AIBU to expect my parents to manage one vegan barbecue meal?

But they offered to bring their own food and you said no! Surely that’s a reasonable compromise?

It sounds like stubbornness just runs in OP’s family. You can’t really critique people for showing no flexibility when you don’t show any yourself. One form isn’t automatically more acceptable than another.

It is comparable. OP can have non vegan foods in her house, she just doesn’t want to. It’s a choice.

But as several posters have pointed out: being vegan is about a set of ethical (or spiritual) beliefs. Eating animal products is a dietary preference.

The two things are completely different.

No. Self excluding from something you consider ethically wrong and therefore not serving food you consider ethically wrong is NOT the same, at all, in any way, as preparing food for someone in a way they consider ethical and which you have no actual problem with.

The two cannot be conflated.

Of course they're not going to give you milk considering their feelings about the dairy industry - I don't have to know them to know they've seen the videos, I know how vegans feel about cow's milk.

Drink whatever you want, don't ever expect them to feed it to you.

You are whining because they won't do something they consider deeply unethical to pander to you. Don't be so stupid and selfish.

You know that "How do you know if someone's a vegan, don't worry they'll tell you" joke? I have found it's the opposite, anti vegans just won't shut up about it.

I was vegan for about 4 years, health conditions around digestion and other health issues made me give it up. In that time it was only ever mentioned if someone wanted to cook for me, I'd tell them I'd bring my own or just eat the salad or whatever was easiest. I was a "may contain" vegan, like most are.

Prior to that, I had always loved chomping into greasy chicken skin, chocolate, and vegetables and fruits were not my friend. And yet nobody at all, ever, made a single comment about me not getting enough nutrients 😉

A lot of vegan food can be quite processed, but a lot of it is absoutely delicious.

It's got fuck all to do with concern about nutrition gaps 😆They're just the sort of people who don't approve of anyone doing things differently to them and honestly sound clueless.

I'd just get on with it and ignore their nonsense. They don't want to come, their loss.

I'm not in the least insecure. I've been friends with them for over 30 years. They were vegans before it was fashionable to be so.
You used the word love first and then made a mockery of it when I quoted it back.
I really couldn't care less when I put that soya milk in my tea.

I suggested that a small gesture for example milk for tea may just acknowledge that I look after their dietry needs always and willingly .
But this has sort of grown bigger than I intended !

They sound like spectacularly hard work, OP.

Just invite them and let them turn it down. You cannot force them to try new food or enjoy a new way of eating. If they choose to miss out on your cooking and company, so be it.

Some people are just super fussy about food.

Enjoy your BBQ!

As soy and tomato really upset me, I like a vegetarian BBQ more so than a vegan one.

Why label the food vegan, Op?
Many salads are naturally Vegan.
Three bean, Tossed green salad, Onion, fennell and orange, beetroot,

Can you have commercially produced vegetarian dressings and cheese just on your parents' salads and vegan for yours? What are the ingredients that disagree with your parents' guts?

The nut burgers sound delicious. Do your parents have allergies or old fragile guts?
Your parents could perhaps eat a sausage and egg for their morning tea or breakfast before the BBQ.

If the BBQ is for a large group, the opinion of your parents could be helpful and indicitive of how other non vegan guests would enjoy your menu.

can I come? That all sounds delicious and I think your parents are being ridiculous.

You sound really insecure.

If you REALLY loved me you'd do stuff you find morally repugnent!

Do you expect your Jewish friends to make you a bacon sarnie if you stay over or your Muslim friends to coo ka beef stew if you come for dinner?

Why do they have to prove their affection for you by compromising their beliefs and morals?

They've declined the invitation, so I'd just leave it tbh. They don't want to eat what you're serving, and you can't accommodate their dietary requests so that's that. No point in discussing it further.

And to add ive accomadated vegans with separate grills on bbqs , plates and cutlery new which have never had meat products touch them, expensive vegan sausages and gross vegan cheese lol ! Pain in the arse but I did it

Exactly. I make a fantastic chickpea curry and a great veg lasagne. I feed it the carnivores. Would they like chicken in it? Probably. Do they coem back for secidn? Absolutely.
When I cater for veggies, vegans and carnivores, ctbe latter ALWAYS want to try the other food.

Being vegan is a choice , eating meat is a choice
when I have a bbq I cater to ALL the dietary requirements not exclusive food to my own preference . Would you go to a dinner party if the host said sorry but I’m only serving meat ? Assume a hard no on that which is basically what you’re doing - enforcing your eating choices on someone.
that being said what your offering sounds yummy and I could eat it all but my husband wouldn’t and would be a har d pass , it’s just not his type of food , hates chickpeas , lentils , maybe the mushroom 🤣 not a huge veggie kebab fan.
I think it’s unreasonable to also suggest they come to a bbq not be catered for and only have a drink
just get a disposable bbq and cook them some burgers or sausage separate!

It insane, it's one meal, people are so weird over vegan food, and I say that as an omnivore.
The food sounds delicious to me.

Thats rude to the majority of us who will make every effort to accommodate your dietary requirements when you eat with us.

Poor little meat flakes being forced to eat a carrot stick 😭

It's very difficult, it's one of the difficult things about being vegan. And why it's important to have a safe space in your own home.

It's not that I regard meat eaters as animal abusers, it's that it's factually correct that they pay others to kill animals (and abuse them in myriad other ways) for them to eat. If I did that to a poodle I'd rightly be called an animal abuser. Just because something is normalised doesn't make it morally right.

What age were your children when they decided to eat meat? Id be very concerned they'd been given misinformation about the meat and dairy industry or even no information at all on nutrition etc if they were very young when they made that decision.

My dad wouldn't have eaten anything other than bread and butter on the OP's menu as he was a meat and three veg type and only ate lentils if they were red ones in a meat stew. He was like that all my life and there was no point my trying to change his palate in his 70s. He didn't even eat burgers or sausages so I'd make sure there were things he liked at a barbecue like salmon, steaks, bread and butter and some plain green salad. If they are people who normally eat a wide range of food and who are ok with eating pulses (i.e. not low FODMAP etc) then they should be ok. My dad would have been nearly 90 if he were still alive. There are not many left of his generation but some younger people feel like that and if it were my parents I'd cater for them. My DM would have eaten anything you put in front of her as long as it wasn't shellfish. I would love the menu the OP described but not if vegan meant fake meat and cheese substitutes.

Why don't they love me enough to break their rules very occasionally?
But I get they don't and never will.
I will always cook exactly what they want to eat and they will never ever even make a slight adjustment to their offered meals to me.
So be it.

Sorry but what sort of friends expect their friends to be hypocrites if they love them enough?

Unless you eat meat products for ethical reasons, it's in no way the same thing.

A vegan diet isn't particularly healthy for the planet- the amount of pulses and veg that would have to be grown would be huge- and land which is suitable for pasture is often not suitable for crops, so increasing yield enough on the suitable land would take a lot of fertilizer, none of which would be natural because there wouldn't be any meat animals to produce it.