To be annoyed that vegan options have replaced vegetarian?

[Sacredhandbag]

It's only a silly gripe in the grand scheme of things but it's bloody annoying.

I've been a vegetarian my whole life but since veganism has become more popular and more and more people are becoming part of the movement (and good on them!) it's like restaurants, cafes and hotels have skipped adding vegetarian options and thought "well vegan options covers both so we'll just add a few of those"

No! I am not vegan. I am vegetarian. I still want my eggs, my cream, my cheese, my butter. I want a stilton and broccoli bake, not a grilled bit of cauliflower!

Afternoon tea (I'm a fan and have one as often as I can) is the worst for it. There's an ordinary menu and then there's a vegan menu and that's it. You order one or the other. I don't want chicken or fish sandwiches but I sure as hell want my scones with proper clotted cream! So I have to be specific about the sandwiches and say I want some from one menu and some from the other. Bloody annoying.

Any other veggies feel the same?

It works both ways, non vegans are also expected to put up with the shit from some vegans trying to force them into their way of eating. I will never be vegan, I can't eat a lot of the food, but explaining reasonably might might convince a few more people.

If you go to a independent/small chain of restaurants and serve vegan burgers with vegan cheese, they are usually more accommodating swapping vegan cheese with proper cheese. My friend is veggie but finds vegan cheese rubbery. They asked could she have proper cheese - yes.

Same goes for independent cafes that do breakfasts. Same friend asked for a fried or poached egg instead of avocado, she hates them. OK with that.

There is an Italian restaurant near me that does vegetarian dishes. Some can be veganifed by asking them to use vegan cheese instead.

They also do GF pizza bases and pasta too.

A non vegan was goady with the my eggs, my cheese comments and a vegan gave them a goady answer back. 🤷‍♀️ But of course it’s the vegan that has to always be reasonable and not rise to it. The slightest reaction from a vegan and it’s ‘preachy vegan forcing their views blah blah blah’ but a non vegan says a dick comment and that’s just fine. 🙄

Let’s be honest, it’s a minority of the vegan commenters here that have made this a vegan bashing thread.

It’s a thread about being fed up about restaurants. Fed up of not having vegetarian options anymore because it’s mostly vegan instead.

That’s not bashing vegans, criticising vegans nor running them down. It’s moaning about an industry trend towards dairy- and egg-free dishes, many with UPF fake meat offerings, and the surprising number of kitchens who won’t put real cheese on the meat free pizza or burgers.

Then we had a couple of evangelical vegans having a pop at vegetarians about cruelty in the dairy and egg industries. And it got a bit argumentative as a result.

Vegans having a go at vegetarians on a thread by a vegetarian about frustrations of being a vegetarian are about as welcome as “how about a nice juicy steak” comments on a thread about veganism.

I don’t know a single vegetarian who hasn’t - even in passing - thought about consequences of dairy. Yes, vegans, we do know cruelty is part of it. Yes, that cruelty can be heightened or lessened depending on farming practices. And yes, I accept that as part of my dietary choices.

Raising it as some sort of gotcha is adolescent and doesn’t change minds. If anything, the reverse.

To be fair, I did say that that's just a turn of phrase and the sort of thing I hear people say all the time. "I couldn't low carb, I like my bread!' Or 'I'd do dry January if I didn't love my glass of wine of an evening' or to do with non-food too, 'I like my Tuesday yoga class' or 'I'd come out with you but I don't want to miss my tv programme' etc. I wouldn't jump on anyone for saying anything like that. It's just a way some people phrase things.

^ see? Goady as all hell.

The OP says in her very first post that she wants her butter, her cheese, her eggs in the meals she orders when eating out. There is nothing wrong with that.

DH wants his lamb joint when eating out (because he very kindly doesn’t eat in in the home) and I don’t tell him that it’s actually the poor little baa-lamb’s leg, not ‘his’. Because that would be stupid. He’s well aware of where it comes from. As are vegetarians about eggs and milk.

@LookSerious - they are MY butter and MY cheese when I’VE paid for them.

(the eggs may belong to my hens but that’s the rent they pay me for their des-res accommodation, food and endless treats, the spoilt madams)

There is nothing wrong with calling it ‘my butter, my cheese’ etc in your opinion. To many vegans there is everything wrong with it and I’m not convinced the OP didn’t realise that. For vegans that feel very strongly about what animals go through for you to get those foods, they’ll answer you and you may not like the answer, just like they didn’t like OPs wording. Just because we can overpower animals and force them to do what we want them to doesn’t make it ok in the eyes of many of us.

I do agree with this. I've had a good handful of friends go vegan over the years. One I'd not seen for years when she came into a club I worked at and thanked me personally for being an inspiration. Another would msg me for advice. Far more have drastically cut down with my help. I think some of it at least is because I don't preach or try to make people feel bad about things. Another is that I'm 'normal' and don't conform to the lentil-weaving mother earth stereotype so to people close to me,I made veganism seem more accessible. I'm a good cook who shared recipes with them too. I realise 'catch more flies with honey' isn't a very vegan-friendly phrase! But it is true for what is helpful here.

If you go to someone and grab their coat and take it off them, they'll righly protest and become annoyed. But if you ask 'Can I please put your coat on for a minute, I'm very cold' most people will say 'yes of course you can'.

Being preachy and judgmental doesn't warm people to anyone-and nobody likes to feel judged..

Having said this, I've never known a 'preachy' vegan, and I've spent my some 23 years of being one being regularly told how wrong I am, being subject to stupid arguments 'but what would we do with all the cowwwwwwssszzz'(even from very intelligent people sometimes!) Given faux concern (your diet is appalling!) For example from my father who eats at most, 2 meals per year with me so couldn't possibly know how I eat...told that they'll eat two steaks for every meat I don't eat, etc etc.

People tend to really not like vegans. I tend to not ever say I am unless it is directly related to the conversation, or I truly have to (e.g if offered an invitation to a dinner party or something). And this tends to be when I get responses like I outline above.

I wish my local Italian did that. I appreciate it wouldn't be 'real' Italian food but I'd like to support independent restaurants more. It is unfortunate that chains are best for vegans and even vegetarians a lot of the time.

I agree, but when you have an OP being goady by saying, ‘I still want my butter, my eggs, my cream etc, instead of just ‘I want butter, eggs and cream, then I know there is no way that person isn’t being deliberately inflammatory. I imagine that’s how the vegan who responded felt and why they said what they did. Personally I wouldn’t bother as people like OP are after a reaction and will never see that it’s quite entitled to call another animals products yours just because you’re bigger and can overpower those animals.

As I've said before it would be very difficult for me to be vegan because there are so many things I couldn't eat. I've been told that I would get over that in the past but I don't fancy being ill while I try! I have no issue with what anyone eats and certainly don't dislike vegans (although I don't think I'd get on with some people on this thread!) and certainly wouldn't tell you that you're wrong.

Having said this, I've never known a 'preachy' vegan, and I've spent my some 23 years of being one being regularly told how wrong I am, being subject to stupid arguments 'but what would we do with all the cowwwwwwssszzz'(even from very intelligent people sometimes!) Given faux concern (your diet is appalling!) For example from my father who eats at most, 2 meals per year with me so couldn't possibly know how I eat...told that they'll eat two steaks for every meat I don't eat, etc etc.

Same. I commented on a vegan thread asking for a recipe and had someone come on to say they were going to eat 2 steaks instead of one to make up for it. I can’t fathom the mentality.

I can't either and I say that as a meat eater.

Why on earth would you come on a thread about vegetarianism if your only goal is to shout at vegetarians for not being vegan?

I wouldn’t dream of going on a thread about the rising cost of meat to shout at omnivores that they should just go vegetarian because meat is murder.

I assume they are not actually morons. They know where it comes from and that’s not something that matters enough to them to stop eating it.

No one, on a thread about a difficulty dining out as a vegetarian, is being “goady” to say “my butter and my cheese” because the point of the thread is their diet which includes both of those things.

Love me a militant vegan 😂.

You do you flower. We have some of the highest standards for animal welfare anywhere. It would wreck so many livelihoods and lives if everyone went vegan. So just stay quiet up there on your moral high ground.

I haven’t done that.

However, the post will attract vegans as well due to the subject/title and when someone is deliberately goady, some people will rise to that. I wouldn’t and didn’t, but if you don’t see how OPs wording was goady, you’re very naive. Also, threads go off on various tangents all the time, that’s the nature of discussion forums.

@AnnWalkersLeftSlipper - you sound much like my vegan friends. Sensible, non-preachy and getting on with your life without telling other people how to live. I don’t tell omnivores how to eat either. I was a strict vegetarian for 20 years and other people’s dietary and ethical choices are not my business.

However, I do think LookSerious and rainplops have been very preachy and judgemental. They remind me of the newly vegan teenagers I’ve known who are in their “none so pure as the converted” phase.

What have I said that is preachy? I believe OP deliberately chose goady wording but I didn’t say anything directly about it and only picked up on it as others were talking about it. I’ve been vegan for many years. My partner isn’t vegan so I’m not sure how I’d manage that if I was a preachy vegan. I haven’t told anyone what they should or shouldn’t eat, nor would I.

You were goady as fuck to me from my first post. And no, I’m not naïve about the OP. Like her, I also want my sauces made with butter and cheese and my cakes made with egg. Because they are delicious and I like to eat food that makes me happy.

Never once is “gosh, I wonder how a vegan I don’t know and am not addressing would feel about how I describe my cheese purchases” a consideration in my phrasing. I don’t think it was in OP’s mind either.

She was quite reasonably having a moan about the poor options for vegetarians now that restaurants have conflated veggies with vegans on their menu options.

And 90% of respondents agree with her.

I admire ethical vegans for their strong moral stance. I don’t share it, but I admire and respect it. I think lots of vegan food is delicious, especially from those cultures with a tradition of it rather than trying to retrofit it.

But I’ve no time for emotionally blackmailing or hectoring people having a dig at perfectly reasonable posters talking about an issue that doesn’t affect vegans anyway.

Because I told you to check menus or something before you eat. That’s just common sense if you not eating certain foods is important. Once of my children has an intolerance to a certain food, it’s on me or her to check that there is something suitable for her to eat. That’s nothing to do with being vegan.

Because I checked the menu online before booking as I mentioned, and I’d been there before and all had been fine, and there was nothing in the menu description that intimated the change in recipe.

But you started with “how is that even a problem for a normal person” from the beginning and doubled down with every subsequent post by vegetarians.

I’m not “trying to avoid” particular ingredients, although I don’t like coconut oil or milk in classic French dishes. I am wanting ‘normal’ ingredients for the dish unless specified.

If hummus was made with green peas with mint sauce and not chickpeas and tahini, I would expect a menu to mention it. If a classic sauce based on butter is made with something else, it similarly should be mentioned.

Oh could not agree more. 30+year veggie but in no way vegan. I need the cheese! I find this everywhere now. So annoying

It should be, but it’s often not, so it has to be you that checks if it’s important to you. That’s all.