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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To trick someone into eating vegan?

205 replies

Idonthatevegans · 09/11/2021 15:24

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

OP posts:
RacketeerRalph · 09/11/2021 20:42

BelleOfTheProvince my mum's vegan. If she's cooling a Bolognese for DH and I, I'd bet my bottom dollar it'd be meat.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 09/11/2021 20:43

@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.

That's my thinking.

If a vegan told me we were having beef burgers, I'd expect Linda McCartney or something. Same goes for sausage rolls, chicken nuggets etc.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 09/11/2021 20:45

She's hardly Sweeney Todd...

The pies at my house are very nice I will have you know.

BelleOfTheProvince · 09/11/2021 20:46

@RacketeerRalph

BelleOfTheProvince my mum's vegan. If she's cooling a Bolognese for DH and I, I'd bet my bottom dollar it'd be meat.
Depends on how and why you are vegan. I haven't cooked meat ever(apart from one time at scout camp where apparently the gammon I booked was inedible.

I would have thought gammon was pretty inedible though however it is cooked. Not a popular meat nowadays. I imagine for good reason.

But having a renaissance as an insult obviously.

MilduraS · 09/11/2021 20:49

I'm a vegetarian and although I usually cook meat for guests, if it was fake meat I'd say "vegetarian steak pie" or "vegetarian bolognese". I find it odd that someone wouldn't and would take it as them deliberately trying to get one over on guests. A bit of a "hahaha it was delicious wasn't it? And it wasn't even meat!"

LittleOwl153 · 09/11/2021 20:50

I can't eat Soya of any kind so I would be annoyed. That said I would love a proper vegan meal. I don't really understand why vegans who are trying to convert you insist on doing so with fake meat - why not teach me something new and widen my pallette not feed me processed crap them tell me I can't tell the difference...

KatherineJaneway · 09/11/2021 20:50

If someone was / is a regular meat eater they 100% know the difference between meat substitute and actual meat. No one is fooled unless their palate is shot to shit.

People say polite comments because our UK culture isn't designed to be rude.

And a pp said about beef and soy pie, if you are serving that, then that is what you say it is not add soy in and not declare that is in the pie.

TurquoiseDragon · 09/11/2021 20:55

@MintJulia

Anyone who lies intentionally when giving food to someone else is an idiot. All it would take is a bad allergic reaction to end up on a manslaughter charge because it was knowingly done.

Perhaps you could explain that to your 'friend'.

I agree.

I like a lot of vegan food, I don't need a meat substitute, though.

OTOH, my DD can't eat mushrooms, she's very intolerant. She's also intolerant to Quorn. She's upfront with people that she can't eat these foods or she ends up sick and tied to the bathroom. If anyone tried feeding her food containing these items without letting her know, as a deliberate action, I'd be encouraging DD to make a report to the police.

BelleOfTheProvince · 09/11/2021 20:56

I mean I literally never preface anything with 'vegan ...'
Anyone I'm cooking for would know me well enough to know I wouldn't have meat in or cook it for them.

Of course if I did preface everything with 'vegan' then people would tell those silly how do you know if someone's a vegan jokes.

Can't win. Will just hoard all the vegan baked goods for me.

BelleOfTheProvince · 09/11/2021 20:59

Quorn is mushroom, that's why your daughter would have both allergies.

It's also disgusting apart from a few newer things.
It's also generally not vegan anyway.

TurquoiseDragon · 09/11/2021 21:00

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.

He's correct. Shepherd's pie is lamb (as in, shepherds look after sheep and lambs). Cottage pie is beef or any meat other than lamb. I often use pork or turkey mince.

BelleOfTheProvince · 09/11/2021 21:03

@TurquoiseDragon

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.

He's correct. Shepherd's pie is lamb (as in, shepherds look after sheep and lambs). Cottage pie is beef or any meat other than lamb. I often use pork or turkey mince.

Nah he's wrong because it's made with beef but he calls it shepherd. I do get that a shepherds pie would have lamb, but I'd have thought a beef one would be a cowboy pie or something.

It's a moot point really as he mostly does veggie nowadays anyway.

DroopyClematis · 09/11/2021 21:09

One of my worst IBS flare ups was due to Quorn. Never again.

If someone tricked me into eating it I'd be absolutely furious.

TEH82 · 09/11/2021 21:09

It’s not on and people shouldn’t do it - I also have an intolerance to veggie mince and a friends ‘beef lasagna’ left me off work for 2 days glued to the toilet she couldn’t see the big deal but lying about what I am eating so it makes me ill is not fair

LemonSwan · 09/11/2021 21:27

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.

No I genuinely cant tell between what I assume at the time is a horrendous cook making a spag bol and a quorn spag bol.

Obviously if I cooked my spag bol, or had my mums spag bol (which I know well), and the meat/quorn was switched then I would know.

But when I visit someone for a one off - then I am going to assume they are a bad cook before I assume they purposefully tried to deceive me. Or well I used too! Grin

IreneIddesleigh · 09/11/2021 21:39

YANBU. It's obnoxious to lie to anyone about what they're eating. And the argument is idiotic, anyway. Of course people can live without eating meat. That's not the point. People who don't want to be vegans won't suddenly "see the light" because they ate a vegan meat-substitute and didn't know it wasn't meat. I can't see it convincing someone to change their whole lifestyle.

Theunamedcat · 09/11/2021 21:49

My family have "accidentally" given me food with wheat in because it said "may contain wheat/gluten" they thought it would be fine then my stomach began making "noises" my mom suggested I go home to be near my own toilet my aunt told her to drive me as she was the one who poisoned me, and yes my own mother wanted me to walk home after making me sick

Theunamedcat · 09/11/2021 21:50

Some people just don't understand that others need to be careful with their diet

VeganCheesePlease · 09/11/2021 21:50

I've been veggie forever and now am vegan, and anyone I would cook for obviously knows I'm vegan so they know there's a high chance what I'm cooking is vegan. I will ALWAYS have a chat about allergies and intolerance before serving anyone anything, but surely if you have one you would let the cook know first? Especially if you're allergic to quorn and you're being cooked for by a veggie/vegan. So is it really a big real life issue or is this just a wee stealth vegan bash?

secretbookcase · 09/11/2021 21:53

YANBU be cause lots of people are violently allergic to quorn as you are, so to pass off food that can trigger such a reaction is unfair. Especially as she must be sensitive to people trying to slip meat into her own diet.

mrsmacmc · 09/11/2021 21:56

YANBU I have 2 friends who have severe allergic reactions to Quorn

DBI78 · 09/11/2021 22:02

I don't understand why anyone would lie about what they are feeding someone else. I would be angry if someone deceived me.

PriamFarrl · 09/11/2021 22:04

@RedHot22

YANBU

although, most quorn isn’t vegan anyway

I’m glad someone else has said this.
PriamFarrl · 09/11/2021 22:05

Why is everyone talking about Quorn? It’s not vegan and there are so many other vegan ‘meats’.

Enko · 09/11/2021 22:10

I suffer badly from IBS and I have many trickers I do NOT list them all when I go to visit people who offer to feed me. What I do is I make choices based on the information in front of me.

some of my trickers are
Quorn - not worth the stomach ache
Bread - sometimes worth the stomach ache
Pizza (if good pizza worth it - take away nope not at all)
Tomatoes - depends on how they are cooked if you grilled them I can't eat them without explosive results raw or cooked in any other way I am ok with them
bacon (sometimes worth it)
dairy is a secondary tricker sometimes it sets me off some times it doesn't.

I have other occasional trickers and I have periods where my IBS is bad so I have to be very careful and periods where its not so bad so I can cope with trickers

I do not tell people all of this as I am not allergic I just know it can make me feel shit for a few days after but then Im ok again Sometimes I eat stuff knowing it will make me sick the next day as I enjoy it and I can just cope w a sore stomach for a few days

however when it is done to me like this would be I would not be ok with that I know Quorn trickers me (oddly not all brands of soya protein does but Quorn is one) and I would really mind having a sore stomach and iritable bowel for a period after because someone wanted to show off a point

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