Ex-vegan claims quitting diet ‘saved her life’

Kai-Lee Worsley quit her vegan diet after she began to feel unwell

An former vegan whose hair started to fall out in chunks has claimed that eating meat “saved her life”.

Kai-Lee Worsley, who is originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, became vegan aftermoving to Santa Ana, California, in 2018.

After moving in with a group of vegans, she learnt about factory farming, which is controversial due to the cramped and stressful conditions endured by livestock. She was then convinced to try veganism herself.

“What convinced me is the way animals were treated. I didn’t know how animals were treated in factory farms. I didn’t know factory farms existed,” she said.

Kai-Lee stopped eating all products derived from animals and started eating protein-rich vegetables, such as beans and legumes. She also used supplements to counter the lack of proteins found in meat.

But six months into her new diet, she started to feel unwell.

Her hair started to fall out, her fingernails became brittle and she found it difficult to stand up.

“I was extremely tired all the time. I couldn’t form coherent thoughts,” she said. “I would just lie in bed multiple times a week and I would spend all day in bed if I could.

“My nails were breaking all the time. My hair was falling out. I have thin hair anyway but my hair was just coming out in chunks.”

Kai-Lee stuck to the diet until June 2019 when her symptoms became too intense to ignore. Less than a year after becoming vegan, Kai-Lee started eating meat again and has credited it with “literally [saving] my life”.

”Now I eat basically the same thing as when I was a vegan except I have steak three times a week. I’ve swapped meat substitutes for meat. It has literally saved my life,” she said.

Despite feeling the benefits of eating meat, Kai-Lee morally struggled to abandon her vegan diet.

Kai-Lee said: “I really thought veganism was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I even saw myself as an activist.

“After I ate meat, I saw myself as a fraud. I even had a V tattoo in my ear, which stood for vegan. I was at that point when I was so indoctrinated that it was really hard to go back.

“I didn’t tell anyone at the beginning. I was worried what they would think about me.”

She concluded: “I think when you’re so indoctrinated in something it’s really hard to back away, but I’m glad that I was able to do it in time.”