One day a woman in her fifties came in. She looked at the pretty amphora displays and the sample cups before she turned to me. “What would go well with steak?”

“Oh, some of the fruit vinegars would be a nice finisher,” I said, talking out my ass. Like, I’d eat that but whether it’s conventionally accepted to douse a steak in mango vinegar is up for debate.

“I’ve been a vegetarian for forty years, but my doctor suggested I might need more red meat. So I thought I’d get a steak tonight and I don’t know much about preparing it.”

I stared at this woman. This fully adult human woman. Who had just spoken to a doctor. And I said, “Do not buy a steak tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve been a vegetarian for forty years?”

“Yes?”

“Then your body has no idea how to process meat. You will get so sick.” It was pure luck that I knew this. I had a few hardcore vegetarian friends who had been exposed to meat at potluck dishes and told me about the ensuing horrors as their gentle veggie gut biome was overrun with flesh. And how consequently their toilet overfloweth.

“Really?!”

“Yes,” I said, emphatically. “If you want to try to incorporate meat I would start with a tiny portion of fish, and slowly work your way up, but your insides will not know what to do with steak.”

“Wow! I’m so glad I mentioned that to you.”

For this poll, options 2–4 (cheaper/more/tastier) assume as part of the premise that the vegetarian options in question would need to be filling; obviously this is not saying "just eat broccoli for every meal."

According to the EAT-Lancet report, individuals should not eat more than 105 grams of meat per week. EAT-Lancet is an international research initiative for people's health and the sustainability of the planet.

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On a sesame seed bun. An anonymous story submitted to deepdarkfears.com/submit - thanks!