it may take six months or even a year or so before they’re really manufacturing it by themselves.

Solution

The doctor advises vegans who are still struggling or having trouble getting past meat cravings to eat meat once a week until they can completely give it up.

Just stretch out the time in between, and eventually, the body will gear up, so it won’t need that stuff anymore.

Sharing his own personal experience, Dr. Klaper said:

“I had meat cravings for years after I became vegan. And it really bothered me, and for a short period of time I went back to having some fish to see if it makes any difference in my physical being — it didn’t.

It was a strong meat craving, but it was mostly just that chewy salty texture I craved more than anything else I think.

So if people have to dabble in that for a while, I don’t condemn them, but I say don’t linger there either. Get on with phasing that stuff out of your diet as expeditiously as possible.”

Dr. Michael Klaper’s Story, Insight & Perspective @ YouTube

Vegans

Dr. Klaper added that he has seen three generations of children raised as vegans, and they turn into lean, healthy, bright people who don’t have meat cravings. Their mouths don’t water when they walk past a barbecue. Now, these are healthy folks. They’re physiologically different folks, he said.

But for vegans who have a very strong meat dependency prior to going vegan, he advises taking it slow, as it may not be so easy for them to just switch overnight, as much as they really want to, especially right after getting enlightened on the subject from watching the Forks Over Knives documentary.

Videos

The full 30-minute Q&A interview with Dr. Michael Klaper, below: 

Forks Over Knives documentary trailer below, with the full feature at this link: Forks Over Knives Film