How far would you go to accommodate a vegan?

[Juicyj1993]

In a few weeks we're hosting a bbq for my Husband's birthday.

We have about a dozen guests coming, one of whom is vegan. As we don't normally buy vegan food I've started looking at what we'd normally buy and what is and isn't vegan. To make sure the vegan has the same variety of choice as everyone else I'm going to have to spend quite a bit on alternatives. As we have the non vegan alternatives we won't be eating the vegan versions, so they'll either go home with the guest or be thrown.

How much would you accommodate a vegan?

Would I be unreasonable to provide vegan burger with vegan cheese, plus bun and nothing else or do I need to go the whole hog and get vegan sausages, vegan condiments and vegan coleslaw?

Ps they are vegan by choice, not for medical reasons

…and rapidly debunked

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346532353_Debunking_a_myth_plant_consciousness

As a vegan, I know it's hard work catering to my requirements. If I were coming to your party, I would appreciate it if you made the effort but wouldn't feel aggrieved if you didn't.

I have been to a few parties where vegan food was provided and rapidly consumed by the non-vegans. This can be very frustrating!

I don't understand why you say that uneaten vegan food would be thrown. At least try it - you might be surprised how tasty it is. Or offer it to others.

That article has not debunked the 2-plant experiment, nor anything else. It is one persons essay view that doesn't actually 'debunk' anything. The 2-plant experiment debunks the lie is that 'essay'.

So does playing music.

So does the smell cut lawn emits.

Hard core actual proof debunks the personal viewpoint that plants are not sentient beings. They ever so clearly are and the proof is there.

https://www.nathab.com/blog/research-shows-plants-are-sentient-will-we-act-accordingly/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25534012-800-the-radical-new-experiments-that-hint-at-plant-consciousness/

https://regenerationinternational.org/2019/07/23/plant-sentience-and-the-impossible-burger/

https://gizmodo.com/is-plant-intelligence-just-a-human-fantasy-1844217825

https://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/ask-us/the-smell-of-fresh-cut-grass-is-an-attack-warning/

This is how smart plants are: "The smell of cut grass in recent years has been identified as the plant’s way of signalling distress, but new research says the aroma also summons beneficial insects to the rescue."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140922145805.htm

" The validity of the CBC is independent of whether plants are sentient. For Calvo, Sahi, & Trewavas (2017), who work in the area they have dubbed "plant neurobiology," however, the issue poses a number of other problems ─ problems with ethical overtones that I have yet to see addressed. If they are right, ethical vegetarians and vegans are going to have to confront some uncomfortable propositions. ..."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319530528_Are_plants_sentient

To say that plants are not sentient, is quite clearly, untrue and thoroughly debunked. Of course they are sentient. And science has proved it without a shadow of a doubt.

I'm a vegan and have been a vegetarian first since late 1980s. We never had choice when eating out back then so have no expectations. Now at a BBQ I would bring my own or be very grateful for anything provided. All I'd ask is not to be put in a position where I have to justify my choice. It's more of a value than a choice but I hate it when people want me to discuss my diet.

@Ifthecapfits I hate it too. It often ends up, as I detailed upthread, being a personal attack. People want to bring it up so that they can be awful about it-just leave me alone, eat your food and let me eat mine.

Why the fuck should I change my lifestyle. Just because someone else wants me to. We live in a free world.

I wouldn’t invite a vegan. They talk about nothing else.

You are completely right.

That's just silly, prejudiced nonsense. I worked with someone for 5 years before finding out they were vegan.

You've had loads of replies already.
the best bet is to cook stuff on a disposable bbq or in the oven so meat fat doesn't get attached.
vegan burgers and sausages,a few vegetable kebabs /baked potatoes and that will do as they can eat fresh salads too.they will appreciate all your effort no doubt.💐💐

The amount of people talking about disposable bbqs. The point is to minimise waste. Not add to the landfill.

I really don't understand the entitlement of people these days. If it's a week long catered holiday or boarding school, yes, food intolerances need to be discussed but for a single afternoon the guest should just eat before or after. I've had severe inflammatory bowel disease since age 6 which means I can pretty much only eat plain meat/fish/chicken, dry vegetables, fruit and white rice. I have never once brought my own food to an event or asked for an accommodation by a host. I have been to multiple dinner parties and restaurant meals. I just push my food around on my plate and pretend to eat. Snack on a few crudites. Be a sensible polite adult!

The amount of people talking about disposable bbqs. The point is to minimise waste. Not add to the landfill

Apart from the ash, which is pretty inert, they are easily recyclable aluminium and steel so shouldn’t go landfill.

I would cook whatever I was cooking for all the other guests and serve the vegan without meat. I 'might' buy vegan burgers . That would be it. I would expect the vegan guest to bring their own milk alternative and whatever else they wanted to eat themselves.

@RunningUpThatMill
plants are not sentient. Whilst they are living, they do not have a brain, CNS or nociceptors and therefore can not feel pain. Unlike all the mammals that are killed each year for human consumption.

Letittow
Plants (of which I'm sure non vegans eat too) aren't sentient beings so no not really the same is it, nice reach though. A ridiculous and boring one but still.

I never said that they were sentient, at least not in the way that we would understand it - of course they don't have a brain, although they can of course react to external stimuli. We can assume that they don't feel pain as we would recognise it, but we still have no way of knowing for an absolute fact whether they feel any distress when they are killed. Not that they are traditionally eaten as food for humans, but something like the (clearly non-vegan itself!) venus flytrap appears to have quite a sophisticated method of reacting to external stimuli and prioritising its own survival.

All I said was that they are living organisms that people deliberately kill in order that they can survive. As I said, there is a very small minority of people whose ethical stance means that they would killing them as completely unacceptable, but most vegans obviously are not this strict.

Even if you don't object to killing any living things without a brain for food, that still doesn't answer the question of how you ensure that no animals have died in the production of your food - chiefly those killed by pesticides and combined harvesters. How many vegans are strict about only buying food - with the significantly increased costs, of course - from producers that use no pesticides and carefully reap the harvest by hand?

On one level, it could be argued that, if you don't care about the animals that are inevitably killed in the normal processes of producing plant-based food, you might as well ethically eat rennet, on the grounds that no animals are killed only to provide it and were going to die to provide meat anyway.

To reiterate, this is not meant as a 'gotcha' for vegans, who are mainly trying to do the very best that they can; it's simply my response to the minority of sanctimonious ones who will piously lecture others, sneering and calling them names for their personal ethical choices, claiming that they personally strictly do not eat anything that is the product of (non-plant) death, when this appears not to be the case at all.

@FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper

Even if you don't object to killing any living things without a brain for food, that still doesn't answer the question of how you ensure that no animals have died in the production of your food - chiefly those killed by pesticides and combined harvesters. How many vegans are strict about only buying food - with the significantly increased costs, of course - from producers that use no pesticides and carefully reap the harvest by hand?

I know that animals will unfortunately die in the process of harvesting crops that I eat. Unfortunately, I have to eat something.

When there is mass production of animals for food, profit becomes priority and welfare standards begin to slip. If you think about the amount of land animals that are killed each year for food, and then think about the food that they eat, more animals are going to be killed in order to feed what you are eating.

Even if I did eat meat, I would still eat plants, so, I'd be responsible for not only the killing of animals whilst crops are harvested, but also the animals that are slaughtered so that I could eat meat.

If I presented you with a tomato plant and a cow, and gave you the option of pulling a tomato from the stem, or stunning a cow in the head and then processing it for food, which would you choose? I know which I would choose, and therefore I no longer expect anyone else to do something that I could never do myself.

I made a decision, not just based on the fact that I always felt guilt when eating meat, but also on the science. I know that many animals that we consume have brains, CNS and nociceptors, therefore they are able to feel pain just like we do - they may not be able to express it like we do, but they certainly feel pain. They are able to establish relationships and communities, just like we do. They feel and they suffer, just like we do.

I haven't eaten an animal, or anything produced by an animal in over 6 years. I'm not declining in health and so know I don't need to eat animals or their produce.

Allergies are different, you have no control. Religious is the same category as vegan it's a personal choice.
Same policy for me though. If people have severe allergies I'm not going to faff about avoiding cross contamination etc they'd better bring their own food

@Emmamoo89 that's an age-old cliché and very untrue. Nobody knows I am vegan unless I have to tell them (e.g. they invite me to dinner) or it comes up in conversation initiated by somebody else-for example if someone says to me 'I've got a vegan coming for dinner and I don't know what to cook', or 'I want to make more vegan dinners' -then I'll tell them-or on threads such as this. I don't know of any other vegans who 'talk about nothing else' either. As I've said in several comments on this thread and others, generally they want the attention off them to avoid all the unsavoury comments toward them-and personal attacks. We get that all the time-for some reason seen as acceptable. If I tried to remember all the awful comments I've had once people ascertain that I am vegan I don't think MN would have enough bandwidth for me to list them. If you know a vegan who 'talks about nothing else' I guarantee they're in the minority and would probably be that sort of person no matter what they were doing/what philosophical belief they follow.

I'd never eat before or after a BBQ, I'd take my own unless the host discussed it with me and insisted that they were happy to get me something. I usually take something to a BBQ anyway even if they do do that-likely an interesting salad or some cake for pudding, but I like cooking.

Bingo! Another thread where someone is labelled 'entitled' for expecting something very basic - in this case, food! 😄😄😄

@RunningUpThatMill

Thanks for responding - what you say makes a lot of sense and I completely respect that.

@Emmamoo89

you can’t. You can’t live animals and eat meat. Soz.

That is one of the most ignorant comments I've ever heard and signifies the smug sanctimony of some vegans. Of course you can love animals and abide by a normal meat-eating healthy diet. Your absolutist position is absurd. And part of the reason why vegans have the bad reputation they have.

I don't believe it either, sorry. How can you claim to love animals (as in love ALL animals) yet contribute to them being farmed for you to eat, having quite often suffered terror, awful conditions, had their young snatched from them, and then suffered a terrifying ordeal ending in a brutal death-be honest and say you love SOME animals and don't have emotion toward some others. Someone put it very well upthread when they compared it to how Jimmy Saville loved children-although as far as I know, he didn't contribute to the deaths of any of them.