I'm having trouble eating meat?!
It just doesn't feel clean eating meat anymore.
I mean, I know animals are cleaned before we are given them to eat, but I have always had a bit of a phobia of raw meat. I simply cannot and will not touch raw flesh dripping limply and getting it's juices and slime running over my hand which I will then put to my mouth and get a disgusting taste and end up in hospital. Last time I touched raw bacon I cried (I know it seems OCDish) and washed my hands in really hot water for at least 10 minutes. But I didn't, until recently have a problem with cooked meat. Now when I look at cooked meat I still imagine it raw and imagine chewing on this unclean leg of an animal, worrying that it's not properly cooked and I will get ill.
It's not particularly a moral thing, I would still like to eat meat and although those who decide not to do so because they see it as wrong are completely entitled to their opinions, I don't see anything wrong with it, it's just this sudden boundary of hygiene I suppose.
I don't want to have to miss out on Christmas turkey because I am too disgusted by it, so any tips on how to over come my "phobia" of meat (raw and cooked) will be very grateful.
Answers:
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So, youd rather eat a plant that can't scream when you cut it up to eat it? And also, you must realize that fruit is just a plant's baby. Your eating somethings babies. How does that make you feel?
Humans are made to be omnivores. Deal with it.
I was a vegetarian and decided I didn't really want to be anymore, not because I craved meat, but idk just a change or something.. Well I don't exactly know what was running through my mind but now I am the EXACT same way as you!
I just stopped eating meat again..... Too weird of a concept to think about eating meat again to be honest...
Buy it from a farmers market where it is from cows/chickens that were fed only grass and never given hormones. Organic meat from there. And just have little dishes daily. Start small and gradually come to a normal sized portion.
If you want it enough, you will eat it.
Do what therapists do to everyone else. Make yourself touch it/eat it until you don't feel anxiety anymore.
Like they do with arachnophobes (I personally am one and refuse to do the treatment, don't care if it will help) they make you hold a spider and count down until you don't feel so anxious/afriad.
same thing with meat. just keep eating it. idk. I find turkey to taste bad so I only eat a few bites of it to please my mom.
Definitely sounds like OCD. If that's true, this is just a symptom of OCD and making yourself eat meat just masks the symptom rather than addressing the problem. The problem is the intrusive thoughts you have, giving you pictures of something that makes you feel sick while you are trying to eat. I have had the same thing after seeing something gross at work (I used to be a chef). Like I stopped eating eggs after breaking open a free range egg that had a tumour or something disgusting in it. Could never again eat an egg without the picture of that weird growth in the frying pan popping into my head.
The crying sounds like anxiety. You may not even be aware of it if you suffer from anxiety, because you never realise that it isn't normal if it is something which happens all the time. This can be related to OCD, and can cause your mental health to deteriorate as there can be other problems arising like cell damage from the stress hormone (cortisol) over long term or severe stress (eg psychosis, traumatic events can cause PTSD).
Anyway I'd consider seeing a professional about this so you can eliminate the possibility of OCD if it is not a possibility, or start on the path to managing it if it is a reality. I take a medication to manage my anxiety and intrusive thoughts are something which are no longer a trigger for anxiety, they still happen occasionally but don't have the power over me they used to. I still wouldn't eat an egg though... LOL
vegan biologist
