Man Goes His Whole Life Never Eating Meat, Until His Friends Buy Him a $120 Steak (Exclusive)

Ben Lazarus filmed the moment his lifelong-vegetarian friend Ziggy Murphy tried meat for the first time after a birthday bet sparked a $120 steak purchase

NEED TO KNOW

• Ziggy Murphy, a lifelong vegetarian, agreed to try meat once if friends bought a $120 steak
• His friend Ben Lazarus filmed the moment as Murphy took his first bites after a lifetime without meat
• Murphy reveals if the moment influenced him to incorporate meat into his diet regularly

For his entire life, Ziggy Murphy had never taken a bite of meat, not out of habit or preference but out of principles shaped since childhood. That’s why the moment he finally did — seated at dinner with friends as a $120 steak arrived — became a viral moment.

Ben Lazarus tells PEOPLE he started recording because he knew he was witnessing something his friend had never done before. “Even before he ate the steak, I knew this was a big deal for him,” he says, explaining that Murphy and his younger brother are lifelong vegetarians from a vegetarian family.

The TikTok shows Murphy taking the bite slowly. Lazarus says what surprised him most was not what Murphy felt, but how long it took for any reaction to surface at all.

“I would think that something as novel as eating meat for the first time would cause an immediate reaction,” Lazarus says. When Murphy’s response finally came, he wasn’t shocked his friend didn’t love it, since he assumed something so new might take time to appreciate.

Murphy tells PEOPLE he has been a vegetarian his entire life “for a lot of reasons” and had never even tried “a bite of meat” before that night. He describes being raised to respect consciousness and principle, with his decision rooted early and held consistently into adulthood.

The shift didn’t come from curiosity or a desire to change diets, he says, but from a birthday bet he expected would never materialize. “I told the birthday boy that if he bought the most expensive item on the menu (120$ steak), I’d try meat for the first time,” Murphy explains, adding he assumed no one would actually do it.

Instead, his friends erupted and collectively agreed to chip in, turning the hypothetical into a plate placed in front of him. They checked repeatedly that he was serious and gave him time to back out, so Murphy paused to think through the decision before following through.

Part of what made it easier, he says, was learning the steak had been given “ultra premium treatment,” which helped him feel “a bit better morally” in the moment. He also admits he had always wondered what meat tasted like, especially given the high praise steak often received.

When he finally tasted it, Murphy says his expectations were largely met, though not in the revelatory way others imagined. “The surprising part was the ultra chewy texture,” he says, explaining he had never needed to chew food that much before.

Flavor-wise, he says it was surprisingly familiar. Murphy says the steak tasted “extremely similar to imitation meats,” making him wonder whether repeated exposure would be needed to detect the complexity his friends described.

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Lazarus says he had braced for Murphy to feel sick immediately afterward, having heard of vegetarians reacting strongly after eating meat. Murphy says he expected that too, but after eating three pieces, he only felt “a little gross after,” not dramatically ill.

In the end, Murphy says the moment broadened his horizons without changing his identity. He hasn’t eaten meat since and only sees himself doing so in rare circumstances, explaining that his vegetarianism was always about principle rather than preserving any imagined purity.

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