To think tuna is not vegetarian!

[TheTitOfTheIceberg]

A member of my team has been involved in arranging a small event at work, which was taking place today. I'm on leave but dropped her a quick text to see how it was going, and also asked her to let me know particularly what she thought of the lunch provided/any delegate feedback about it as it was the first time we've used these particular caterers. Company policy is now to order vegetarian options only as standard.

She has just replied "lunch was fine - samosas, spring rolls, quiches (leek & cheese, broccoli), dips with raw veg crudites, sandwiches/wraps (salad, cheese, tuna mayo, egg & tomato) and lots of fruit".

Tuna?? On a vegetarian platter? AIBU to think the catering company has dropped a bollock here?

Oh that confused me. I thought the vegetarian food industry uses vast amounts of concrete.

Op Is it possible your colleague made a mistake and it wasn’t actually tuna in the sandwich? Did she actually eat it, to confirm it was tuna?

My mother and sister are both seriously allergic to fish and seafood, my mum would have likely had a reaction just from someone who'd eaten the tuna touching her.

Allergies are a major news story at the moment due to people who've died as a result of irresponsible labelling.

I discovered after turning veggie that red meat and by products make me very ill indeed.

I'd be very reluctant to trust a company with such little knowledge of dietary requirements - they're a catering company that's basic knowledge imo

I'm hoping that due to the current news on allergies that companies that deal with food are made to become much more responsible for correct labelling and management of things like cross contamination.

And as we veggies found there's real power in voting with your purse! Not giving companies that don't come up to scratch your business DOES have an effect

Oh, get over yourself. If someone doesn’t want to eat tuna, don’t eat it. Someone else will.

Some people love puritanical identity politics rigidly enforced, some people don't. I actually don't think the world is a better place if people play playground politics 'no, you're not in our gang, you're not doing it right.'

Deeply deeply tiresome.

BWcastle it was definitely tuna.

Orchardgreen I think you might have missed the point?

A fish is not a vegetable. I had to explain this once to someone who thought fish was vegetarian and that was the only sentence that made sense to him in the end.

I'm a vegetarian (no meat, no fish) and the comment I get is "Do you eat chicken?" It never ceases to amaze me, as if it's not meat.
.... of course I don't eat fucking chicken, you tit.

Not read the full thread but tuna is patently not vegetarian. The idea is absurd. It is fish. That is a type of meat.

I don't eat red meat, I do eat fish. That does not make me vegetarian, it makes me fussy.

I hate (tinned) tuna anyway, it gets added gratuitously to everything. Yuck.

I'm a flexitarian by these definitions. I eat a range of food, but prefer mainly vegetarian. It really is normal diet, NOT vegetarian!

OP, to be sure, you need a sample of the sandwich and send it to a lab to check if the protein was animal or not.

I think this is a problem with the use of "fake meat" type replacements, particularly by caterers. Unless you open the package yourself, or it's someone you trust 100%, how do you know it's the substitute and not actual meat (keeping in mind that there are very plasticky meat products).

Fake meat v real meat is very obvious to me and fake fish is barely even a thing, I used to really enjoy the taste and texture of fish it's only very recently that fish like veggie products have become available and to me again it's still obvious.

I've been a vegetarian 34 years, vegetarians have never eaten animal by-products either. Back in my day, I couldn't eat Jaffa Cakes, Stork margarine etc., had to buy cheese from the local health shop (as well as all my cosmetics and hair care) and had to be extremely selective when eating out. Just because things were not labelled then as they are now does not mean we used to eat gelatine, rennet etc.; and to answer a question further back, no, we didn't eat shop bought pesto, we had to make our own.

I do like that people are eating less meat, call yourselves what you want if it increases the take up and sets a trend.

The people on here that are astonished, perplexed and then just angry when faced with 1 meal without meat, these are the ones that always 'want to have a little try' of the weirdo veggie buffet options, before the actual people it is aimed at can get a look in. Never anything left and always the meat stuff left rotting on the table (vast experience of monthly buffets).

No, cheese, you didn't do that. Others did. You don't get yo say that they can't call themselves vegetarians because they've eaten rennet. That is the worst kind of purity politics.

I’m a vegan, I didn’t bother taking pack up to a recent work conference as we could select vegan on the dietary needs sheet.

The vegan sandwiches had cesar sauce which contains both egg and anchovy.

Weeping willow- no, a vegetarian does not eat rennet or gelatine. If you do, then you simply don't eat meat, but you are not a vegetarian. It's not my version. It's fact.

Source?

The fact that it comes from the stomach of a dead calf and the bones of dead animals enough of a source for you? If you consume dead animals in any guise, you cannot call yourself a vegetarian- it's that kind of bullshit that causes issues in the restaurant industry where your given Parmesan 'it's cheese?!' (Well actually it contains dead animals stomach linings so why not just serve me a steak and call that vegetarian).

Willow what is your deal?!

www.vegsoc.org/info-hub/definition/

My deal is that I cannot stand people dictating the language that others use to describe themselves. OED says a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat or fish. Some will extend that to by products. Others won't.

What is your deal with those who don't calling themselves vegetarian? Who the hell do you think you are?

I totally agree with WeepingWillow. It's really hurtful when people refuse to accept I'm a doctor just because I don't have a medical degree or any training. It's no skin off their nose is it?

Well, except that time I attempted a rhinoplasty.

Yey, let's rely on a one sentence definition of the OED to try prove a point rather than the vast amount of knowledge on the veggie society website and vegetarians said no one ever....oh hang on. Someone did.

It comes from a dead animal. If it had a pulse at any point, vegetarians don't eat it.

I'm vegetarian so obviously always choose the vegetarian option when eating out but so does a meat-eating colleague due to halal requirements. I suspect most Jewish people keeping a kosher kitchen at home would also choose vegetarian options so a vegetarian buffet would suit most people except for actual allergies.

Dictionary definitions on such things aren't always accurate, take years even decades to catch up with current accepted definitions of cultural/ethical thinking.

And it's clearly NOT just me that defines vegetarianism this way not even on this thread!

If it has a face it's not vegetarian!