To think you shouldn't ask a vegan to buy you meat/animal products?

[Ragnasath]

A younger relative told me yesterday in casual conversation about how her housemate at university often asks her to pick up meat or animal products from the supermarket for her.

There's a few of them living together and all buy their own food but will all take turns buying loo roll, fairy liquid etc that are communal. My relative said that often when it is her turn to go and get these things, a particular housemate will often say 'can you pick me up some ham slices/ Cadbury chocolate' etc whilst you're there. This relative is a passionate vegan and feels very strongly against animal cruelty etc and has been vegan for 5 years as a result. She said that she'll usually say no to the friend because she doesn't want anything to do with the purchase of animal products but will offer her a vegan alternative (i.e I don't feel comfortable buying you cadburys but am happy to get you oreos or bourbons instead etc). Apparently the housemate often gets annoyed at this response and will roll her eyes about how she's being ridiculous because housemate offers to give relative the money to buy the items so it's not coming out of relative's pocket. Relative still says she wants nothing to do with the purchase of animals or animal products.

The relative says she never asks her friend to pick her up any snacks or food because she doesn't want to feel like she has to reciprocate by buying her housemate food which goes against her values.

I think it's pretty awful of the housemate to put her in that position tbh. You wouldn't ask a committed Muslim to pick you up a bottle of wine would you and I don't see much difference in this scenario

I think that your relative would be better off just saying no. Offering alternatives isn't her place the housemate wants Cadbury's not Oreos the reasons and beliefs behind saying no must be known by now it's April!! Just say no rinse and repeat!

Is this housemate asking everyone to pick bits up or just your relative?

Lol at Oreos being 'vegan rubbish' - the majority of consumers of Oreos are almost certainly non-vegans!

I know someone a vegetarian, who has her own plates, her own cutlery, her own fridge, her own pots and frying pan, the rest of the family eat meat, they dare not touch her cooking and eating utensils

People just hate vegans. The responses would be completely different if it was a religious objection rather than an ethical one. The housemate should have stopped asking after the first time the objection was explained, what a dick.

@happy relative also has all her own utensils

So this fierce vegan does not have a mobile phone or travel by car or bus or fly.
Never watches TV or uses devices?

Because all these things use animal carcass products.

@itsswine I'm not sure, relative didn't say

Maybe your relative is annoying and the flatmate is reciprocating this way. Not very mature but would explain it. Or the flat mate might just like picking on your relative? Either way it’s completely reasonable to refuse. This in analogous to asking a las abidong citizen to pick up some weed on their way home.

@speakout can you explain?

People just hate vegans.

Nope. People hate the sanctimonious who try and force their views onto everyone else.

Most of the time that just happens to be vegans

I'm a meat eater but wouldnt ever expect a vegetarian or vegan to pick up animal products for me any more than asking someone to buy pork if they have religious beliefs. Your housemate needs to get off her arse and do her own shopping and rolling her eyes is rude and pathetic. If she treats her friends with this level of disrespect what will she be like in the workplace or social situations.

Not vegetarian, wouldn't do the shopping for an able bodied person I wasn't sharing said shopping with.

Why cant the person in question pick up stuff herself or is it just to take a rise out of the vegan. Seems strange to me.

TheInvestigator, op wasn’t asking if her relative is a ‘perfect’ vegan was she! She’s asking if it is reasonable for her to refuse to buy products she doesn’t agree with for a person able to buy them for themselves.
I don’t think your relative is unreasonable(as a meat eater).

The relative could be more sensitive about some things. If she's being asked to buy ham as in watching the deli assistant carve off slices, or being asked to buy whole fish or recognisable animal parts (like a pack of chicken legs), then I think it's only fair for her to refuse. But I think if I were vegan I'd be OK about picking up and buying something like ham in a pack.

I think saying things like 'I don't feel comfortable buying you Cadburys but am happy to get you Oreos or Bourbons instead' is UNSPEAKABLY condescending though, and if I were the relative I would feel totally justified in telling her where she could stick her Oreos or Bourbons.

Why is ham in particular too close to human meat? we evolved from apes not pigs.

@worra because you're putting them in an awkward position by asking. You're potentially asking them to choose between their moral/religious values and being 'polite' or non-confrontational. Its another story if they offer though.

No you're not

Muslims are forbidden from drinking alcohol, not buying or selling it.

Besides, anyone asking them to buy it would no doubt know them well enough.

I don't know why, just something about the texture and colour, especially those joints in a supermarket with fat on our whatever. Looks like a leg. Grim.

I'd probably just eyeroll and not make a big deal, but mental note never to ask your relative if they want anything picking up (if they do)

Speakout - funny though how those are esssential when it's pointed out, it's an inconvenient truth.

She's paying for the meat items on behalf of the housemate, with their money. So she's not contributing to meat consumption at all, is she? If she didn't buy the item in question, I assume the housemate would go out and buy it herself anyway if she really wanted it. So it would be bought and consumed anyway.

I could understand her not wanting to spend her own money on meat products as she is then contributing to the purchasing.

They obviously wind each other up, maybe it's time to just call it quits and say no I'm not shopping for you anymore or all chip in for a weekly delivery. Flat sharing and uni are supposed to be fun.

Also laughing at the person saying they wouldn't ask a vegan to buy ham if it needed slicing from a bone at a deli counter or buying a pack of ham. You know that it has all been sliced from a bone? Cognitive dissonance at it's finest there...

@GregoryPekingDuck cholesterol from animal products is used in the production of LCD screens.

Bone ash from pigs is used in production of mechanical parts for cars and trains etc.

Does the relative think that the housemate is deliberately asking for non-vegan foods to annoy/upset her? Has the relative perhaps been a bit preachy in the past and this is petty revenge?

To be honest, the easiest way forward is just for everyone to do their own shopping. I'd say I didn't know which was best/always seemed to get the wrong thing, or wasn't sure how to choose the right meat products, or anything really, but stop doing anyone else's shopping.

"This in analogous to asking a las abidong citizen to pick up some weed on their way home."

it's really, really not.