I will admit, I have never even heard of “the meat sweats” until I saw them mentioned on that one Progressive commercial. It’s a little-studied struggle that apparently strikes carnivores after a gratuitously meaty meal. Is it a legit scientific phenomenon, and if so, what happens to your body?
GQ reports that the sweating that occurs in some people following intense gorging on animal meats, which leads to a follow-up temporary aversion to all meat. But this isn’t something that’s well documented, or fully explainable by science. One possible cause, GQ says? When you eat a lot, your metabolic activity increases, which slightly raises your internal body temperature. This could be especially prevalent in folks who regularly eat meat. There isn’t much scientific data to back this up, though, and that these meat-induced sweats seem to be more anecdotal than anything.
Thanksgiving churns out all sorts of mysterious, meat-related pseudo-science. The old wives’ tale of turkey acting as a tryptophan tranquilizer endures as well, despite the lack of scientific evidence.
Readers, do you get the sweats when chowing down on meats? I don’t.
[American Journal of Clinical Nutrition via GQ]
Top image via Giphy.
