AIBU - vegan dinner party guest EATING FISH

[isitginoclock]

We're throwing a dinner party. I've just excused myself to the loo to write this because I'm FUMING!! One of our guests has recently become a vegan. I spent bloody ages making her a mushroom pate for starter which she happily tucked into whilst we ate our salmon tartare. She then asked if she could try some salmon.

Wtf?!?!

I've bought loads of different stuff for her to eat and spent all frigging day cooking it. Why do I bother?!

HowBadIsThis that sounds like a really sensible solution (and yummy food too!). I was once having a buffet-style party and thought someone would be coming who was gluten and casein intolerant (he couldn't come in the end). I would have put all the GF/CF food on one table so it was easy for him to see what he could have, and everything else on another table. You could probably adapt that idea for a vegan - not so easy when it was a sit-down, one-option meal like in the OP's case, but maybe something to try when one guest's options are limited for any reason.

How is it demanding to say "yes I am Vegan" if your host sends around an email asking for dietary requirements ? OP asked !
I try and eat a mostly Vegan diet at home but I wouldn't ask specifically for a dinner party host to make me Vegan food because I don't call myself a Vegan and am quite flexible. I don't go around saying "I am a Vegan" or complaining when there is not a Vegan option. I just make my own personal choices. I don't eat animal meat at all or wear leather & I try not to buy products that are tested on animals where possible. But occasionally I do eat fish. I don't feel as guilty about eating fish as there are many studies that they are not sentient beings and do not feel or experience pain & suffering and emotional anguish in the same way as animals or humans do. I just go with what I personally feel. When I started to feel it was wrong to eat animals, I stopped. Maybe one day I will feel that about Fish and then I will stop eating them too. There may be a point in my life where I change to being a Vegan and regret that last statement about the poor fish haha but everyone is just trying their best to be the best human being they can in the moment aren't they?
I'm not perfect but am not purporting to be any particular thing either. Yes the Vegan dinner party guest should have said "Since you asked, I eat a mostly Vegan diet but will eat Fish so please don't go to extra effort for me."
Most people who are serious about being Vegan would not be annoyed that their host hadn't made a special Vegan option, they would just make do with veg and carbs & maybe eat more when they got home or make sure they ate a little before they arrived, valuing the social aspect of the dinner party over the food & not minding about 'missing out' because their lifestyle choice is about animal welfare and so for them it is a small sacrifice to go a bit hungry for the sake of not eating animals.
My issue is with the OP's judgemental and bitchy attitude which I feel is disrespectful to all the guests at the gathering. I would be horrified if my friend or dinner party host started reading out something like that and laughing at someone behind their back once they left and encouraging the other guests to join in or face being ridiculed themselves for not agreeing with the host!
Everyone gives Vegans shit for being "judgy" and "Hypocrites" but you're judging them as well and saying stuff like "I cant' stand Vegans" -- Why? Because they don't like to eat animals or use them for our own personal satisfaction? Because they are trying to be truly peaceful human beings? LIke I said I am not a Vegan but I'm sure there is a lot to be learned if you would look into Veganism and the reasons behind it. I think it's a very honourable, peaceful & healthy way to live your life and most people who choose to be Vegan are doing it for very good reasons - mainly revolving around putting others before yourself, the environment, animal welfare & philosophical reasons, not to make others feel bad about themselves or judge others - if you feel bad about your choices or you feel judged, that is your own guilt speaking possibly.
And as for Vegans being hypocrites...How many of us (me included!) say we love animals and care about animals and the environment and want a peaceful world and yet consume dead bodies & bodily fluids of other sentient beings on a daily basis & support their mass imprisonment, torture, fear, suffering and slavery because we think we need the protein? (Which we don't but that is a whole different debate!) That is hypocrisy. And I'm not trying to say I'm any better. I was brought up Veggie, ate meat for some of my teenage years, then realised how my lifestyle was not in line with my animal loving beliefs or moral feelings so now I don't eat animal meat, and am trying to eat a more Vegan diet. But explaining that DOES seem like too much info for your dinner party host so I would just say "don't eat meat, will eat fish" for a dinner party.

Oh and one last thought - isn't saying "I've become a vegan" and then trying a bit of fish kind of the same as saying "I've given up smoking" and then being tempted to smoke when your friends are doing it? I mean it has more effect in terms of someone having to go to some effort to make vegan food but what's going on in the vegan/non-smoker's head is probably quite similar.

Well, yes. I am vegetarian and very, very rarely eat some specific kinds of meat. Just a mouthful.

But I would never do so at a dinner party where someone has made vegetarian food just for me!

There's being unprincipled and then there's being rude.
Also, I don't get why she became a vegan if it is so hard for her to stick to it? I am only vegetarian for a reason!

Also, I am usually content to eat whatever plant-based food is served with the meat, and drink a glass of water as I don't drink. People don't have to do extras for me. (Unless they serve food that is so heavily animal-based that it is not possible to get enough calories without the meat)

Alcohol-free wine is weird. Would never require anyone to buy it. Tap water is okay, fruit juice is awesome.

its just bloody rude the host went out of her way to prepare vegan food then he asks to try the fish

why not just have the fish and stop being bloody pain inthe arse

You could take it as a compliment. 'My salmon tartare was so scrummy that it tempted a vegan from her path.'

I also get asked all the time "But you do eat fish, right?", and it is probably because that kind of person that people do this.

If you eat fish, call yourself a pescetarian. Don't walk around telling people you're vegan.

HowBadIsThis -- spot on.

You could always answer: 'No, I don't', vestal

The last time I had people over who were omni, pesce and veggie, we had a roast salmon, a ton of vegetables and salad, and a (vegan by chance) vegetable shepherd's pie. (We also had cheese and pudding.) There was far more pie than enough for two vegetarians but an awful lot of it disappeared, it was being treated as a side dish by fish eaters.

policing individual servings is fucking weird

But presumably you would have said something if all the omnivores tucked into the vegetarian shepherd's pie as their main, leaving very little for the actual vegetarians? There was a whole thread on that recently (omnivores eating the vegetarian options on buffets, not realizing/caring that it left almost nothing for the vegetarians to eat).

If people have individual dietary requirements, you do have to 'police' manage servings, ie make sure X gets her vegan option, Y gets her gluten-free course.

My in-laws are vegetarian. When they're here, and we've got 10+ eating, I make sure the vegetarian main option which is large, but not large enough for 10 main portions when there's a meat dish, too doesn't get hoovered up before they reach it, and put aside non-duck-fat-roasted potatoes for them, etc.

I'm 'policing' because someone who's specifically told you they have dietary requirements is implicitly asking you to 'police': please ensure there's something that I can eat. I'm trying to provide a meal that suits them, but it goes both ways: you can't say you have a restricted diet, expect people to cater for you, and then act all '...what?' when it turns out that those restrictions only depend on your mood.

is nearly the same as some one i know.....a diabetic who drinks normal cola, eats cakes and keeps an 'emergency twix' in her bag.....laughable!

That's not the same. Being diabetic means that your body fails to produce enough insulin which balances the sugar you consume. But that doesn't mean they need no sugar! If someone with diabetes does too much exercise and doesn't consume enough carbohydrate they can have a hypo. When that happens the medical advice is to consume sugar - lucozade or dextrose tablets are incredibly high in glucose and get into your system very quickly, but in their absence normal coke, a cake or a twix would be more useful than Diet Coke and an apple! In fact the latter would likely put them into a coma.

If I'm honest about it, it would really piss me off if I didn't care about the guest and I wouldn't mind in the slightest if it was someone I loved and probably have a bit of a laugh about it.

Howbadisthisplease
I said: If the fake vegan had only been given salmon to eat she would have been quite happy. "

You said : - no she wouldn't. there is a difference between tasting a food and basing your meal on it. She wanted to base her meal on plants, you gave her a plant based meal. not wasted effort.

Neither of us know the fake vegan so I accept that we cannot be certain about whether she would have been happy (or even fine) to eat an entire fish course.

However, dietary requirements when a guest in someone's home are not about what you want or fancy eating. You don't say "actually I'd love a chicken dish please". You tell the host about foods that you (a) do not like (b) are allergic to or cannot eat for health reasons such as a weight loss diet or (c) choose not to eat for moral or religious reasons. It is then up to the host to plan the menu and you to tell her how much you enjoyed it (even if it was horrid).

Now, if I were the host of a party where a friend had said she was on a strict weight loss diet to prepare for surgery, I would not think it rude if I had made her sugar-free jelly but she had a little taste of a sugary dessert on the grounds that "a little bit can't hurt" because that's true. Eating the whole portion would still be bad for her.

On the other hand, being vegan is about behaving in accordance with your beliefs about harming animals. The moment you eat one mouthful you have consumed dead animal and rejected those beliefs. Eating a larger portion makes not a blind bit of difference. She may have said something along the lines of "a little bit can't do any harm" but that makes no logical sense in that context (the rest of the fish is still dead!) and was just her covering up her own moral weakness with an excuse.

She obviously liked the taste of the fish. She had demonstrated that she didn't really hold the strong beliefs she claimed. The OP, her friend who was there, took this as a signal that she could just have eaten fish like everyone else. That is the basis for my statement that she would have been happy to eat a whole plateful if that was all that was on offer.

On the other hand your "she requested a plant-based meal" is as rude as the guest who has no restrictions but asks for a specific food to be served because they like it.

Though I'd never let on that I'm secretly pissed off or course!

*of course

Don't walk around telling people you're vegan.

grrr.

I am vegetarian. years ago, friends and I were going to a japanese restaurant I hadn't been to before and I said I was happy to go as long as there are veggie options. I got the "Oh, X is vegan and she loves the place." I thought great.

Unfortunately, she was a fish eating vegan. Nothing veggie on the menu.

Oh my goodness yes BabymonkeyMummy I don't know who the poster was who said that about diabetics but I agree 100%. A very close friend of mine is a Type 1 insulin dependent diabetic and was saying the other day how tough she finds it when people judge her for what they see as "wrong" behaviour when that emergency twix is for her literally the difference between life and death. Being Type 1 diabetic is so much more complex than avoiding sugar. My friend also battles constantly to explain it is an auto-immune disease and not caused by lifestyle issues like being fat (she is thin as a whippet but people assume she was obese in the past). Type 2 (which is caused by lifestyle) is a completely different condition.

Exactly Jessie! My Dad is type 1 diabetic and has been since the age of 12 - he actually got a medal when he'd been diabetic for 50 years (really random!) He thinks diabetic chocolate is the most disgusting and pointless thing in the world - he purposely has a bar of normal chocolate every afternoon to keep his sugar levels up. I'm sure diabetic chocolate has its place for someone with type 2 who loves chocolate and wants to eat lots of it, but people seem to very easily confuse the two conditions which, as you say, are very different.

"But presumably you would have said something if all the omnivores tucked into the vegetarian shepherd's pie as their main, leaving very little for the actual vegetarians? "

yes I would have, but they wouldn't. It would be rude for a guest to eat inconsiderately in that sense. I have had individual guests at times who have been thoughtless like that, but never enough to be an actual problem.

If it was a problem I would have to step in and say "please leave some of that for the veggies!" - which is different from bitching and whining later behind someone's back

Most people have the manners to consider other people's needs without anyone needing to actually explicitly address it. that is an entirely separate issue from what this OP is complaining about.

She is not a vegan then. I know many vegans and none of them would eat fish!

i I don't get why she became a vegan if it is so hard for her to stick to it? I am only vegetarian for a reason!

If someone becomes vegan because they think they morally ought to be, rather than because of likes and dislikes or food intolerances, it's not that unlikely that they would still miss and feel tempted by foods they used to enjoy - in the same way that some people probably morally accept that you ought not to speed, but still do it sometimes when they're in a hurry or just not concentrating.

I'm not justifying what this guest did by the way. I think trying the fish was a bit rude in the circumstances but I think there are plausible reasons why she might have wanted to.

Vestal, you said that pescatarians should call themselves pescatarians and not vegans. As a vegan, I agree with you.

However, you also said, " I am vegetarian and very, very rarely eat some specific kinds of meat. Just a mouthful". That is an impossible statement. You eat meat. Therefore, you are not a vegetarian. The mouthful of meat you eat still comes from a slaughtered animal.

Vegans don't eat meat, fish, eggs or dairy. Vegetarians don't eat meat or fish. If you eat these things from time to time, you are not a vegetarian or vegan. Call yourself a meat reducer or something accurate.

Oh god this gets on my tits. I'm a vegetarian and actually don't care at all if people eat meat but just be honest ffs. I know someone who is a 'vegetarian but I eat bacon'. Well you're not a vegetarian then. Why not just say 'I don't eat much meat' or 'I only like bacon'

Also had a friend who turned 'vegan' and gave me a long, stern lecture about milk and dairy one evening when I went round for a drink. Later in the evening when she got a bit drunk she ordered a KFC

Okay, toobad.

You think meat-eaters consuming too much of the veggie course are rude.
You would ask them to leave some for the vegetarians.

In what way is that not 'policing individual portions' (which is, according to you, 'fucking weird') or 'deciding in advance what each guest will eat and getting annoyed when they mess with the boundaries'?

You've clearly decided, in advance, that the omnivores will eat less of the veggie option.
If, individually, every omni decides they fancy veggie pie -- they're not allowed to do that, because it's inconsiderate to the vegetarian guests.

But vegans eating the fish course aren't rude.
They have a right to try whatever they like, and it's mean-spirited to begrudge them that, either directly or behind their backs.
If they fancy a bit of fish, they should have it, even though it's inconsiderate to the host, who has spent time preparing a separate dish, as requested.

being vegan is about behaving in accordance with your beliefs about harming animals.

Is it? For most vegans I'd guess so. But some people who follow a vegan diet, or try to, do it because they believe it is healthier than diets including meat or animal products or better for the environment and the wisest use of the world's resources for food production for humankind. Animal welfare is not their primary motivation.

I can see someone like that eating meat or animal products occasionally and wearing leather. I mentioned my friend. He wouldn't try a bit of the salmon at last night's charming-sounding soiree because he finds the consumption of flesh revolting. But his opinions on animal welfare and clothing are no stricter than the average meat eater's and he doesn't make faux vomit actions when our burgers come.

I don't know how common he is, and I only know his views because someone - a meat eater - decided to pull him up on his so-called hypocrisy for wearing a leather jacket and probably ended up wishing he hadn't asked

How can people get so incensed about the transgressions of other people who call themselves vegans and vegetarians? It's bordering on obsessive that Legendofthephoenix's partner comments to her frequently on what the alleged vegan neighbours are wearing or sitting on. That would bore me to death and I'd tell him to put a sock in it - but not cotton because that's a terrible crop for the environment. Perhaps a wool one would be more ideologically sound, given that he's not vegan. Where do some people find the time?