to think it tedious that vegetarians never reciprocate the favour

[Hermi0ne]

Now, I´m not mightily peed off at this, and I really dont want to offend any veg´s here but I have quite a few veg friends and over the years you invite ppl over for meals and in turn get invited etc. I always cater for their vegetarian lifestyle choice (because thats what it is, its not an allergy, thats different), but they never cater for mine. This is just something I´ve been musing about for awhile now, nothing too serious. But I really like my meat and think its unfair that vegetarians expect meat eaters to pander to them but most of them never even dream of doing meat eaters the same favour!

I do find it strange that people think they need meat for every meal.......I'm not a vegetarian, but I often serve food without meat at dinner parties, even if my guests are meat eaters. It's just making nice food. Sometimes nice food has meat in it-sometimes it doesn't.

And would you feel you were pandering to a Muslim guest by not serving pork?

I'm surprised you have any vegetarian friends.

MY SIL is veggie but cooks traditional meals for her family and therefore also for guests.
Here we're a veggie family and never buy, cook, or eat meat.
When friends or family come over we stick to our veggie offerings
It is a lot to ask of some vegetarian friends that they might put all that aside to cook you a meal including meat. It is a lot easier for someone who eats meat to cook a veggie meal - which after all everyone else could have some of too. Or you could just go all veggie for one meal?
I'm not as strict as DH and the DC BTW and do sometimes eat fish - but generally when I'm not at home.

i was once given spaghetti bolgnaise with quorn mince and it was like eating cardboard! also vegetarian sausage rolls taste nothing like the real thing! there's only so many jacket potatoes or fish meals a meat eater can put put with, is all i can say!

Another on here who simply would not have the skills to cook with meat - I have never cooked.meat in my life. And even if I gave it a bash ID be unable to taste as I go or anything, so it.might be rank.

I don't particularly have a moral objection to feeding a guest meat, I just wouldn't know how or what to cook...

Really, I mean really? Do grow up, dear.

I can see what you mean op, but also agree with others about going one meal without meat. It wouldn't affect me, I love food whether it's meat free or not. My partner however, hates veg. I mean, he will really pick at it and not eat it. There's no chance on earth that he would eat a beautifully cooked veggie meal, so if we were ever invited to a vegetarian's for dinner we probably would have to decline. They very likely wouldn't cater for him (unless they cook meat for others), but yes, his food lifestyle is considered 'silly' and he can 'make do', whilst vegetarians wouldn't be called such things (well, not to their face). Obviously, this is really first world problems, we are all lucky to even have a choice, but it can seem a bit hypocritical at times, that one food lifestyle is more 'superior' to another. I wouldn't start an argument with most vegetarians about it though, far, far too tedious. Just eat the veggie lasagna and smile .

I'm a vegetarian. Mental note to self must go and slaughter a cow(against all my principles) in order to prove my friendship.

Why don't you suggest meeting up in a café or restaurant instead? Works really well and pleases everyone.

People invited to this house always get meat. But that's because DH is not a veggie and he will normally cook. If I was on my own and invited people over, I'd probably do something veggie. Don't see what the big deal is, it's just a meal.

On the other hand I'm surprised at all the veggies saying they couldn't possibly cook meat because they don't know how. It's just food, you cook it like any other food. I've been veggie my whole adult life but I still managed to learn how to cook meat for DH and other visitors. I'm now pregnant with dc1 and I won't be bringing him/her up as veggie - it's a personal choice - so will cook it for them as well.

Me264 "I've been veggie my whole adult life but I still managed to learn how to cook meat for DH and other visitors. I'm now pregnant with dc1 and I won't be bringing him/her up as veggie - it's a personal choice - so will cook it for them as well."

actually you've just made the choice for your child, same as if you chose for them to be veggie. Not criticising that, just interested that you say it's personal choice. It's also personal choice to eat meat.

to you and the OP I ask, would you expect a Hindu friend to cook beef for you, or a Jewish or Muslim friend to cook pork for you?

Has nobody else picked up that the OP is friends with 'veg's', not veggies?

Clearly the OP is Mr Bloom!

On the other hand I'm surprised at all the veggies saying they couldn't possibly cook meat because they don't know how. It's just food, you cook it like any other food.

Aren't there more food hygiene issues with raw meat etc? Plus how can you make sure it is cooked/seasoned properly without tasting it?

I am a meat eater but I love good vegetarian food, especially south indian food, can be so much more interesting than meat and two veg. I wouldn't expect a veggie to cook meat for me, my mum is veggie and occasionally cooks a chicken for the gc and worries that she might poison people or the gravy will be rubbish cos she wont taste it. I think the children should just eat her lovely veggie food and she doesn't need to be so accommodating.

this thread has to be a windup.

Achieve human beings are designed to eat meat. So yes I suppose it's a choice to feed a child a diet that includes meat but it's the natural choice. I can't imagine any non-vegetarians when they wean their children consider bringing them up vegetarian.

"On the other hand I'm surprised at all the veggies saying they couldn't possibly cook meat because they don't know how. It's just food, you cook it like any other food."

So I'll boil it like pasta then? Lol

It's not just like any other food, foods are all cooked differently and meat is cooked differently to vegetables and pulses...could I follow a recipe with meat in it? Of course.

But I wouldn't be confident that it would be cooked properly and taste right because I have no experience with it and wouldn't be tasting it.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine - if I am cooking something like bolognese then I know from experience roughly what herbs etc to put in - if it's a new dish I'll get DH to taste it. A lot of stuff doesn't need tasting anyway - someone upthread said they couldn't possibly cook bacon because they wouldn't know how - that's ridiculous, you don't need to taste bacon to know how to cook it.

Me624 - "Achieve human beings are designed to eat meat. So yes I suppose it's a choice to feed a child a diet that includes meat but it's the natural choice. I can't imagine any non-vegetarians when they wean their children consider bringing them up vege"

Human beings don't have to eat meat. Generations of my family were raised not to. (I do eat meat). I know of non-veggies deciding that because they preferred their child to only eat meat once they understood what it was.

But I'm interested that you are veggie and aren't bringing up your children that way. I guess it's personal - I wish I had been raised veggie but that's a whole other thread.

I'm veggie and I cook meat occasionally for the kids or for my husband. I'm fairly okay with cooking a sausage or a bit of bacon, I can make things with mince and chicken pieces and that's about it. I'm a pretty good cook but I tend to ruin meat because I'm not sure what I'm doing. I cooked ribs for dinner last weekend and destroyed those. It's easier if my husband does it!

I'm not a vegetarian, but 90% of the time I will cook myself and/or my friends a vegetarian meal.

How would you cope with that OP?

Me624 - "human beings are designed to eat meat".

Really? I'd say human beings have evolved to be omnivorous - we can get all the nutrition we need from a far wider variety of food stuffs, both plant and animal, which gives us an advantage over other animals. Most of our closest relatives in the animal world (gorillas, chimpanzees, orang-utans etc) are either vegetarian or occasional meat-eaters (like some chimpanzees), and humans are similar. We certainly don't need meat.

Our ability to get the nutrients we need from such a wide variety of foodstuffs means we have the ability to make other choices about our diets, based on geography, culture, ethics, taste etc. Large portions of the world's human population eat a vegetarian/predominantly vegetarian diet out of either choice or necessity.

Humans are designed to eat a omnivore diet, which can include a completely vegan diet as ate by many people on the indian sub continent or a mainly meat based one like the Inuits, its nonsense to say it is more natural to eat meat than not. It is just more common to do so in our culture.