I chose to be vegetarian aged six, this was probably my first conscious thought as opposed to doing what I thought other people wanted me to think. I am sure I could put meat in my mouth if under duress but I am fairly sure that the gut bacteria most people have for digested meat have died out a long time ago, I have effectively starved them.

I am no scientist and I am not wanting to push a diet choice on anyone, I went vegetarian simply because the food was better at school for the few that were specially catered for as vegetarian, with larger portion sizes being key to my motivation at the time.

However, as a science experiment you could go vegetarian for a year to selectively cull the bacteria that go with eating meat. You could go full on vegan too but that isn't as easy a change as going merely vegetarian.

Expect some flatulence that will sort itself out in time, something you might also want to look into as part of your experiment.

Allegedly people in Africa who actually eat have the most diverse gut bacteria and these guys ain't eating hamburgers.

I think that a change over to full vegan would be with health negatives to consider, a change to vegetarian would not run that risk. It is worth remembering that anyone who is anyone in Hollywood is in the serious business of looking after their looks, they tend to be not eating steaks. In sport there are also athletes that only hit the high notes of performance after going on a mostly plant based diet.

The probiotics business is a business, they have something to sell. Nobody except for book authors are going to sell you the idea of removing rather than adding something from your diet.

As mentioned I am vegetarian by chance - a school dinner lady just happened to do much nicer vegetarian food than meat eater food and I blatantly lied on my first day at that school about being vegetarian just to benefit from the better portion sizes. I had to stick to that lie thereafter and my parents were okay with me not having meat at home. I don't have any skin in the ethics game unlike some recent converts to veganism. However, that said, I can see the upsides financially whenever I dine out. Although bills get split I am aware that my part of the bill is 2/3 the price of whatever everyone else is having or even less than that. I am okay with a bowl of pasta whereas others around the table have some endangered species from some ocean on the far side of the planet, it is obvious what is going to be the cheaper option.

You can conservatively estimate four figure savings by spending a year in vegetarian mode so maybe think of something you want to put that money towards in order to cope better with the hardship of not scoffing burgers etc. for a year.