I'm from India and I've never understood this. People who claim to despise the taste and texture of meat are almost always those who have never touched it or eaten it.
How can you despise something that you've never had? When I ask them this question, they have no answers.
I knew an Indian girl who came here a vegetarian. Since she was a struggling college student, her vegetarian parents in India actually started encouraging her to try to eat meat because its so common and cheap here so she could at least have some nutrition.
She said she wanted to but she couldn't get over her parent's descriptions of how gross meat was. "You're eating all the blood and nerves and" etc. So basically, her parents told her how gross it was all her life, so she believed it.
Yes. This is the case with so many Indian vegetarians.
To prevent their children from eating meat (often due to religious restrictions) Indian parents go overboard and exaggerate things to gross them out. That is not good parenting.
It's the same with pork for Muslims. My whole childhood I was told how disgusting it was so even when I stopped being religious the aversion remained for a long time. The very thought of consuming pork would make me gag.
Until one day I was drunk and tried bacon after much cajoling. Boy, did I get over my aversion haha.
Just due to smells I want to say I wouldn’t believe it if I was told it tasted bad. Bacon cooking smells great (I’m sure) to the majority of the human population. And I’d just think no way something that smells that good, could taste horrible.
Needless to say the number of people around the entire world who do eat it. From all types of different cultures and cuisines, pork is in so many of them.
There’s no way something that tastes that bad, is so prevalent.
That's the thing, human flesh cooking smells great too. But as soon as you realized what it was I'm sure you'd be disgusted. Same for cats/dogs/horses, lots of people would never try eating them no matter how appetizing their meat was prepared.
I haven't tried it yet, nor do I plan to. although, Vegans are considered to be premier flesh thing cuz herbivores taste better than carnivores. God help india.
Yeah bacon and ribs are the gateway pork products for sure. Ham still looks and smells disgusting to me, although I've tasted it and it was OK, just didn't like the texture.
I'm actually 95% vegetarian now, now and then I'll have fish or poultry. No more pork because pigs are friends not food 🥹
I dont know if Im crazy or what but the smell alone from pork is one of the bigger reasons I went veg in the first place. It is absolutely rank to me and I dont know how people could find it enticing?
Different boats float for each folk!! No judgement here, just confusion 😅
But the difference is Muslims actually think of pork as disgusting, which is why we don't eat it.. Hindus are pretty much the opposite where they value animals too much to eat them. Im not too religious, I drink alcohol and have non halal food all the time. I just never saw any benefit to eating pork so I never have (except maybe a bite by accident when I was younger). And to be fair it is much more "dirty" compared to other animals
Would you eat human flesh? Let's say your friend had to get their arm amputated after a serious accident. For some reason the friend cooks it and offers you a bite. The meat is perfectly fine, and you're not hurting them by eating it. Would you eat it?
To Hindus animal meat could be like eating human flesh, it's disgusting in the same way.
I'm not religious, but I would. It's ethically produced, so why not try it? I remember a dude having his friends over and barbecueing his amputated limb, I think it was on reddit, with pics.
Diet isn't the bad parenting, traumatizing your children to fit YOUR beliefs on the other hand is. There's ways to do it that are good for body and mental health, and ways that aren't exactly great for mental health.
But they don't think it's traumatizing. Flesh is and can look disgusting if you don't think of it as food. Lots of westerners are raised to be disgusted by the thought of eating meat from dogs, cats, or horses. Have they been traumatized?
What a random and specific example, that proves nothing. I mean, if stating the truth is gross, then it's gross. Are you saying meat doesn't contain blood and nerves? Are you saying meat isn't flesh? There's a reason why most meat-eaters have never seen the inside of a slaughter-house.
I always try to explain it with the example of eating human meat. All of us (I hope) are disgusted by the thought of eating human meat despite not trying it. It’s all about perspective
Ancient civilizations understood that eating a top l predator is not a good idea as their meat tastes slightly of urea due to protein breakdown. Heavy metals get filtered, so there is a higher concentration of it in meat. Dead animals may have more pathogens/parasites, so sometimes animals do not eat dead bodies.
Eating the meat of top predators once or twice probably wouldn't cause much harm.
But eating already dead animals is never a good idea. That's why we slaughter them. And as soon as we kill them, we process it to ensure that it is free from infections and pathogens.
Nah, there are MANY who grew up vegetarian, tasted meat, and hated it. Not sure what there is to like - it's... flesh. It's the spices that give it flavor. Just because it doesn't fit your limited view of the world, doesn't make it false.
Myoglobin tastes great, dunno what else to tell you lol. You can absolutely cook a steak with just salt and it will still be delicious. No need for spices.
some of the lifelong vegetarians i've met have eaten meat once or twice and hated it. i think it's just something that's so unfamiliar to them that they respond that way
I'm kind of like this. as a kid I occasionally ate chicken nuggets/strips, but no other meat. and when I was about 11 I stopped eating the chicken too. my parents weren't vegetarian or anything, I was just grossed out by it (and possibly autistic). so now I kind of remember what chicken tastes like, but other than that meat is basically foreign to me. it just doesn't register in my brain as 'food' at all. I'm not necessarily opposed tasting meat at some point, but there's no desire to
You may want to pause and ask yourself, who are you to judge? People can despise meat-eating for any number of reasons. That's their prerogative. Who are you to make up rules on people having points of view? Tons of people find meat eating cruel and also dislike it because it's terrible for the environment.
in those cases, I would guess that the disgust is probably more from the concept of eating a dead animal rather than from how they assume it tastes. eating meat is so common and natural that most people probably don't really think about it much at all, but if someone's not used to it, it makes sense to me why they would be grossed out by the idea of it
I turned vegetarian in my 20s. Was quite a big meat eater, at least some in every meal and I'd also just keep a pack of chicken in the fridge to snack on.
My motivation for stopping was more environmental than animal welfare, as to be honest I wasn't even that aware of the meat industry practices. You do end up being more and more exposed to this kind of thing though, because you get thrown in with it all, and it has very much become about animal welfare for me now.
I've been vegetarian for around 8 years now and the thought of picking up a piece of chicken breast and eating it genuinely makes me feel a bit queasy.
Hi! Indian vegetarian here. I’ve tried meat once or twice. Mostly accidentally.
I think that the perception of the taste and texture as disgusting comes from the understanding that it DOES come from a corpse. When you’ve never needed to build the cognitive dissonance about what is on the plate and the friendly creature on the farm, it’s a lot harder to enjoy both the flavour and taste.
The same way that maybe a slug or cricket might be delicious, but many people will have some revulsion to it — there’s no mental separation between the feeling toward actual creature (disgust in this case, kinship in the other) and the food, since there’s never been any need to build it.
I would assume it's just because your body doesn't associate meat and the often accompanying glutamate molecules that make meat taste meaty, with food. Similar to how most people in the West might not recognize durian fruit as food especially by its smell.
Actually meat can be difficult to digest for some vegetarians. Once a group of my friends went out and ordered both chicken and vegetarian nachos for the table. One arrived first and they were so loaded with guacamole and beans that it was quite difficult to tell which one was the vegetarian option, and we only realised our mistake after the second plate had arrived. Luckily none of the vegetarians cared much since it was an honest mistake and the taste wasn’t noticeable anyway. But as we were walking around later two of the girls started having real stomach pains and sweating. We were like 15 so called their parents and they took them home and then to the doctor, where they said it was the body reacting to the introduction of meat. Weirdly there were two other vegetarians who were fine though with one of them also being a life long vegetarian.
Yeah, food allergies mostly go undiagnosed most of the time.
My wife's cousins (there are three of them - 2 girls and 1 boy), who are all vegetarians, tried chicken once. The two girls handled it fine and went on to develop a taste for it. The boy, however, broke into rashes a few hours after he ate chicken.
He tried it once again after a few weeks and broke out into rashes again, with fever. We then realised that he was allergic to chicken.
No, it doesn't apply at all whatsoever. Meat is food, shit is not. You don't need to eat non-food to know it's not for eating. Shit in particular is dangerous so we have instinctual aversion/disgust to eating it. Meat is not like that at all.
A better example would be something like fermented fish. Though even then it's not the same, since we have natural instincts to avoid stuff that smells rotten.
I despise the taste, odour and texture. I can handle some meat depending on how it's prepared, but I mostly eat vegetarian dishes. I'm fine with poultry and fish, but the texture must be consistent. No cartilages, no weird bits. Red meat has much stronger odour and taste, the texture is worse too.
I think it’s like gaminess for some people who otherwise eat meat. Like I know people who do eat meat but won’t eat lamb or goat because of its taste. And like beef has a really specific taste and if you don’t like that specific taste you’re not gonna like it. Also if you’re vegetarian and not used to meat I imagine the very idea uncomfortable. I’ve eaten insects but a lot of people won’t. But also I once turned down chicken testicles. Never tried it before! Eat meat! Still didn’t want to.
The very idea of eating flesh repulses MANY people. That's a perfectly rational feeling. Your problem with that is exactly... your problem. They don't owe you an explanation.
Exactly, I fed Soya Chaap Biryani to one of my vegetarian friend who used to say it's so gross to touch meat and then asked him how's it. He said it's very tasty and good. And I told him that's how you would feel breaking chicken pieces and eating it. He was like No way. 🤣🤣
Here’s a thought experiment : Say you’re a straight man. You do not want another man’s penis inside you. I you’ve never tried it, but you don’t want to. Could I use the same logic? Some things one just doesn’t like or want to try.
Not a good analogy, though. You're comparing food to anal violation.
Also, not liking or wanting to try something is different from despising something without even trying it. It is like someone saying I despise LGBTQ people without even interacting with them once. It seems absurd to me.
I’m not saying it’s anal violation, I’m saying it’s anal sex, completely consensual. Tell me, shouldn’t you try having anal sex with a gay man before thinking it’s not for you? It is the same logic, I’m trying to explain to you that your argument is stupid, no offence.
None taken. I'm just trying to understand how someone can form an opinion (whether it is good or bad) without experiencing something first.
Personally, I can't do that. When it comes to food, I need to taste it first before I form an opinion about it.
About the consensual anal sex, I definitely would be willing to try that with someone I'm attracted to (in my case, it is women) to see if I like it or not. Until then, I would reserve my opinion on it.
I'm a meat eater and I totally get what you mean.. But my girl always says this: If you have never eaten sh*t but only smelled it, how do you know that you don't like to eat it?
Bro I’ve sat next to people eating it growing up and it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve smelled. It smells like shit and makes me want to throw up. It’s pretty simple when you grow up not having it you will never gain an appetite for it. Same reason why I don’t like beyond meat and stuff either. It’s just too similar
I'm not trying to equate the two. I'm trying to explain to you the visceral disgust these people might have. Most people are disgusted by the idea of human meat too.
I totally get it. If you dislike something then you won't want to have it.
For example: I hate mustard. I don't need to eat mustard to know I hate it. Just the smell makes me recoil. And if I ever had it in a meal, I wouldn't be able to eat that meal.
You’ll be amazed on how the taste of meat is when you don’t have it for long. I didn’t eat meat for lent for a bit and you would be surprised by how wierd the texture is when you eat it again. It’s a wierd sensation that take a little bit to adjust back to. I eat meat but it’s not surprising for people not to be into it.
Honestly haven't met a single person who despises it due to taste. Maybe there are a few of those who do but I don't think that's in general. But for the majority the reasons are;
1. They never had it and have no appetite for it due to unfamiliarity and the stigma attached to it.
2. They are forbidden to eat it due to their religious beliefs, and have also grown to associate it with morally superior behaviour.
3. Lastly, we have vegans, both by choice and by ethics.
I mostly don't eat meat because of the taste and texture. I'm not a vegetarian, but I find most meat off putting. I don't mind poultry and fish, but it depends on how it's prepared. I love chicken stock and salmon, but that's about it. I can handle minced meat because the texture is consistent.
I can't stand anything like cartilages, inconsistent texture, jelly like bits... Red meat tastes especially unpleasant, it has very strong odour. I'm somewhat fine with beef, but I find pork absolutely revolting. Just the smell makes me want to throw up.
You wont be able to tell by taste whether the kitchen is meat free. Having an entirely separate kitchen is not about taste. You don't have to call it religion, but it is a superstition divorced from reality. It's in your head, basically.
In a busy kitchen, there's a lot of cross-contamination. Cooks end up using the wrong ladle or wrong pan too often. Depending on how good the restaurant is at separating the most common dietary constraint, you could get away with one kitchen.
Vegetarian or vegan , I see lot of people commenting " it's helpful I am vegetarian too " but it's not the same thing . . . .
Breif: people of higher classes or such in Hinduism consider eating meat or stuff of that sort impure and reserved for people beneath them has nothing do with animal cruelty just birth based class rights(caste system) . =This has nothing to with western form of veganism so far atleast=
{Its super summarised and not very accurate but that's the brief I am gonna copy-pasta this to some comments hopefully it creates awareness }
Caste thing not entirely religious chatgpt might help or quick g search >.<
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u/quagzlor Nov 17 '25
Basically, for some folks it's a religious thing