‘Tricked’ by vegan sausages

[Rhubarbpeony]

I had a friend round for dinner last night. It was a last minute plan (she lives in another city and only told me on the day that she was free that evening) so I didn’t make anything fancy. I had in the fridge a packet of Richmond vegan sausages and some potatoes, which I turned into olive oil mash. I’ve been vegan for about ten years - longer than the entire time I have known this friend. We have cooked for each other many times in the past.

As we were finishing eating, my husband got home from a late work event and saw that we had had the sausages. It’s not a brand we have tried before and they’re much cheaper than the kind we usually get, so he asked if they had been nice. I said they were good, and I’d happily have them again.

Friend gets a really odd look on her face and then says to me ‘you didn’t tell me these were vegan sausages.’ I said no, I assumed she would know that anything I cooked or ate would be vegan. She said I was wrong to assume, and that I had tricked her. She said it would be like me coming to dinner at her house and being tricked into eating a meat sausage.

AIBU or are these two things not the same?! For one thing, I definitely don’t feel like I tricked her - she saw me cook the sausages, and if she had asked anything about them I would have told her what was in them. For another, her diet doesn’t preclude her from eating vegan items, but mine does preclude me from eating meat, so IMO it’s a lot worse to give a vegan a meat sausage than it is to give a non-vegan a vegan sausage.

(for info: the sausages don’t contain any soy, and she doesn’t have any food allergies)

Oh yes Atkins. Is 'paleo' the same thing? Atkins is all protein and fat but must that be animal protein and fat? Couldn't it be soy protein and veg fat? I think the metabolsim of the stuff is the key point, because Atkins is a short-term weight loss diet, not a way of life.

OP's guest ate potatoes and other veg, yet pp claimed she might be following a diet that excludes vegan products. We've yet to come up with the term and definition for that diet!

I think she's daft.
As if "vegan sausage" is going to somehow "infect" her with veganism, or something.
She's probably mostly pissed off that she ate vegan sausage without realising, and liked it!

Some people do get really weird over veganism - which actually isn't that surprising when you come across the evangelical vegans! - and don't wish to associate themselves in any way with the ideology. I have a friend who has turned vegan for health reasons, but refuses to say that he is vegan for exactly that reason - he doesn't agree with the ideology, but is helping his own health. So he's a "non-animal product only eater".

But vegan stuff isn't going to poison anyone and most of us eat "vegan" food on a daily basis anyway, we just also eat non-vegan food and are therefore not vegan.

Strange friend.

Your friend is being strange. Not vegan, but we often have vegan food as our toddler has a dairy allergy and it's often the safest option when out. Lots of nice vegan food (most of which is just food!) I wouldn't expect someone who is veggie or vegan to have meat in the fridge on the off chance I'd drop in for food. Equally I wouldn't expect my Jewish and Muslim friends to have pork in, my Hindu friends beef or coeliac friends wheat products.

people do seem to get a bit chippy about vegan diets ime, and you can see it on here. 'oh but what about plastic, what about soy beans, what about almond milk, what about avocados'

this constant reaching for a 'haha gotcha' moment, again ime, is far more common than 'preachy vegans' .

aren't we all just doing what we can? op hasn't put anyone down for their individual ethical choices (if she has and i've missed it maybe someone can c&p it for me) but, as usual, the thread has devolved from being about the original topic to being about 'vegans are actually all hypocrites and wankers' which is a bit eyeroll inducing in its predictability

Very odd of the friend to have assumed they were real meat, so I don't think you were unreasonable to have failed to mention it.

However, more generally I think it is totally unacceptable to serve something where the person eating it doesn't know what they are eating. So deliberately pretending they were regular sausages when they aren't is really not okay.

Of course it's not the same thing. Unless she's walking roun with scurvy, it's safe to assume she eats plant based food the rest of the time whereas you're very clearly no animal products. Has she always been this high maintenance op? Also Richmond do vegan sausages?!

I am scathing (very, actually) about fake Frankenstein foods that make a big song and dance about being vegan because they are a) vile and b) not remotely natural or healthy, in spite of marketing attempts to have us believe that they are good for us purely by dint of being vegan, which is utter nonense

Vegans need junk food too. I bloody love the Vegan KFC burger... especially after a few of a Friday night

Your friend is being mental.

If someone was none the wiser, it would be polite to tell them something is a meat substitute. Mainly because some meat substitutes (usually the nice ones) are very unhealthy.

But she knows you're a vegan, and she knows you're eating them, so she doesn't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes...

She’s annoyed because she obviously loved them 😂

I’d be upset if you’d given me quorn.....I’ve been violently ill every time I’ve had it, so I know what would be in store

However if you gave me Quorn sausages without me knowing I'd be sick as a dog due to mushroom allergy so if she has allergies thrn maybe yabu.

The kfc vegan burger is amazing! I feel no guilt about my not very occasional junk food splurges.

@RuffleCrow she’s never made a fuss before but since she moved away I see her much less often, so maybe she is changing to become more of a drama llama!

Well she didn't comaim about the potatoes, does she not realise they are technically vegan too?

Your friend needs to get a life! Immediately if not sooner.
I’m a meat eater and if I found out you’d “tricked” me into eating a vegan sausage and I’d enjoyed it, it would go on my shopping list

With everything going on in life this is her concern???

YANBU, why would someone expect anything other than a vegan sausage at a vegan person's house...especially if you ate them as well!

"I have a friend who has turned vegan for health reasons, but refuses to say that he is vegan for exactly that reason - he doesn't agree with the ideology, but is helping his own health. So he's a "non-animal product only eater"."

this might be because true vegans, besides eating only plants, also avoid wool, silk, leather etc. it's why i refer to myself as eating a 'plant based diet' rather than being vegan. i don't want to risk being part of someone's 'haha gotcha' moment where they're like well i know this one woman calls herself vegan and she's sat there in leather boots and a wool cardigan :)

we're all just doing the best we can right?

My tolerance to soya is low (can cope with lecithins, but the content of flour or the beans have a high risk of making me scurry off to the toilet for a prolonged and not very pleasant while)

The main offender I regularly encounter is bread and friends know I'm selective about eating it. With consideration to what I've eaten recently, I may occasionally have a roll at something like a BBQ. Richmond's "meat" sausages are poor for meat quality anyway and bulked with ingredients including soya (or at least were a few years back when DS was on an exclusion diet, the increase in soya costs have reduced soya contents of foods in recent years). I would need honesty about if the food is meat based or a subsitute so I can risk assess whether it is worth the risk of digestive upset. The problem with soya is that it isn't on most people's radar, and it's a PITA intolerance to explain to others, particularly when I don't have to exclude all reference to it.

I am cagey about "vegan" foods, not naturally vegan, but the synthetic swaps. When DS had to exclude dairy and eggs due to allergies, we had to be very careful about vegan substiutes because of his soya intolerance. Plant based food, fine, but it could be unpleasant if misguided into eating something that isn't what I thought it was.

@Rhubarbpeony

Would you really rather eat a microwaved chicken tikka than homemade vegan food?

Yes. I have had a bellyful of home-made vegan food. It's bland as fuck, and VERY hard work to eat. We have turned down several offers of a meal at a vegan's house this past 6-8 months because we literally cannot bear the food.

I think if someone was cooking me dinner, particularly if I knew they were vegan, I'd highlight to them if I had a soya intolerance. It's poor manners to the host, otherwise. You have to let the chef know of your preferences, otherwise it'd be ok for a vegan to turn up to dinner and complain about the fact there was only steak-on-gammon-on-chicken, having never mentioned their Veganism.

@shinycat
Perhaps, you don't know anyone who can cook. My wife cooked some amazing food with meat and for the past 2 to 3 years has cooked amazing food without meat (and often without dairy/eggs too). To a good cook it really doesn't make that much difference. Blandness comes from poor preparation and cooking, plus poorly used spices/seasoning/sauce, etc

@Shinycat sounds like your friend is just a shit cook. Vegan food is just food. I don't suppose you'd ever eat bombay potatoes or saag aloo or mushroom pilau along with your chicken tikka masala because they're too bland, eh?

@Shinycat I used to live in a house share where one of the 5 of us was vegan. We ate well. Very varied and nutritious, tasty food (unless one of us had one of our kitchen disasters!), and all agreed that the vegan meals were the most delicious.

I don't think you should let one vegan cook put you off (or deride to others) all vegan food.

I can't believe that anyone who ate meat would genuinely believe that a vegan sausage was actual meat, unless she only ever eats disgusting cheapie sausages. Even then.

No qualms with veganism by the way, am not vegan myself but only eat meat maybe once a fortnight.

For the sake of MN, can you contact her and say you've been thinking about it and you don't understand why she would have thought the sausages were anything other than vegan given that she saw you cooking and eating them; and given that this really is in no way comparable to her giving you a meat sausage without telling you as she eats vegetables? We need to know how she justifies this.

TBH the thing that puts me off vegan food is not so much the lack of meat as the lack of dairy. The vegan dairy subs are just not as nice, although I accept that dairy is dreadful for the environment (and ethical reasons).