Non vegetarian cheese present for a vegetarian

[Neolara]

I've been veggie for over 30 years, married for nearly 20. My in laws are very nice. Recently, my in laws have taken to sending my a selection of cheese from posh cheese shops for my birthday and Xmas. The cheese is not cheap. Each box probably costs about £30 -£40 for 4 cheeses. However, usually most of the cheeses are not vegetarian so I haven't eaten them. This Xmas, my DH asked my in laws to make sure the cheese was vegetarian. A box of cheese has just arrived. It looks fantastic but again, only one of the four is veggie. I will only eat this one cheese. My DH will probably eat all the rest of the cheese.

So I haven't said anything to the in laws other than thank you very much because it seems incredibly rude to do anything else. But on the other hand, they think they are giving me a brilliant present but it's really not. I feel like they are wasting their money as I won't eat the vast majority of it. And from looking at the shops website, they could easily have bought veggie cheese. So not saying anything seems stupid.

So, YANBU - Of course you shouldn't say anything other than thank you very much. It's the thought that counts.
YABU -Of course you should tell your lovely in laws that if they buy you cheese it needs to be veggie cheese so they'll just keep wasting their money.

And yes, I totally appreciate this is a first world problem.

Amazing. 450 posts in and people are still not reading the OP and finding a million excuses why its just soooooo hard for the poor PiLs to do what they were explicitly asked to do and check the bloody cheese.

How many posts did "cancel the cheque" run to?

I'll happily join the 'idiots' who didn't know about rennet.
Just had a quick check in my fridge and the grated cheese bags are all vegetarian but the blocks of cheddar aren't.
I had no idea, obviously I've seen the vegetarian leaf or the green V but never paid it much attention since I'm not vegetarian. That doesn't make me an idiot though. I have no vegetarians to cook for so haven't needed to look, and no vegetarian I have known has ever explained about the rennet. Or maybe they did say about not eating some cheese but it didn't click in my brain.
Vegan stuff though.......I know more about that due to working with a vegan who explained it all to me, so I knew about the wine, beer, Pringles, Worcester sauce etc.
Or maybe I had preconceived ideas about vegetarians just not eating meat and veganism was something I really didn't know about and was keen to learn.

We stayed in a hotel once in the middle of nowhere for a wedding. Their "vegetarian" options on the menu all included fish. It was bizarre. To be fair this was the 90s and maybe vegetarianism wasn't as common then but still it was weird.

I have no vegetarians to cook for so haven't needed to look,

I think this is key. I have friends who have been long term vegetarians, and DD is also veggie, so I am used to checking labels on food.

**Just be honest and say "vegetarian but sometimes fall off the wagon" or "preferably vegetarian but not strict"

@C8H10N4O2 I know what you mean here but for some people if you say “preferably vegetarian but not strict” you then get served a salad with bits of chicken in it, or a quiche with ham. I think some hardcore meat eaters think the meat is okay as long as it’s not the main component of the meal!

@C8H10N4O2

I don’t think gatekeeping the term ‘vegetarian’ is particularly helpful. You may think of it as an either/or but for a lot of people there is a spectrum

Its not gatekeeping, its what the word means. If someone eats fish they are pescatarian not vegetarian.

Fudging the definition of the terms makes life much more difficult for those who do have specific diets (for whatever reason).

Just be honest and say "vegetarian but sometimes fall off the wagon" or "preferably vegetarian but not strict"

I agree. It’s makes things confusing for others. Hence why so many of us have had to argue that fish isn’t vegetarian. If you chose to eat the odd sweet with gelatine in it (which jelly beans don’t have btw) then that’s up to you. The vegetarian society won’t knock on the door and ask for you to hand in your badge.

The problem comes when people announce they are vegetarian at a restaurant or family meal but then also say they eat fish. Then you end up with muddied waters.

The word pescatarian didn't exist for the first 6 years that I called myself vegetarian.

Hello, as a mum to a veggie (and low meat eater myself) I hear your pain. I wonder whether it would be easier just to completely reframe this and get your husband to suggest something else that you'd appreciate for birthday that's not too tricky (he could use excuse that you're trying to eat less cheese anyway!). Whatever food, drink or other item you might choose. Or just vouchers and a small gift to open like chocolates or another surprise. For my other daughter we've just signed up for spice/recipe box for example

I don’t think gatekeeping the term ‘vegetarian’ is particularly helpful. You may think of it as an either/or but for a lot of people there is a spectrum.

Would you call somebody who refused to consider eating chicken, pork, beef or fish but happily tucked into lamb a vegetarian?

There's no point having a very clearly-defined word if people just arbitrarily change the meaning when using it - like the PP's comment about admiring the beautiful blue grass.

Ethically-speaking, you can arguably kill farm animals with relatively little pain and distress, but this is nigh on impossible with fish. Nobody ever sees a fish as anything but an animal - unless they're considering eating it and trying to justify it. You don't need to justify it: I don't, I'm an omnivore - but don't claim a term and then try to twist it out of all recognition to what you want it to mean.

@Margay out of interest what reason could there be outside of ethics and morals for eating one pack of cheese but not the three others? She's hardly incapable of eating vegetarian cheese but not non-vegetarian cheese for health reasons.

@Mybalconyiscracking

Almost all rennet is man made these days. I assume someone has already said this?

They haven't said it, because it isn't true. Most continental cheeses are made using animal-derived rennet.

You may think of it as an either/or but for a lot of people there is a spectrum

Not everything is a fucking spectrum.
Vegetarianism has a clear definition that isn’t going to change.

@anditgoesonandon

... out of interest what reason could there be outside of ethics and morals for eating one pack of cheese but not the three others? She's hardly incapable of eating vegetarian cheese but not non-vegetarian cheese for health reasons.

I don't want to eat animals. Not for ethical or moral reasons but because I don't want to.

@KirstenBlest right and what is this lack of want driven by?

I assume you are not in the same position as OP, that you would eat the non-vegetarian cheese, because it only has a small amount of animal product and you have no ethical or moral beliefs about it.

@Mybalconyiscracking

Almost all rennet is man made these days. I assume someone has already said this?

I was about to post the same. Modern rennet is cultivated from bacteria using GM technology so doesn't come from an animal source. Most of it is now made by Pfizer!

I was about to post the same. Modern rennet is cultivated from bacteria using GM technology so doesn't come from an animal source. Most of it is now made by Pfizer!

But it really isn’t.

For example, I just looked at all the Brie and Camembert cheeses listed on Ocado. There were 14 cheeses, 7 of them contain animal rennet.

Regular cheddar type cheese, yes. Anything more interesting, best to check.

@PriamFarrl

I was about to post the same. Modern rennet is cultivated from bacteria using GM technology so doesn't come from an animal source. Most of it is now made by Pfizer!

But it really isn’t.

For example, I just looked at all the Brie and Camembert cheeses listed on Ocado. There were 14 cheeses, 7 of them contain animal rennet.

Regular cheddar type cheese, yes. Anything more interesting, best to check.

Most of the "posher" cheeses, are made using the traditional recipes. eg the stinky Belgian cheese Limburger - so use "traditional" i.e. animal, rennet. Mass produced cheeses use artificial rennet as a matter of course - it's probably cheaper, but the nicer artisan cheeses are less likely to.

I've been a vegetarian for 38 years. For at least the first 30 years or so the word pescatarian didn't exist (or at least wasn't commonly understood) and I was a vegetarian-who-ate-fish.

Anything else didn't work. I tried 'I only eat white meat' but would end up getting served chicken, and once a horrific reconstituted pork cutlet which tbf was quite 'white' in colour (boak).

Now I'm a vegetarian and I don't eat fish, but meat eating friends still like to correct me and tell me 'oh no you're pescatarian' (because I used to eat fish).

A lifetime of people making their own minds up about my diet rather then listening to me.

@LadyLaSnack, but you brought it on yourself, and for vegetarians.

You weren't a vegetarian.Vegetarians don't eat fish

"I tried 'I only eat white meat' but would end up getting served chicken"

What were you expecting?

Pork? I remember when I was a kid we were in France and poor dad tried very hard to explain to a waiter that I was veggie (I told dad that I had looked up the phrase but he was dubious). So he told the poor man what i didn’t eat. He looked confused then ‘aha!’ and wandered off.

He presented me with a plate of various sausages. I was very shy and mumbled ‘je suis végétarien’ - he just looked at me with destain and said (perfect English) ‘we don’t get many of them around here’. I ended up with spaghetti - and half a chicken (so bread and salad for me).

*@LadyLaSnack, but you brought it on yourself, and for vegetarians.

You weren't a vegetarian.Vegetarians don't eat fish*

Christ - here we go again. I was a child. What else was I supposed to say.

What were you expecting?

I mean it started when I was age 4 - I'm not sure I was 'expecting' anything.

Sometimes it’s easier to say that you are a veggie when you don’t eat meat (but do have fish and poultry). Of course it does get confusing when you ‘have the fish please’ and people assume that veggies will eat fish / chicken.

Ha ha @KittenKong

Yes - I had a similar experience at a wedding in France last summer. Luckily there was plenty of booze so bread was fine! :D