to be gutted after DP confessed to eating a steak (both vegetarian -not anymore obviously!)

[Mercapto]

I've been vegetarian for 6 - 7 years. I made the decision to go vegetarian when I realised that I wasn't eating much meat due to not enjoying it due to taste and ethical reasons.

I met DP 4 years ago and he decided to go veggie with me because he wasn't one for eating much meat either.

I came home last night from work and he told me he had a confession to make. He had given in to his cravings and bought steaks, ate one last night and the other is in the freezer.

I wasn't expecting this really although he has told me he had been having dreams about eating meat.

I know I don't really have a leg to stand on and can't tell him that he can't eat meat but I have been feeling awful since I found out. I felt uspet, disgusted at the thought of animal flesh being cooked in my kitchen, not to mention a steak actually mingling with items of food in my freezer. I wanted rid of the evidence. I could see the empty packet in the bin, and the dishes he'd used to cook/ eat it. Reading this paragraph back to myself, I feel like there is something wrong with me for feeling this way. I don't have a problem with other people eating meat, I just don't want it in my house :(

I don't feel like I can talk to anyone in RL because I feel that the people around me (meat eaters) probably don't respect my non eat-meating preferences and think it's a bit silly.

AIBU for feeling this way? I havn't spoken at all to DP since. Although I did ask if he would be buying more meat, he said ocasionally. I then said could he cook it when I wasn't around (I thought this a reasonable request seeing as I work shifts and we don't always have tea together!)

I think you have got a phobic about meat, tbh. You're entitled to your ethical and personal stance, and you are even entitled to evangelise, but you shouldn't feel quite so nauseated about someone else eating a bit of steak, given that our species is programmed to want to eat the stuff and derive nutrition from it. I wonder if it is worth talking yourself down and re-acclimatising yourself to the presence of meat remains and packaging, etc? If only so you don't experience unnecessary anxiety and unease in what is a predominantly omnivore society.

I have a confession.

I stroked a real fur coat, in a shop, on holiday .... and I liked it

"Maybe OP you could look at meat that you think is ethical, my brother is a vegetarian but when we brought reindeer sausage home last christmas he ate it, his reasoning was that the reindeer would have had a lovely free life and the carbon footprint would have been small. "

I have no objection to your brother eating reindeer sausage, but he is NOT a vegetarian if he is eating meat! No wonder some people get the wrong idea about vegetarians and think they can eat a bit of bacon and sausage sometimes when self proclaimed veggies promote that idea

Agreed ^

If I did eat meat I still wouldn't eat reindeer! I hate it when people create demand for 'strange' meats.

I love that people have said he should have had a McDonald's instead.

So partner of op wants meat
Op doesn't like the killing of animals
Partner has choice,
Choose and select his own meat so he can know where it's come from and how it's been raised
Or McDonald's
I mean really?

Reindeer isn't a "strange" meat to people in Finland Gold - or other Scandinavian countries either.

It's their equivalent of venison.

honey that is the biggest load of codswallop I have ever heard. Unless the reindeer were loving in the field next door, the carbon footprint to get it over here is high.

I am veggie (20 years) and when we got together DH was too. However within about 3 years he started eating meat again.

I don't mind it in the fridge as long as it is properly stored but I don't cook meat for him. I do cook meat for DC, though only very basic things.

What I do really mind is when he buys meat but it is never eaten. I find that really decadent and immoral. Even thought the meat comes from "happy cows "etc.

But I think that the OP is overreacting a bit.

Yes but as I'm from England it is.

Lidl played it well at Christmas, deciding to stock the shelves with reindeer meat knowing it would cause controversy and therefore free advertisement.

And I wouldn't eat venison either.

When I wasn't veggie I just ate the 'basic' meats. Didnt feel right entering more and more different animals into my diet.

By the way reindeer is delicious but I ate it in Finland where it is not a strange meat.

honey that is the biggest load of codswallop I have ever heard. Unless the reindeer were loving in the field next door, the carbon footprint to get it over here is high.

My DP's parents live in Swedish lapland and we were there before Christmas. We bought the sausages from the reindeer hearders at a market and we packed them in our luggage when we flew to the UK, so it cost nothing to get them from Swedish lapland to the UK as we were making that journy anyway.

Reindeer is very yum, so is bear.

Honey tea - I didn't think you'd be allowed to bring meat over like that?

Goldship it is fine so long as you are traveling from an EU country and as Sweden is an EU country there is no issue bringing food through customs.

Ahh right, thanks, learned something new!

Some other countries have very strict rules, Australia for example don't let you even take fruit accross the state borders!

Why would you not eat venison Gold? I'm genuinely curious.
I'm happy to eat venison that came from a red deer that had spent it's life running wild on our hills.
My dad often got given a bit of venison haunch from local gamekeepers - it's gorgeous!

I've eaten elk too - very similar to venison.

I'm a veggie so won't eat any meat.

But when I wasn't, I'd just eat chicken, beef and pork. I think venison is something you sort of go our of your way to buy, like it isn't one of the basic meats is it? So I really didn't want to add more meat to my diet when I didn't like the fact I was eating meat in the first place.

I'm not saying chicken pigs and cows are lesser animals, but its more the norm to eat those and didn't want to add another animal to my mouth.

Well, venison is a basic meat to some sections of the rural population up here - if they are employees of landowners and live and work on an estate.
They are well used to eating things like that.

I know someone who is vair posh and all their meat comes from their estate (rabbit, deer ... erm, badger? ) and was a bit sniffy about "bought meat"

salmo but I'm not one of those people and it isn't to me, so that is why :)

Fair enough Gold - I just wanted to point out that venison was probably a meat we all ate when we were hunter gatherers!
Along with rabbit, grouse, ptarmigan etc.