A vegan lifestyle blogger who lived off a strict gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free and sugar-free diet has ditched the plant-based regimen and started eating burgers again.
Virpi Mikkonen, 38, claims her vegan diet "brought on early menopause"; including stopped periods, hot flushes, crumbling nails and a flu she couldn't shift.
Doctors told her she was entering early menopause at age 37, and needed to go on medication
"I had run out of fuel, totally," she told the Daily Mail.
"It was a huge thing to think, this is where my fertility stops."
She told the Daily Mail it was when she developed a rash on her face she went to Chinese medicine specialist, who recommended she reintroduce warming animal products back into her previously raw diet.
Until that point, the mum from Finland had racked up over 160,000 Instagram followers with her vegan cookbooks, raw dessert alternatives and breakfast juices celery, cucumber, fennel and parsley.
She says she hadn't eaten meat for 15 years, and was "shocked" at the advice.
But determined to get better, Mikkonen started incorporating eggs for breakfast (which she once referred to as "chicken miscarriages"), organic meatballs or chicken for lunch and broth in her dinner.
The effect was almost instantaneous.
"It's amazing," Mikkonen told the Daily Mail. "I feel energetic, motivated. I'm sleeping better, the hot flushes, and aching in my body have stopped."
She also said her periods have returned.
But, as could be expected, not everyone is happy about the switch. Many have turned to twitter to express outrage over her new pro-meat message.
"Holy cow, she was doing it all wrong. She looked at the fad way of eating. HER diet was at fault not THE plant based diet. Silly her," wrote one vegan Tweeter.
"Eating only raw foods is an #extreme diet and has nothing to do with veganism. If doing so makes you sick, and you'd rather stab animals in the throat than cook a veggie burger, then you never had #vegan values to begin with" wrote another.
It's not uncommon for former vegans to renounce their old ways. Actress Anne Hathaway opened about her choice to incorporate fish in her formerly vegan diet, and blogger Jordan Younger faced public backlash after ditching her blog 'The Blonde Vegan' when she developed orthorexia.
Newshub.
