AIBU - visiting relatives who don't make any effort re veggie food

[happygonicky]

I've been veggie for years and every time I go to SIL's (with partner for 15 years) she makes no kind of effort re any kind of meat-free meal. I'm really easy-going re food, I know people aren't always super-confident with regard to cooking for veggies but I just feel there are so many veggie options out there now. Last time was a particular low: boiled pasta, no sauce (the others had bolognese).

We're due to visit soon and I just can't be bothered (admittedly other issues in the mix). I don't want to spend all day travelling and have a crap meal too. I make a lot of effort when they visit.

DH says he will tell her what I would like to eat, I just don't feel I should need to do that.

Can't bring myself to engage with less enlightened views towards vegetarians in this thread. I don't know what to say! I will be politely forthright next time round. Thanks, all.

It shouldn't be the norm to eat meat! Eating a 'normal' shouldn't involve torture and killing. What's fussy is to insist on meat every meal. Cook vegetarian for everyone. You are doing yourself and the planet a favour.

Flippinda exactly. The developing world on the whole eat very little to no animal products. It's only in the west people insist on huge quantities of meat with every meal. Which in turn helps starve the developing world of plants to eat
Meat eating is only a 'first world problem' in that by the first world doing it they are starving the developing world.

OP, you sound very tolerant about ths situation. I found your SIL's behaviour unspeakably rude and lazy (and I'm a meat eater). It really offends me to think that people do this - just throw anything on a plate at a guest without going to some effort to make them feel welcomed and well fed. But then I'm half Italian.

However, I wouldn't go hungry or have a crap meal - in stressful family situations you need a good dinner and a LARGE glas of wine (bare minimum). I'd make the point and take my own food. Make sure it's something really delicious. It should shame her into doing better next time.

It's not to do with whether you "agree" with vegetarianism or not. It's about good hosting; everyone should have a proper meal as far as possible. When my brother went vegan initially he offered to shop for, buy and cook his own food when he visited me (we are all meat eaters). I would have been incredibly embarrassed at that. A guest in your house deserves the best hospitality you can offer...unless they're a proven twat. And I'm just not getting that sense from OP. She just doesn't seem twattish to me!

WTF plain pasta ?? Dd is vege (for the last year) and tbh we are all eating better for it. 15 years !!! It's not that difficult.

'First world problem'?
Lolza.

I am a vegetarian.i was in a hotel just outside Paris for a work meeting.All the other delegates were eating at the hotel.they had no veggie options on their menu.i know they did omelette for room service , but I do not really like that and find it quite boring.so with my schoolboy French I asked if they had pasta.they did.and i asked for some tomato with that.so i was looking forward to a nice pasta with tomato sauce.i got cooked dry taglitagliatelle with two grilled tomato halves and one long carrot. i stayed on in
Paris for a coupe of days and did have a lovely dish of Vegetarian starters at a Lebanese restaurantrestaurant that more than made up for the dry pasta of a couple of days earlier.