To not understand why some people dont eat meat free meals

[reducingfootprint]

I do not call myself vegetarian but i eat meat rarely for health reasons (bowel cancer is common in the family) but i am happy to prepare it as my dh eats meat but enjoys meat free meals around 4 times a week. DC also eat meat free around 4 times a week. My siblings and their partners are also part time vegetarians and pre covid we all enjoyed getting together for meat free feasts.

When DM comes over, she refuses to eat anything without meat. Butternut squash soup? Needs bacon.
Halloumi fajitas? Needs beef.
Goats cheese and onion omelette? Needs chicken.
Plowmans salad? Needs ham.

AIBU to think ffs one meal without meat wont kill you!

covid I don't mind being thought of as sensitive, if it means that I am distressed by animals being slaughtered. I'm not sure if you have seen a lot of animals being slaughtered, and have become desensitised.

I do agree with you, that most people would not eat meat if they had to kill it themselves. We are generally very removed from food production in this country.

To go back to the original question - AIBU to think ffs one meal without meat wont kill you! - YANBU.

I went to a talk at the local university about sustainable food. At each end of the spectrum there were farmers and vegans. I came away thinking the way to go was to eat predominantly vegetarian/vegan meals with the odd slow cooked lamb or beef stew, sustainably sourced.

I have three adult children, two are vegetarian. During lockdown we've eaten extremely well. My meat eating son enjoys eating vegetarian food, enjoys cooking vegetarian food (thanks to Yotam and Simple), and we just throw him the occasional good quality meat pie!

Quorn etc I find tastes gross, but it's weird for people to feel passionately about people being odd for eating it if they don't eat meat . Some of the vegetable based sausages and burgers are really tasty though- spicy bean burgers, leek pepper and cheese sausages and some of the mushroom burgers.

@Glowcat

Where does one source meaty breakfast cereal?

The pet section. It’s called Go Cat, l think?

See I think if people now SUDDENLY had to start killing thier own meat they would be squeamish but that’s because we have never had to whereas if life had continued as it had a couple of hundred years ago where people reared and killed thier own meat and went poaching in the woods then it would just be something you did. We’ve lost the skills of plucking and skinning and gutting animals.

Haven't RTFT but, although culture of course has an influence, I think a lot if it is probably genetic.

I have 2 kids and from weaning age it was extremely clear that one of them gravitated towards fruit and carbs, whereas the other one would d go straight for the meat, every time. "Carnivorous child" could handle more read meat in one meal at 1 yo than "not so carnivorous child" would manage at 5 yo.
Still to this day if you serve, for instance, spaghetti bolognaise, one child will eat all the pasta and scatter the meat around, whereas the other eats all the meat first and only then start on the pasta.

ylva and your argument is a common 'whatabouterry'

The land that cannot be used for growing crops in this country could be rewilded. Crop grazing is terrible for the environment, and animals are often fed additional feed, which includes palm kernels, which is environmentally atrocious. There is a lot of evidence behind veganism and it's environmental benefits: I suggest you read them.

I think you are being unreasonable, people can eat what they like and they don’t have to be dictated too to eat meat free meals

I enjoy eating meat but can also happily eat a meat free meal.

My DP could not fathom a meal without meat, but he’s a fussy eater so there’s not much else he likes tbh.

If I was eating at someone else’s house and they made me a meat free meal I would eat it without complaint. I’d find it a bit rude to demand meat be added to a meal just for my benefit.

However, think the key is to do what makes you happy in that regard: if you want to carry on eating meat free meals, you crack on. If other people want to eat meat, let them be. We can all have different tastes and opinions and coexist.

I am vegetarian, I would make a meat free meal for all and just put some bacon on say macaroni cheese. Make something that you can all have and you just have to add a topping of meat.

DP used to insist that his visiting kids aged 16 and 19 must have meat- ended up with us having a massive row in Marks and Spencer YANBU

I know people like that. I don’t get it either. I love meat. Nice crispy chicken wings. Nice juicy rare steak. Bacon needs no further explanation. BUT we actually still do have quite a few meatless meals at home. Macaroni cheese being a prime example. Veggie soup another. Cheese Omelette. Beans on toast. List goes on. If someone wants meat in every meal in their own home then that’s their choice but if I’m making someone a meal and they complain there isn’t meat in it I would consider it rude and not feed them again.

You are not being unreasonable.

The other day someone showed me footage of standard animal agriculture practices in Australia, the UK and America. What I saw in that footage was unreasonable.

Funny how vegans are branded the sensitive ones, yet it’s meat eaters who make the most fuss about eating vegetables.

I suspect your Mum is struggling with her own conscience, but it’s much easier to blame that on you than face the brutal reality of her personal choices.

Personal choice ends when your personal choice has a victim.

Flavour is all. Meat or no meat.

No @hibbledobble

That’s true for a lot of people! You can easily avoid farty veg though I assure you

I wish it was as simple as that! It's more the stomach pains similar to when I had gallstones that's cause the problem!

Ugh my husband is like this when I do do a vegitarian meal for everyone he's always like this would be nice with meat 🙄 we are a mixed bunch of class myself as a flexitarian I know it's a naffish term but basically I mostly eat meat alternatives but i do eat meat on occasion and don't avoid for example beef Oxo cubes or sweets with gelatine in etc. I also when I do buy meat try to buy higher welfare products. I have two children who eat an average amount of meat and one who is a full vegitarian. Often means I'm cooking two separate variations of same meal which can be a pain.

I am vegetarian, but I grew up with meat on the plate at every meal. It's a very common thing. But I don't understand why it matters. If you happily prepare it and you know she is coming why not just save yourself the hassle and do something she will like? Or are you trying to be stubborn and force something upon her she doesn't want?

I’m a meat eater but I can cope with a meal or a couple of meals that are meat free and cheese I can eat til it comes out my ears and halloumi love it some times people just don’t like change it’s a mind set. I say get the kids involved with this one . Get them to talk to nana get her to try new foods x

that's a very common argument for veganism... sad reality is that, in the UK for example, there is not enough futile land to produce the amount of crops needed to feed a vegan population. Many crpos with a high nutritional value don't grow in our climate without help... Meat on the other hand can be produced much more easily... think Welsh hill farm lamb, Scottish highland beef...
Rice for example is a stable food, yet very damaging to the environment as well as of a poor nutritional value.
Many vegan products that are available do have a high carbon footprint they are sourced in 3rd world countries. This does not sound very environment frendly or ethical to me.
I am for sustainability rather than a forced ethical reasoning. I like to buy local produce, where I can - it's better all round.

Sorry @Ylvamoon, but this categorically isn’t true. It is far better for the environment to eat a vegan diet, even if it is completely comprised of imported foods, than it is to eat an omnivorous diet, even if all of your meat is locally produced.

This is clear from the mathematics of carbon emissions. 1kg of lamb consumed leads to about 40kg of carbon emissions. 1kg of avocados (one of the least environmentally friendly vegan foods, because they are all grown abroad and they have to be flown to their destination rather than shipped, like most foods) leads to about 0.86kg of carbon emissions. Therefore, meat eaters would have to be eating 46 times as many kilos of avocados as they were eating kilos of beef for the environmental impact to be comparable. So even if meat-eaters switched to exclusively consume even the most environmentally unfriendly of vegan foods, their impact on the environment would still be significantly less than it is while they eat locally produced meat.

This site shows just how little it matters that your meat is locally produced: ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

So, it doesn’t matter that grazing land in the U.K. isn’t always suitable for arable agriculture. We could re-wild areas where crops can’t be grown, creating new habitats for our native species and carbon capture (www.forestcarbon.co.uk/), and import food from abroad and it would represent a massive reduction in the food-generated carbon footprint of this country.

I have to say that although I did vegetarianism and veganism in my 20s, one thing I noticed is that I feel more satiated after a meal containing meat, fish, or eggs. I don't always get the same feeling from a meat free meal, and I can get hungrier sooner, after eating.

hibbledobble no, I've not become desensitized, the slaughter I've seen isn't particularly traumatic. Animal cruelty and torture I do find distressing, and human torture as well (violence, rape etc) I've seen lots of that too and I still find it fairly distressing.

I've never found blood, guts gore etc distressing or gruesome. I'm not squeamish. Which is good in my profession!

I've become slightly more sensitive since having children, but not much so.

I do find mass dairy production quite distressing. The tiny day-old calves shaking and huddled together upset and cold, their mothers in the field crying out to them, distressed and aggressive at not being able to get to them.

Having reared lamb and beef, it's not the same. The calves and lambs are weaned from their mother before sent to slaughter. With the lambs particularly the mother's kick them off, ignore them, shop them away. They're not pulled from loving mother's who are left distressed without them.

I'd tell her to bring her own meal or not bother coming, if it's you cooking then surely your decision to make.

I think the big difference is that between 'don't' and 'won't' which seems to be getting confused a lot in this thread.

I don't eat meat free meals because I do all the shopping and cooking for myself and so cook what I like and what is easy for me. This tends to be meat and fish as I prefer a chicken curry to a veggie one, don't like quorn or lentils so use meat mince in my Shepard's pie, enjoy a traditional meat and 2 veg meal, like ham in my omelette for abit of texture and flavour ect.

Similarly when I go out to eat I am treating myself so order what I want off the menu, this tends to be seafood (because I enjoy it but can't cook it as well myself but for the purpose of this thread I think it comes under the meat bracket), but is sometimes steak or lamb ect because that is what I enjoy.

However it's not that I won't eat a meat free meal. If someone else makes me a meat free meal I will happily eat it, just grateful that someone else has cooked for me out of kindness (rather than service like in a restaurant). I may think hmm this soup could be better with a little bacon if I genuinely think it's under seasoned but a) I would never say this to the host and b) it would more be out of a need for seasoning rather than the need to add meat to something.

So I will happily eat a meat free meal, it's not that I 'won't' I only 'don't' because when cooking for myself meat is easier, tastier and just what I prefer to do and have.

@Aglet

Flavour is all. Meat or no meat.

This ^^ is so true. Eating meat is OK. Not eating meat is OK. Evangelising your way of eating and forcing your ideas on other people is not OK.

AIBU to think ffs one meal without meat wont kill you!

I’m still struggling to understand why anyone thinks this is unreasonable.