... to not tell my militantly vegan friend she ate fish sauce?

[Snuffalo]

I am a relaxed vegan, as are one of my kids, the other kid and my partner are mostly vegetarian. Basically what that means for me is that I would never spend my own money on animal products, and I wouldn't use them in my own cooking, but if someone else prepares food for me or I'm a guest in someone's home I'll eat what's put in front of me, for the most part - I won't have a sausage or a burger at your barbecue, but I'll eat the pasta salad even if has cheese in it, and I'll have some of your birthday cake even if it's made with eggs.

Anyway, my friend Alice- who is a militant, rather than a relaxed, vegan

• was over and I heated up what I confidently thought to be vegan sweet potato and black bean chilli that my partner had made earlier in the week. I know the recipe backwards and forwards because one of us makes it at least once a month with zero animal products so I had no reason to suspect otherwise. I must say it was especially delicious this time - because, as it turns out, my partner added some fish sauce because he'd read somewhere that it's good in chilli. I didn't find out until today and now I'm wondering if I should tell Alice? I can't decide if, in her shoes, I would want to know or not. Would you?

Jesus, it's not like she's infected her friend with a life threatening illness. A mistake was made and there's nothing to gain by telling her friend unless she specifically wants to upset her - for no gain, since the friend can't do anything about it either.

She feels bad enough without the petty point scoring from the 'real' vegans.

Hardly anyone thinks she should tell her friend though 🙄

well, reading a lot of the indignant replies 'you're not a vegan', I totally get what a militant vegan is! I bet theres more anger directed at relaxed vegans, than at the steak and chicken brigade

So you're not a vegan then 😂

And I'd probably tell my friend if she was being particularly high and mighty one day. I'd pretend I felt bad about it though 😁

@Snidpan

Not at all. The OP (who is not vegan because she semi-regularly eats animal products) described herself as a "relaxed vegan" whilst describing her friend (who is a normal vegan because she doesn't eat animal products) as a "militant vegan"

This is goady and suggesting that people who stick to their veganism are extreme. Several people have pointed out that this is wrong. That is all.

I thought being vegan was a description of a lifestyle, not just a personal characteristic. OP's life is mainly vegan, she can describe herself however she wants and did a good job of explaining that she follows a mostly vegan lifestyle but will occasionally eat something that isn't vegan.

Piling on her because she has the temerity to use the word vegan in a way strict vegans don't approve off is a bit precious.

@jezebel101

Again, it has been done in the context of her describing her normal, vegan friend as "militant" because she sticks to the vegan lifestyle

Just say 'I eat no meat and very few animal products' Or 'I try to eat a mainly vegetarian diet'
As others have said, you are neither fully vegan or vegetarian.

I wouldn’t tell her.

I would tell you that you’re not vegan though, you’re vegetarian!

'i'm a relaxed veggie or vegan' makes you sound a bit dim to be honest. better to say 'i don't eat much meat or fish'. people like this make life hard for REAL FULL TIME veggies and vegans. i don't bang a drum for being veggie but i dislike idiots hijacking my diet choices because it's the trendy in thing right now.
i've been a vegetrian for most of my life due to animal welfare concerns [too well educated in how dead stuff gets to the plate]

Relaxed vegan

Firstly, don't tell her, no good can come of it

Secondly, she isn't a 'militant' vegan, she is just actually a vegan, whereas you aren't.

Sorry I meant to say this earlier but life distracted me- I really admire my friend’s commitment, she does all kinds of activism and volunteers for Food Not Bombs. I call her militant because she has a badge on her jacket that says MILITANTLY VEGAN MILITANTLY ANTI-FASCIST MILITANTLY KIND. That’s where I got the word. Maybe I should have just said ‘strict’ instead.

she's not even strict, she IS a vegan. same as pregnant / not pregnant, it's a simple concept to understand.

Why would you even thing of telling her? The fact that you posting sort of indicates a gnawing desire to tell her. Resist!

Feckety

OP’s vegan too, she was just differentiating between herself and her friend with the relaxed / militant bit.

It is bizarre. Vegan, vegetarian, feminist, pregnant - to name but 4 - are things that don’t need qualifiers. You either are or aren’t.

This is getting ridiculous. NO ONE can guarantee that no animal products touch or enter their body or that nothing they ever use exploits animals in any way (including the clothes you wear that may be free of leather but may also be sewn by exploited people or even children- does that pass your vegan purity test?). Everyone chooses where to draw a line. If your line is an exclusionary purity test, you are doing more harm than good. My line is inclusive and is meant to embrace the kindness and hospitality of my friends and family and to avoid waste. I’m going to continue to use the word vegan as a starting point to describe how I eat because it describes my moral standpoint- that I personally choose not to support the exploitation of animals for food or other consumable/wearable products. If you don’t like it, you can, as my gran used to say, get glad in the same pants you got mad in.

You aren’t vegan Op. stop trying to justify it to yourself. You basically latched onto a fashionable label and now are embarrassed when people called you out. You seem fairly ill informed about food in general too. Take this as an opportunity to learn. Fish / animal products are NOT vegan. Repeat that until it sinks in.

If your line is an exclusionary purity test, you are doing more harm than good.

It’s not about a purity test, it’s about words having a meaning.
The way language works is that definitions ARE exclusionary, we can’t just include everything as that way words become meaningless.

If your line is an exclusionary purity test, you are doing more harm than good. My line is inclusive and is meant to embrace the kindness and hospitality of my friends and family and to avoid waste.

I'm not mad. I just disagree with your decision to use the word "vegan" to describe what you do. Your choices about what to eat strike me as sensible, it's just that using words so flexibly distorts their meaning. I eat some vegan meals, some vegetarian meals and some fish. Therefore I describe myself as pescetarian. If people look confused I say I eat fish but no other meat. If I were to describe myself as vegetarian then eat fish I would create a problem for people who actually are vegetarian because they would then be expected to eat fish, like I do.

By saying you're vegan then eating meat you are, IMO, creating confusion as to what being a vegan is, and creating the expectation that vegans are fine eating meat if they're round at somebody else's house. So yes, I'm drawing a line, because that's how words are given meaning, we draw lines around them. And it is the problem with this flexibility that led you to your original moral dilemma of what to tell a vegan to whom you've fed fish.

@Teddybear45 I’m literally giggling. Thanks so much for clarifying that fish are animals. I had no idea. I’m also giggling at the idea of the way I’ve managed my diet ever since I was a teenager in the 1990s as ‘fashionable’. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘practical’ or maybe ‘sensible’ but good effort anyway!

You are ill informed.

@Teddybear45 saying it twice doesn't make it any less stupid, does it? Just the opposite, I'd say.