VEGETARIANS

[DaisyRaine90]

I understand people who REALLY don't eat meat, but people who sometimes do but then make you cater for them?

Should I pander to it or just say "I saw you eat a bacon sandwich last week so if you don't want to eat meat bring your own main"

Lippi

Are you sure it was actual bacon not vege bacon

They could just be being a pain

But then perhaps like the pp said they only eat high welfare meat so it's easier to say vege as then they don't have to worry about it.

if you go to someone else's house for a meal they cooked, you just suck it up, be polite. unless they are charging you - it is just one meal.

If I am inviting someone round for a meal I would consider it very rude not to cook something they would like to eat. My DH dislikes cheese with a passion. It's not a dietary requirement, but it would be frankly odd for someone to invite him rounds, serve Mac and cheese and expect him to eat it. If you don't want to cater to people's preferences than don't invite them round for dinner.

I’m probably one of the people you mean but in my defence I was brought up vegetarian and had never tasted meat until I was 21.

It took a long time for me to be able to stomach meat and even now all I can eat is pretty much chicken, bacon and sausages and that’s fairly rarely. The smell of lamb and beef still makes me heave.

So out of habit and for ease of the person catering I normally either say I’m veg to avoid the risk of me not eating the good and looking rude and for simplicity or something like white meat only but that’s risky as you could still be served something like rabbit!

I think a lot of people prefer the veggie option nowadays.

I don’t understand it. I’m a celiac and so can’t eat gluten for health reasons, otherwise I would always eat to be polite 😊

I also didnt eat meat for 15 years.

your guest is a fussy so and so op

Tell us what you plan to offer to the meat eaters.

I am a bit on fence.
I am not vegetarian, but I don't like huge meat portions.
(I get impression from MN that most meat-eaters are happy eating huge portions of meat & may even moan if they don't get huge - what I consider huge, anyway).
I'd be unhappy if I turned up at yours & got offered steak at all, especially a big piece of steak, and rather little else. I'd deplore the steak going to waste but I couldn't eat it.
I might ask for vegetarian to be safe.

What's the context though, how/why are you 'catering' for them?

For instance, if I was planning having people over for dinner and we're to ask someone if there was anything they fancied- if they said 'ooh something veggie perhaps', I'd think great okay. Not BUT YOU EAT MEAT YOU CHEEKY BASTARD

I sometimes say I am a veggie at weddings etc for some of the same reasons above. As at least you know you can eat something and it will not be wasted.

I have a phobia of birds so the thought of putting a dead burd inside my throat sends me in a cold sweat.( I need hypnosis or something )

I actually don’t like the taste of some meat products either. I can eat burgers in buns or mince in a sauce but even then I feel guilty and a bit sick sometimes.

So yes I am a fake veggie and will have a spag bol but would hate a chicken/ steak dinner or even a curry with chunks of meat in.

Bird not burd!

Some people do have a weirdly elastic definition of vegetarianism, but equally some people are very odd about catering to vegetarians. It's not actually hard to make a meat-free meal. Yet there are people who act as if it's the strangest most outlandish dietary requirement. In this case, I'd see it as no different from someone you had invited advising you that they didn't like beef, or mozzarella, or courgettes. Just avoid the problematic ingredient. Simples

Well either you are happy to cater to your friends whims or you need new friends

I hate hate hate beef lamb and pork but I will eat chicken so it's easier to say I am veggie when eating elsewhere- but if you served roast beef I would happily eat everything but the meat without moaning

I am mostly vegan but always vegetarian. I dont make a big deal of it but it really does seem to annoy people, its almost as though you are telling them you have joined a cult just to annoy them. When I visit family I just take my own as its not worth the boring speeches and being told that I am making myself ill and my hair/nails with fall off.
Just for the record I do not take any tablets etc while most of the people I know my age are on blood pressure, cholesterol tablets or are borderline diabetic.

I wish people would stop claiming to be vegetarians, just because they don't fancy eating something. It seriously pisses me off, as I then have to explain why fish/chicken isn't a vegetarian option, because people make up bullshite. Why can't they just say they 'prefer' a vegetarian option, this time, rather than claiming to be something they're not. Same as those claiming to be vegan' because they only eat free range eggs. FFS. 😒

So you're actually a vegetarian, pantry, that sometimes eats vegan meals. You're not actually a vegan. Sorry to nit pick, but all meat eaters have vegetarian meals, such as pasta meals with garlic bread, cheese toasties, etc, but that doesn't make them vegan.

*that doesn't make them vegetarian

Can't stand fussy eaters. Vegetarians who come to my house get the same as everyone else, but with (bought) veggie sausages instead of the meat.

One of DP's nieces claimed to be vegetarian. She was tucking into trifle at MIL's when I pointed out that it included gelatin, then told her how gelatin was made. She still ate it.

Then she went vegan. We cooked Christmas dinner for the entire extended family that year, and his family insist on having Yorkshire pud with any roast. When I was mixing the batter, she asked what I was making. "Yorkshire puddings" I replied.

"Oh" she said, "I didn't know you could make them". Presumably she thought they were some sort of industrial magic dreamed up by Aunt Bessie.

She still ate them though, and had gravy made with meat juices and the cider stock the gammon had been cooked in, had bread sauce with her dinner and profiteroles for dessert. Some fucking vegan!

I’m vegetarian. If I have failed to communicate my dietary preferences, and my host serves me meat, I will eat it rather than embarrass them. My vegetarianism is not for religious or medical reasons, and I would prefer to be polite. That doesn’t mean I want to eat meat. If I’ve told a friend I’m vegetarian and I know they know I am vegetarian, I’d be quite hurt to be served meat.

This approach means I end up eating meat perhaps once a year at most. I still consider myself vegetarian.

This approach means I end up eating meat perhaps once a year at most. I still consider myself vegetarian.

Eating meat = not a vegetarian. For whatever reason!! How is this concept so complex?!

I'd still like to know what OP plans to serve to the meat-eaters.

According to MN, you don't qualify as vegan unless you avoid animal products because you care about exploitation of animals. Vegan is for that reason ONLY. Eating vegan for any other reasons (or not caring if you have leather shoes), then you don't get to be vegan. I know a lot of vegans who are Not Vegan according to MN! I don't tell them. They don't give Fart what MN thinks.

"Vegetarian" is like that. MNers are very invested in "vegetarian" only having one very narrow definition that they approve of. I'm intrigued that folk get so invested in words. Is it something biological and links to how evolved we are to deal with complex language, we have a drive to keep to precise word meanings, maybe?

I'm with the OP. I love hosting and cooking and I'm good at it. I will happily cater for any tastes and quite often cook entirely veggie, have no problem with adapting a meaty meal for a veggie either. But it is fecking annoying if someone pretends to be veggie. There was a thread on here a while back where someone claimed veganism, the OP prepared a lovely meal for him, he then ate the meat because 'his veganism was a journey and today his body was telling him to eat the beef.' Tosser. (the op live MN threaded the meal though and it was hilarious)

Eating meat = not a vegetarian. For whatever reason!! How is this concept so complex

I've been sitting on my hands, so thank you. 😄

Just wondering what answer is given, when a person is asked "how long have you been a vegetarian/vegan?" Are they honest and say "I've been vegetarian/vegan since (last time they knowingly ate dead animal) or do they bullshit and say they've been vegi since they first cut back on eating dead animal?

I'm going to be thinking Tossertarian, every time i meet people like that, from now on LonnyVonny. 😂

I don't see the problem. I know two people who who will only eat meat from a particular butcher (one only eats chicken) as it's all organic from local farms etc. They would both say they are vegetarian if going for a meal as that's easier and more polite than querying exactly where you buy your meat.
I never see why people kick up such a fuss. It's so easy to cater for vegetarians. Loads of quick easy and very tasty dishes.