AIBU to expect vegan guests to avoid preaching at shared meals?

I think people who bang on about their beliefs / opinions, whatever they are, are annoying and rather rude. We all know why people become vegan, we don't need to be told every time we sit down to eat with them.

But I do think asking only your vegan guests to bring food that can be shared is unreasonable. If you want food brought, everyone should bring food. I don't think vegan dishes are hard to prepare but if you do, maybe you should meet your vegan friends at restaurants. TBH if I had vegan friends who I wanted to invite to my home for a meal I would make life easy for myself and make that meal wholly vegan. Non-vegan guests are not going to suffer any ill effects from one meal without animal products. Having said that, the vegans wouldn't be invited every time.

I’ve never heard a vegan preach, I’ve only heard people say they do, along with meat eaters who make animal noises to wind up vegans and stuff like that.

There was a thread on here recently where a vegan had been very reasonable at a family meal and some posters were insisting she was being unreasonable. Someone said something about her being smug and lecturing which wasn’t the case. I think some meat eaters like to pretend lots of vegans preach when it’s not true.

If it’s true this time, tell them you don’t want to talk to argue about it.

Wat do?

As a vegan, you are NOT being unreasonable

I hear this about vegans but have never experienced it in real life. Not once.

However, I think it’s basic politeness to cater for the guests actually coming to the meal, so I’m surprised at whoever it is who is inviting vegans and not making food they can eat. I don’t find that sort of thing hard at all.

And I don’t think it’s for you to make hosts comfortable by eating chicken or beef if you’d rather be vegetarian! To me that’s the odd part.

Obviously no one needs to bang on about it - albeit I’ve never experienced this - but you shouldn’t have to eat things you consider ethically wrong just to people please.

Edit - I’m pescatarian (which I realise is an unsound ethical position) and like you I’m happy just to eat the side dishes/ bread when I’m a guest if nothing non-meat is going/ the people haven’t realised etc, but equally I wouldn’t just eat the meat, that’s the bit I find odd.

Comes on a thread about vegan preaching to do some anti-vegan preaching.

This site is so predictable sometimes.

Happy to agree that flexitarian is a thing! Or I like to say reduced meat diet as that seems to trigger people less who like everyone to be in a neat box.

It just means you try to eat less meat because you recognise eating too much of it is bad for you and bad for the planet. But you are still happy to eat meat.

Flexitarian? Stop kidding yourself with I mostly eat plant based but will eat beef etc to appease guests, you are just a regular person who eats everything.
Stop being so pretentious.

If you don't like these people and the way they carry on at dinner parties don't invite them?

I don't know why we needed a full run down of your own eating habits for such a simple problem.

What are their actual words?

Exactly. I've lived with a vegan. She just got on with life as we all do. Her veganism had no impact on me. At all. I ate my bacon roll and she had her overnight oats. Meh.

Meat eaters are the ones whingeing on about others quietly making their own choices. MYOB.

So what actually happened?
Another one that thinks ‘flexitarian’ is daft, you don’t need a special name to highlight you eat meat but not that much.

The human body was not engineered to exist on plant-based fuel alone. Just as it was not engineered to consume vast quantities of plastic-wrapped sludge.
The answer is a happy medium.
There are some (relatively few) people who are allergic to animal-based food, avoiding these is, for the rest, a choice.
Evangelising about this is arrogant and ignorant. Do you want to make whole species extinct?

You clearly haven’t met a hardcore vegan then!…I’ve been at many meals out/at someone’s house where the vegans have got very judgy and preachy. It’s rarely loud and overt, more subtle digs and trying “educate” others about the benefits/tell us all we’re killing the planet

They are an omnivore who doesn't eat much meat, and wants to sound more trendy.

I am flexible and open minded about diet, but don't call myself "flexitarian".

@Bringing No vegan or vegetarian I know is preachy.

The irony on threads like this is that the vegans and vegerarians have just stated politely that they don't eat meat or fish, and the only ignorant posts have been from meat eaters who have such a narrow minded view about food that they lack the imagination to make a delicious creative vegetarian meal.

You would think that google didn't exist.

I say this as an omnivore with vegetarians and vegans in the family.

Why can’t you provide one dish suitable for everyone OP? Why do you single out vegans for special exclusion and demands?

I agree that unsolicited comments on what others are eating are rude. But you’re setting up that dynamic at the point of invitation. Host or don’t host. Don’t do half a job while judging others.

If I mention that I am a vegetarian there are multiple questions afterwards from meat eaters and you feel you have to justify your choices.
I never bring it up first, it'll just happen say like discussing certain foods amongst co-workers, I usually just say a veggie option or just nod and smile when talking to a customer at work I'll never see again.

Do you have many vegans over for dinner then? Such a lazy trope that all vegans 'preach' about it constantly.

Oh well the number of times I've been at events like work buffets where if I don't get in there first there won't be anything left because all the omnivores have piled into the vegetarian/vegan options.

I was 10 minutes late at one recently - there were 2 half sandwiches left and about 30 non vegetarian ones. I was the only person who had specified in advance I wanted vegetarian.

No, but the deadness of it makes it particularly gross in my mind. It would stay in my mind if people weren’t compelled to ask why I’m vegetarian.

That is my reason, not heath or welfare concerns or anything else, I just became conscious of what mean really is.

I never bring up my eating choices at a dinner table, but I have still been forced to talk about it because either people ask. They seem determined to hear that I miss bacon sandwiches or that I feel like I’m missing out and making a huge sacrifice.

I have come across some preachy vegans, but considering the grilling I get just for being veggie, I don’t think they are entirely to blame.

I count being preached to when people wont stop talking to me about the new brand of car they have discovered (I dont drive by choice) the fact they have discovered the benefits of quitting smoking and vaping (I have never tried either) and some random product they recently found (that I have no use for)

there is having conversations about things I am not interested in that is all fine but when people dont stop going on about it is preaching which is as boring as people who pretend they don't know the difference

Personally I’m more irritated by (and experience more regularly) the sort of twats who say they wouldn’t give up their meat or dairy ‘even if they had cancer’.
I’m not vegan but I do know in every respect it is much more healthful for you, as long as whole food plant based

Yup, I’ve seen lots of goading by omnivores, until they provoke a response - any response, often a reasonable, factual one - they can label ‘preaching’ or ‘shoving it down our throats’. Just juvenile wind-up behaviour. So rude.

In my experience this has never happened. I have however had many dickheads, of both sexes, demanding to know why I don't eat meat. And then getting offended if I explain about animal welfare.

I don't eat a lot of meat I don't really like it and definitely only eat veggie sausages and veggie burgers. I'll generally pick vegan or veggie options when out. Our newish vegan friend publicly told me off for eating the vegan sausages at a BBQ as they were 'just for the vegans'. Our host pointed out she's never seen me eat meat she, the host, had made plenty of veggie and vegan food and could vegan friend please not police her guests!