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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

705 replies

Snuffalo · 16/06/2019 17:45

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?
OP posts:
Greyhoundsaregreyt · 17/06/2019 11:57

You’re literally giggling... Confused

kaldefotter · 17/06/2019 12:02

You're getting cringeworthy now, OP. You're a self-described 'vegan' who doesn't bat an eyelid at fish sauce in your food. You may be giggling, but you either don't understand what veganism is or you think you're so special that the actual defining aspects of being a vegan shouldn't apply to you. Which is it?

Teddybear45 · 17/06/2019 12:04

I’m not the stupid one OP. I know what vegan means!!

IvanaPee · 17/06/2019 12:05

Serious question; why do any of you care what some woman on the Internet calls herself?

Why does it matter?

Original poster
Snuffalo · 17/06/2019 12:06

In case it wasn't clear - I don't have a tattoo that says VEGAN. I don't announce to people that I'm a vegan, unless it's part of a larger explanation to say (as I very clearly did in my OP) that I purchase and prepare vegan food, but that I will accept non-vegan hospitality at my friends' homes and I will eat non-vegan food that my partner or son have prepared if the alternative is that we don't get to eat together and/or it will go to waste otherwise. I use the word vegan as part of the explanation of how I choose to eat because it pretty neatly describes the fact that it's a moral issue for me, not a health issue, and that for example I think that egg and dairy farming are just as cruel as meat farming. 'Vegetarian' doesn't really express that or align me with that philosophy.

The only arguments I've seen here are 1. 'words mean things' which is silly, language is flexible, it changes constantly, and words mean different things in different contexts. None of you own VEGAN. Sorry to be the one to break it to you- and, argument 2: I'm somehow making it more likely that vegans will not have their dietary requirements taken seriously and, again - I do not use the word as a personal label, I don't announce myself as a vegan unless it's part of a larger definition, and to be honest it's not something I ever really discuss with anyone in real life unless they ask specific questions about what I'm eating.

OP posts:
QueenOfTheTofuTree · 17/06/2019 12:09

I think you just started this thread to get the anti-vegans frothing. And it's worked.

Footle · 17/06/2019 12:09

I think this is where the charmingly-named mind field comes in.

Original poster
Snuffalo · 17/06/2019 12:13

@QueenOfTheTofuTree I think it's the vegans (and probably a couple of trolls who exclusively eat Findus Crispy Pancakes but just like frothing) who are doing the frothing.

OP posts:
Snidpan · 17/06/2019 12:14

@teddybear45 but do you know what a 'relaxed vegan' means? The word 'relaxed' acts as a quantifier. It tells us, quite adequately, that she's not a vegan, but most of the time, she eats like a vegan.

MaximusHeadroom · 17/06/2019 12:14

@Snuffalo

Your moral standpoint is admirable. But if you eat meat occasionally you are not vegan.

Just like being teetotal is not the same as only drinking occasionally.

It is not about purity or exclusivity or feeling superior. It is just about a binary status.

Greyhoundsaregreyt · 17/06/2019 12:15

The meaning of the word vegan doesn’t change with context, op. Come off it now

BlindAssassin1 · 17/06/2019 12:15

OP, I think you're doing ok and can't believe the arse kicking some are trying to give you! There's a lot of know it alls, creeping out from pedants corner with their dictionary in hand, finger pointing about some definition of a lifestyle that is, and should be, inclusive if its going to get anywhere.

Similar happened years and years ago with the use of the word bisexual...there was a lot of people on both sides snipping that 'you can't have your cake and eat it'. Turns out you can. Sod the hard liners.

QueenOfTheTofuTree · 17/06/2019 12:17

@Snuffalo

I think you will find that a lot of the posters who have a problem with your terminology are, by their own admission, not vegan.

And that's not even mentioning the non-vegans who are tying themselves in knots finding any attempt to put vegans down.

But sure it's all the vegans fault...

QueenOfTheTofuTree · 17/06/2019 12:19

Again, someone who eats a mostly vegan diet with the occasional animal product is plant based.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant-based_diet

We don't need a new definition for someone who eats this way because there already is a definition.

BertrandRussell · 17/06/2019 12:19

“I think you will find that a lot of the posters who have a problem with your terminology are, by their own admission, not vegan.”

I’m not a vegan. I’m not a lighthouse keeper or a Christian or a philatelist either, but I know what they are!

IvanaPee · 17/06/2019 12:21

But why does it MATTER??

QueenOfTheTofuTree · 17/06/2019 12:22

And quite frankly if you were considering becoming a vegan or at least switching to a plant based diet but you get put off because a vegan was mean to you or said something you didn't like then you need to grow the fuck up.

There are twats in every group of people. People are always going to say things you don't like but you can't let that stop you doing what you want to do.

MaximusHeadroom · 17/06/2019 12:23

@Snidpan

What you have described there is an omnivorous diet. Nothing wrong with it. Just not vegan.

My DH has fruit and black coffee every morning. He is not a breakfast vegan.

And I say again, that the comments qualifying that the OP is not vegan is against the backdrop that she described her friend who is a normal vegan as a "militant vegan" suggesting that by eating vegan all the time isn't veganism, but somehow extreme veganism.

Which is pretty annoying for all of us "relaxed" vegans out there who aren't militant but are just normal, nice people who don't eat animal products.

Original poster
Snuffalo · 17/06/2019 12:29

@MaximusHeadroom it is possible to live a life without alcohol, so I can see how teetotal is a binary. It is almost impossible, however, to ensure that you never use, eat, or wear anything that is made with or processed by an animal product or byproduct. If you can't guarantee that your clothes contain no dyes that include animal byproducts, do you still get to use the word vegan? What if you have to take a life-improving (but not life-saving) medicine that contains animal products? What about the glue holding together the plywood in your fitted kitchen - it probably contains animal byproducts - do you get to call yourself a vegan? Does it matter if you paid for the kitchen yourself or if it was in the house when you moved in?

Basically it's impossible for this to be a binary. Even if I did want to wear a badge that says vegan (instead of, as I've said, just using it as part of a larger definition) why does everyone but me get to decide where the line is between good enough and not good enough?

OP posts:
Antigon · 17/06/2019 12:29

@Maximus

But if you eat meat occasionally you are not vegan.

OP doesn't eat meat.

MaximusHeadroom · 17/06/2019 12:31

@Antigon
Then she can call herself vegetarian.

Dorsetdays · 17/06/2019 12:32

The OP can call herself whatever she wants! Makes no difference to me and if it does to you you really need to find something else to worry about.

Ihatemyseleffordoingthis · 17/06/2019 12:34

"Vegetarian' doesn't really express that or align me with that philosophy." - honestly, it does. That is exactly what it is.

Your lifestyle choice/moral code is just fine.

Calling yourself a vegan is misleading and undermines the validity of your own choices.

It's like saying you're committed to celibacy because you only shag your OH on their birthday.

BertrandRussell · 17/06/2019 12:36

The problem with people making up their own definitions is that people then apply them to others. If I was cooking for a vegan, I would cook vegan food. But if I had heard the op describing what she thinks a vegan is, I might cook food a proper vegan couldn’t eat.

Dorsetdays · 17/06/2019 12:37

Well I wouldn’t, because I’m not that silly....