To trick someone into eating vegan?

[Idonthatevegans]

Please read my question before getting into a debate about veganism. That isn't really what it is about. It has no impact on my life if someone is a vegan or not, do what you wish.

I got into a discussion with someone recently, and found out that people are often surprised when they find out that there was no meat in the beef pie/ spag bol etc she served. And she gets a kick of that fact they couldn't tell the difference. Honestly I couldn't really, not in something like a spag bol.

I have however, tried quorn a few times in my life, with AWFUL results. I am in the bathroom within 1 hour and very sick for a day after. A 100% vegan meal without meat substitutes ya I'm 100% ok with. But if someone says I made beef pie, I would take them at their word. If I knew the person was vegan I would probably enquire if it was real meat only because I know how awfully I react to it. But if I didn't know that person was a vegan I would take it at face value. Yes it happens every so often I get offered tea around a friends aunt who we popped into or something like that.

To me, a vegan passing of something as meat to people who don't know and can therefore make up their own mind is as bad as me putting chicken stock into veg soup and telling someone it is vegan friendly. Ya the vast majority in both cases won't know the difference in taste or after affect. But both people have been denied the option of having their own choice. One has been tricked into thinking they are eating meat, one has been tricked into thinking they are not. I know there are hugely different moral implications there but both have been tricked when they should not have been.

I really don't want to this to break into a vegan/ non vegan debate. That is all that I got back on my last chat. The person wouldn't actually answer my question about tricking someone, just kept on a barrage of info about how vegan is amazing and that anyone who eat meat was the devil incarnate.

BTW - it's not something I would often say I am allergic to as I usually take how food is called at their face value.

I simply want to know:

AIBU - she can call her pie beef pie, even if it is not beef pie.

YANBU - you should know what you are eating. If it's called beef pie well of course you would expect it to be beef pie

Also as an aside for vegans those fingers are delish ...

This has nothing to do with being vegan/vegetarian/meat eater and everything to do with control. That is why you feel uncomfortable with it and why it feels inherently wrong.

I would probably distance myself from this person because it’s not a genuine mistake but a deliberate act to trick you into eating something that is not what it seems.

I am allergic to Quorn as well. This has happened to me a number of times and annoys me. I do mention it now when eating at Veggie or Vegan households.

I cant tell the difference at the time of eating when its something like Spag Bol or Lasagne. But I do know a number of hours later with continous projectile vomiting.

YANBU - I’m allergic to Quorn, it makes my face swell and my body itchy, so I’d be pissed off if someone passed it off as meat.

I’m vegan and I might trick someone into eating vegan by giving them a Bourbon biscuit or an Oreo and telling them they’ve just had a vegan biscuit (because Oreos and most bourbons are accidentally vegan).

But no, I would never do this. What about allergies?! This is how vegans get bad reps for the rest of us.

Quorn is a very processed food. I don’t think it’s particularly ideal tbh.

@RealBecca

I mean why anyone would assume a vegan woul serve meat shows a very one sided view of the world.

I would assume a vegan was serving me meat, if when they handed it to me they said "here is some meat" which is what is being discussed here. A vegan deliberately pretending something is meat and telling people that it is meat.

If I went to the dinner at a vegan's house and they said "here is a beef pie", I'd expect it to be beef and not quorn, because they told me it was a beef pie. Not for any other reason.

In the same way as if I was cooking for a vegan, and said "here's a quorn pie", they could be confident that it contained quorn and not beef.

The vegan aspect of this is a bit of a red herring I think.

….

Can't see the point in lying about the food, however a lot of comments are related to allergies. So, do you ask anyone who ever cooks for you for every single ingredient in every single dish they serve you??
I very much doubt it.

I love vegan food (though "substitutes" are often unpalatable. Fake bacon nearly made me weep) and I do often eat entirely meat free meals simply by chance. But I absolutely do not agree with tricking people. It's awful. Doesn't matter if it's pretending there's no meat in a dish when there is or the complete opposite. I dislike certain foods and the thought of eating it makes me queasy. I don't give a shit if I don't realise it's in, I do not want to eat it. I would lose any respect for someone tricking me into eating something I didn't agree to.

As PP have stated, it's the intent to deceive that's the issue here. It sounds like this person in the OP is claiming she outright lied about the contents of the meals she's served to guests, without thinking of the possible consequences. The vegan/omnivore debate isn't really the point at all.

Btw I'm one of the many that has a bad reaction to Quorn and similar 'meat substitutes', not life-threatening but it is very uncomfortable for me. Luckily no one I know has attempted to surreptitiously feed it to me yet.

YANBU
Quorn has awful results on me too, terrible stomach cramps. I'd be very upset if someone fed me quorn without telling me.

YANBU. I'm fine with soy based meat substitutes but if I eat any meal-sized amount of Quorn I have a very quick toilet-centred reaction. not envy.

I can appreciate WHY someone who is veg would want to show that tasty food can be made without real meat, but in the end (so to speak!) it does matter that we know what we're eating.

@loadofcrap10

Can't see the point in lying about the food, however a lot of comments are related to allergies. So, do you ask anyone who ever cooks for you for every single ingredient in every single dish they serve you?? I very much doubt it.

Given the reaction I have to quorn, yes, if someone were serving me a veggie 'meat' pie, I'd ask if it were soy-based, quorn, or other.

If someone served me 'beef pie' I'd think it was beef, because they've called it beef. I wouldn't think I'd need to check that it's actually beef, because that would sound insane "Ok I know you say it's beef, but do you really mean beef?"

Now if I were allergic to nuts or crustaceans etc, yes I'd ask all the time, because those are items that can hide in small amounts in any foods.

[quote RedHot22]@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Which is why I would always politely turn down an invitation to a vegan meal. I can't eat mushrooms, lentils, beans or Quorn so it wouldn't leave much for me to eat and I would worry they thought I was making excuses

Not a problem, I could make you lots of delicious vegan meals with none of those ingredients.[/quote]
Any tips would be gratefully received!

Yanbu

Why lie? It wouldn't go down well (and rightly so) the other way around at lying to a vegan and giving them meat so why does your friend think it's acceptable the other way?

Is it an intentional deception. We are a vegan household so use vegan shorthand language all the time.
Eg. I don't say, love I cooked you a lovely vegan shepherds pie, because it's obviously going to be vegan. Ditto cheese toastie etc.
Although my meat eating dad has been miss selling his shepherds pie for years. He uses beef and apparently that makes it a cottage pie.

I'm still not convinced that you'd realistically expect meat from a vegan. Filing this away as it never happened.

@lazylinguist

As a vegan, trust me, you do not want people unused to cooking meat cooking it for you. Guaranteed food poisoning.

Are vegans incapable of following recipes or cooking instructions?

Not practiced at cooking meat and there are a lot more opportunities for food poisoning with foods such as chicken.

I vaguely know something about not using the same boards, cooking at a high temperature and storage needs to be careful. They don't list that sort of thing on recipes, it's assumed knowledge because people growing up cooking meat will know it naturally.

If I'm cooking you can have well cooked vegan food, absolutely no point in me serving you sub standard meat. No one will enjoy that.

YANBU. You should always know what you're eating and nobody should ever trick anyone into eating anything.

Quorn is a known allergen and lots of people react really badly to it. That's a horrible thing to do and your friend is a dick.

Yoy can ALWAYS tell it s vegan. Always. I've eaten and enjoyed a lot of vegan meals (not the kind with meat substitutes because they are always grim) you can always tell. I suspect that when people say they 'couldn t tell' what they mean is it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. Or they are being polite and claiming they 'couldn't tell' like when you try and reassure a friend after they have made some sort of big public faux pas.

As for whether it's ok to trick someone; it depends. If you are sure they aren't allergic or intolerant to anything or on a specifix diet and they don't have any kind of ethi al concerns around what they are being served tjen it's probably not a big deal. That is a lot of if's though.

@BelleOfTheProvince

Is it an intentional deception. We are a vegan household so use vegan shorthand language all the time. Eg. I don't say, love I cooked you a lovely vegan shepherds pie, because it's obviously going to be vegan. Ditto cheese toastie etc. Although my meat eating dad has been miss selling his shepherds pie for years. He uses beef and apparently that makes it a cottage pie.

I'm still not convinced that you'd realistically expect meat from a vegan. Filing this away as it never happened.

Some vegans cook meat for other non-vegan members of the household but don't eat it themselves It's possible

@Ohpussyhatpussyhat

Yoy can ALWAYS tell it s vegan. Always. I've eaten and enjoyed a lot of vegan meals (not the kind with meat substitutes because they are always grim) you can always tell. I suspect that when people say they 'couldn t tell' what they mean is it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. Or they are being polite and claiming they 'couldn't tell' like when you try and reassure a friend after they have made some sort of big public faux pas.

As for whether it's ok to trick someone; it depends. If you are sure they aren't allergic or intolerant to anything or on a specifix diet and they don't have any kind of ethi al concerns around what they are being served tjen it's probably not a big deal. That is a lot of if's though.

So it's ok to deliberately go out of your way to deceive someone? Not just serving food without saying what's in it. But deliberately lying about it is ok if people aren't allergic?

I have severe intolerance to most vegan staples so I always ask specifically what is in vegan food (and other food more likely to contain my allergens). I often find people are reluctant to say due to wanting to'trick' me, and I have to be really firm at times or refuse to eat it. I'm not anti vegan at all, my mum and several good friends are vegan so eat vegan a fair amount, though I'm quite an effort to cook for!

If a vegan friend told me they were making "beef pie", I would assume it wasn't actually beef. I have an intolerance to soya so I'd flag it.