AIBU to ask family to keep vegan takeaway dishes separate?

[TakeawayRow]

Last weekend we got an Indian takeaway with family who were visiting. Everyone chose their food and I ordered it.

Some people decided they wanted to try others food, everyone was ok with that but I asked that people didn’t use the same utensils for the vegan dishes and meat dishes because I’m vegan and didn’t want meat in my food.

I thought this was a normal, fair and easy request but a couple of my family members started saying I was being over the top and asking what I thought would happen if some meat got in my food. I said I didn’t want to eat meat or animal products, even tiny amount, not that I thought anything would happen. They accused me of ruining the evening. I didn’t. I asked them, they caused a fuss, I explained my reasons and then carried on with the night. Everyone else got on with the night but these 2 spent the evening making sarcastic comments towards me and ignoring me at times.

Would you have had an issue with using separate utensils to put some of the vegan food on your plate, would you have seen it as ‘over the top’ or just been courteous and used different utensils with no fuss?

We are seeing this family member again next month. Lucky us. We will likely get a takeaway again and I’m thinking of just saying hands off and no one can try mine. 😬

OP, my kids have allergies and you wouldn’t believe the fuss that people make about the tiniest adjustments just to keep them safe. People are selfish arseholes. You didn’t do anything wrong.

You think not swapping spoons around (which is a strange thing to do with spoons that have already been used and not as commonplace as you seem to think) at a meal someone else is hosting is ‘a cost that it's reasonable to acknowledge’?

Are you quite well?

It’s different in terms of level of importance - but it comes from the same root. People are rude, thoughtless and selfish. Which is the main reason living with allergies is such a fucking ballache. You can’t trust people to care about anyone but themselves - as the OP’s experience shows

Actually I wouldn’t want people using their forks, food going to mouth, then same fork going into another dish. And others doing likewise.
Serving spoons for each dish . Put it on your plate , eat with your individual cutlery.

Whether they agree with you or not it’s basic manners to treat someone’s food in the way they want it to be at zero cost to themselves. I dislike the vegan purity thing, as I think it’s self indulgent rather than ‘animals first’ and makes vegans look fussy and petty (PETA do - or did have the same view). A vegan in our office made a big spoilt deal of binning a cup of tea that had been absent mindedly stirred with the same spoon as the dairy milk drinks - people would have understood if it was an allergy. If you eat manufactured foods that “may contain” animal ingredients you have already pragmatically accepted cross contamination.

That's the dumbest statement I've heard in years (and I speak as a farmer)

We don't eat crows, swallows, sparrows etc, nor insects....

I haven't noticed their absence though.

Would there be a lot fewer cows, sheep, chicken and pigs in the world? Sure. But it's not like we would suddenly slaughter every one. Just slowly breed fewer.

And those that remained would have more natural living conditions.

Whether they'd be happier is anyone's guess but that's the trade-off between being free and wild versus being either a pet or a valuable foodstuff.

OP, next time take your fork, wipe it down your buttcrack and stick it back into one of their meat dishes. Then smile and tell them they’re being precious.

When did she lecture anyone? She simply asked them not to use meaty utensils in the vegan food which is fair and makes sense. Would you use cut up a pepperoni pizza then use the same uncleaned roller on a kosher one for a Jew? Like come on, it’s just basic courtesy.

Surely if guests are wanting to try others food they would use a clean folk/spoon?

For me it’s not even about carnivores or veggies.
I wouldn’t dream of sticking my used cutlery in someone else’s food.

In what way is it spot on? How is what I wrote lacking in social awareness? what is it ignorant of? And what, exactly, do you mean by "thick" in this context?

It is a cost. A cost in thinking and policing your actions to fit in with one persons desire for how things should work. It's obviously not a drastic cost, but it's still a change in behaviour that she's demanding solely for her own image of herself.

Not unreasonable at all!

Being vegan is one of the beliefs that is protected by law.

Would they act so blasé about allergies?!

YABU There is always a weird amount of rage around vegetarian and veganism. The same with food intolerances I find.

My private opinion is that your request is over the top, I absolutely see the point with allergies, but with personal preference it just seems precious.
However, it is just that - a Private opinion - I wouldn’t actually argue or allow it to spoil the evening.

It’s basic table manners to have a utensil in each food container that you use solely to put food from that container on your plate.

I absolutely hate people cross contaminating with utensils but people do it all the time. It’s actually insane that they can’t see the issue.

They really do walk amongst us.

The ‘cost’ you are describing is that of not doing something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place. You shouldn’t double dip. That is the social expectation, basic etiquette, standard practice. It is polite. It is not difficult to grasp, and (at time of writing) 92% of the people responding to this thread understand that. Using the serving spoons provided isn’t a hardship or ‘one persons desire for how things should work’ or ‘a change in behaviour that she's demanding solely for her own image of herself’. It’s perfectly normal behaviour.

The fact that if you would do this if you weren’t explicitly asked not to, indicates that you are lacking in social awareness and ignorant of the above. The fact that you’ve needed this so comprehensively explained to you…let’s just say it’s not indicative of a great intellect.

So, yes, spot on.

No, it’s apparently ‘policing your actions to fit in with one persons desire for how things should work…for her own image of herself’.

Some people are quite unhinged.

No, of course not. I’m in charge of Christmas breakfast. I cook for the vegans separately and have a smaller table for the vegan food.
I don’t like eating meat either but not a vegan, I’ll eat it occasionally.

You think ‘please use the serving spoons I’ve provided and don’t double dip’ is over the top? 😂

It’s basic cooking skills to only use the utensil for tasting once. I would feel ill if people were dipping a spit fork on food, even on a child’s birthday cake, no thanks.

WTF! Setting aside OP's perfectly valid objection not to have forks used to eat meat being shoved into her vegan food, it's really unhygienic to put cutlery that has been in other people's mouths into somone else's food. I'd be pissed off if someone did this to the food on my plate without asking, even if we were both eating meat. It's rude and bad-mannered.

As for your nonsense about the 'cost' of guests having basic manners and your bizarre accusation that OP is only doing this due to her need to maintain a certain image of herself, it's obviously so wide of the mark that I can't believe that you could write it without cringing.

it is, and surely that should be enough.

Having to make the point that you are special because you want to eat "vegan" is ridiculous.

Telling your own family you are vegan is ridiculous? Wow.

Why are you so sensitive about someone making a different choice to you?

@Duckiewasthefirstniceguy From the OP’s description, my imagined script is more like ‘I don’t want that spoon touching my bhajis because you have just used it to serve the prawn fried rice / there’s a bit of Masala sauce left on it’.

I may be wrong and the OPs family were trying to scoop up her dhal with the spoon they’d literally just swallowed chicken curry from, or that they are actively mixing spoonfuls of lamb bhuna into the bombay aloo, which I would agree is disgusting but not only because of the vegan issue!

Pp: Put serving spoons in the dishes. Use the spoon that’s in the dish. No problem.

OP: I did exactly that but people started using their own forks going from one to another instead of the ones I had put with each dish, which is when I asked they didn’t put meat forks in the vegan food.