WIBTA if I refuse to cater for my ‘vegan’ MIL?

I would do a vegan main and provide 1 vegan potato option and 1 vegan veg option. E.g broccoli and roasties made with oil (my preferred method anyway!) Then do all the rest as normal, so other potato and veg options are not vegan e.g mash with butter, honey roast parsnips etc.
MIL then has a full meal that is vegan and she can choose to add more potato and veg options that are not vegan if she wants but can't complain you haven't catered to her.

But even though she is finding it hard (well she isn't really trying is she, you'd not have the yorskhire pudding rather than have a non vegan one) she still thinks it's acceptable to tell others off for eating meat. Nope that is not right. I'd be spearing her hand with a fork if she tried to get a honey parsnip when i'd made a vegan one.

If you don’t eat meat/dairy for a long time, it can upset your system even if you aren’t technically intolerant.

I guess technically because he's not had dairy for so long but he always managed dairy fine when he ate meat and dairy on a regular basis. My MIL stopped eating gluten and now that's made her intolerant too!

It was actually really good! Everyone ate it, meat eaters included. My husband isn't the biggest dessert fan and often the options are always a brownie which he doesn't like so I wanted to make him something old school. This is the recipe if you're curious - www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/vegan-trifle

Isn't that lactose intolerance rather than just vegan?

Yeh I do get that. Some are made from a bunch of oils although today we picked one up that's made from cashews. Not tried it yet but it has good reviews online. On the flip side, giving a vegan a bit of butter in the mash can give them an upset tummy. My husband always knows when he's accidentally eaten a bit of dairy as it doesn't agree with him at all.

It’s the op’s lunch, produce, time and effort, let her decide on what to add.

Before Christmas I’d make her some roast potatoes in vegetable oil and then freeze them. Then on Christmas Day, heat them through in the oven. They will be great.

For parsnips and carrots why not switch to maple syrup? We use that (not vegan) because we prefer the taste.

I would throw in a ready made nut roast and use vegan gravy granules so it’s a bit of a faff on the day but much less than it could be.

She is your guest so I suggest a little bit of effort is worth it.

You really don’t need to pour meat juices over all the naturally vegan or vegetarian food.

It’s so tedious to insist on adding duck fat to potatoes, they’re nice without it. Or bacon in sprouts, just don’t.

Your guests will be fine with the main dishes being meaty and the vegetables not.

@Veganornotvegan it is so annoying when you go to all that extra effort for no reason - slightly different but my MIL & SIL don’t eat gluten so I spend ages making GF food and spending loads of extra money accommodating them, and then they just competitively under eat and leave all of it anyway. Grrr.

I (and my DH/DS) are veggie. We had the problem last year the other way around- one family member said they MUST have meat on Xmas day and pulled a face at the suggestion of my vegan wellington, so I bought (and somehow cooked with limited oven space) a very small chicken and some meaty pigs in blankets. But when the wellington came out, they saw it looked nice and ate that with just a little bit of chicken and declared it delicious. So this year everyone will be having wellington 😆

In your shoes, I’d cook for MIL what I could fit on one smallish baking tray so that you know exactly how much oven space you will lose from the start. Some kind of one-person portion of nut roast bought from a shop, a few shop-bought roast potatoes/parsnips/whatever you can find that’s ready made and a couple of balls of that Paxo onion stuffing that you mix with hot water. And then a separate jug of vegan gravy made from powder. I’d be more than happy with that if I was a guest at someone else’s house. You could also do one of those microwaveable pouches of mixed veg from M&S or similar. Mash is simple, we have a couple of vegans in the family and I cook enough potatoes for everyone, scoop some out for the vegans and mash it with vegan spread/non-dairy milk and then do the rest with milk and butter as usual.

I like PP’s post about not being the vegan police. In your shoes, I’d provide something for her along the lines of what I suggested. If she ends up eating the non-vegan stuff, then I might quietly say to her in future ‘look, no judgement from me, but for the future are you happy to flex your veganism a bit on special occasions like you did today?’ The vegan/veggie main I would always provide because there’s a big difference between eating a vegetable that contains a bit of butter/animal fat and a big chunk of meat, but it IS annoying if you’re providing a whole different menu and it turns out it’s not needed.

I do always cater for everyone but I think this feels much easier if people are consistent in what they require to eat. It isn’t that unusual to go to the extra effort of providing additional dishes only for people to want to have a bit of everything. Including confirmed carnivores happily tucking into vegetarian and vegan dishes. It is not unnatural when presented with a delicious looking feast that some will decide to put their dietary preferences aside for the occasion. I suspect this may be your MIL. I voted YANBU as she has specifically requested a fully vegan meal, at what will be a very busy time in the kitchen, with a lot of juggling with oven space and she might not stick to it herself.

Therefore, in her particular case I would go for a good quality ready made vegan roast dinner and microwave vegetables with vegan gravy. That way if she did choose to stray I wouldn’t feel put out at all the extra effort that I had made, apparently for nothing. Basically though, I just try to serve good food and let go of all expectations as to who will eat what!

@EdithStourton Most people buy honey from supermarkets though so the majority of honey consumed comes from large-scale commercial operations as previously described. Just purchasing and consuming honey perpetuates the idea that animals are commodities and they exist for our purpose hence why vegans don’t buy honey, regardless of what methods may be used.

You could use Maple Syrup instead of honey, I think it tastes nicer, try it.

I cook for family who are vegans. I put a lot of effort into it and generally make a nut roast or similar from scratch, but they still accept that there will be some things on the table that they can’t eat.

You can make some clever swaps, eg I think maple syrup on the roast parsnips is nicer than honey (top tip from Nigella) and I’ve had a lot of success roasting the potatoes in olive oil rather than duck fat (though given your MIL seems fairly flexible I might just do them in duck fat in your case, or if you have an air fryer you could do some for her in that). I do use butter in mash (I mash the carrots rather than roast due to oven space) so they can’t eat that but I did do some sprouts for them with olive oil while the rest of us had butter. They can’t eat the gravy and have to do without because I don’t have the brain space for two lots of gravy and I don’t like vegan gravy. I generally make puddings from scratch because I love baking, but I buy in vegan ones. You could also buy in a nut roast and vegan pigs in blankets.

Basically, with some clever swaps and making use of pre-made stuff it can be done with only a little bit more effort.

But it's all somebody deliberately trying to impose their restrictions on other people - unless it all just happens to be vegan without anybody realising, which a large proportion of food is not.

What about if somebody gladly ate all of that, but decided that adding some diced bacon and dairy cream would make it even better? Would that not then potentially make the people who would only eat the foods in the first list and not countenance trying the additions narrow minded?

I have no issues whatsoever with people who choose/require a diet for themselves and also respect the choices/needs of others; but those who harangue and criticise others for making different choices - whether that be vegans criticising omnivores for eating meat or omnivores criticising vegans for not eating meat or whatever - are tedious in the extreme.

However the hypocrites who openly criticise others for not making the dietary choices that they themselves claim but obviously do not adhere to either are the worst of the lot.

It simply doesn't wash for me if somebody tells others that they obviously hate animals and are bad people if they eat meat; but then when they eat meat or another animal product, then try to gaslight with "Well, at least I'm trying - nobody is perfect; you're all big judgmental meanies".

If she’s cooking for 14 she may not have room in the oven for ine extra tray?

Give her the choice of a vegan ready meal or what you’re eating. I’d tell her nicely that you don’t have the oven space for a separate meal.

But MIL likes to pillory other people for not adhering to her diet choice?!

You are a not a hotel though are you? We love hosting and will cook for gluten free and vegetarians etc. So I think by catering for vegetarians the vegan can cope for the meal for one day. Anything else they have to bring their own. We started to get really detailed individual menu plans that took all the joy out of hosting/cooking for us. We are clear about what we can provide and honestly no one has stopped coming round or made a scene. Good luck.

If MIL has a Yorkshire pud... so what. People do like to pillory people for not sticking to their self imposed diet.

Yep, she SHOULD be strong and stick to it if she describes herself as Vegan. Yep, she's making a bit of extra work for people at Xmas (at least she said before turning up at xmas).
But some people would be petty and mean at Xmas over a Yorkshire pud.

That is exactly what I would do.

There is a time and a place for passive aggressive responses this is one of them.

@TipsyPeachSnake Re honey bees, if you are halfway competent in how you set up your hive, you get the honey out without killing larvae. You put a queen excluder between the supers, so she can't lay above that. The likelihood is that a few bees will die when the hive is being taken apart and put back together, but then ALL commercial agriculture involves the death of animals: pigeons are shot over cereals, mice are chopped up during planting and harvest....

Beekeepers don't want to kill larvae, as they are the next bees. This is why sensible beekeepers feed their hives properly over the winter. If their bees are having issues over-wintering, they will supplement the feed.

Also IME most small-scale beekeepers don't clip their queens' wings.

As for genetic engineering, so far as I am aware that's currently confined to the lab.

I've helped out with beekeeping, so I know what it looks like.