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. 😬

Where did you order from? I love vegan Indian food.

There is no suggestion anyone was lecturing anyone else.

It's just clearly polite to not contaminate someone's vegan food with your meat food. Not precious. Easy to do and respectful.

Why have you put vegan in inverted commas?

Do you need a lesson in punctuation?

I'm not vegan, but know people who are.
Perfectly reasonable request. They're the ones being dicks and ruining the mood, not you.

Apart from the ludicrous disrespect being shown to vegans, it's absolutely disgusting for people to put their used forks into various dishes and spread the germs between themselves. It's extremely poor manners and very unhygienic. Let's hope none of them has herpes 😉

Eh?
I'm not vegan, I eat meat but it's not that hard to understand - it's not about any additional animals dying, they just don't want meat juice or whatever in their food!

No YANBU. How disrespectful that they would help themselves to your food with their fork that had been in their mouth- regardless of it having had meat on it. Gross. The fact that it had meat on it is even worse considering you are vegan.

They ruined in the evening not you.

I dislike mixing up serving utensils for any reason. One dish, one serving spoon that stays with that dish. I don’t want a bit of your king prawn phall in my butter chicken, thankyouverymuch. As for using the fork you’ve been eating with to delve around in a shared dish, that's revolting and extremely poor table manners.

Yeah, using their own fork's even worse - even taking the meat/vegan bit out of it, why would you add your slobber to it?! 🤢😂
I'm no germaphobe but that's rank and bad table manners.

I'd have rolled my eyes and thought it was all a bit precious, but I wouldn't have said anything.
If it was an allergy, absolutely no problem. But what dials down to a simple preference... Bit daft imo.

Some people are very ignorant. Out of respect, if I go to a vegan household I wouldn't order a meat dish but at the very least people should keep their spoons separate!

I suppose next time you could put a serving spoon in each dish?

Lol but its ok for the takeaway places to do so before the food gets to you

She did. They preferred to dip in with their dirty forks.

The OP did. These manky scunners were shoving their own personal saliva ridden forks into her dishes.

Nice

Your relatives were rude and ignorant.

I am vegetarian and of course I don't want to run the risk of meat getting into my plate/mouth because people are too lazy not to use separate spoons or fork.

I find it shocking that some people here are calling the OP ''precious'' about this.

Regardless of mixing vegan with meat dishes (which i completely agree is not right) it's gross to use a fork that you've been eating with to get food from shared food containers.

She's already said she did - yet they proceeded to ignore them and poke their forks about in the dishes instead

That says more about you than the vegan.
Do you always disrespect people's dietary choices?

I eat meat BTW, but I have the emotional maturity and social awareness to understand why a vegan or vegetarian would not want any meat product introduced into their food.

Some people just love to swagger about the fact that they eat meat and that people who don't are somehow automatically tiresome.
Whatever the food and people's choices, you have a spoon/fork for each dish and you use that to serve yourself. It's not rocket science.

Takeaway owners aren’t guests in your home. Surely you can see the (very clear) difference?

@Thechaseison71 Why do you think this is happening? Do you think they are ignorant about cross contamination? Why do you think that? Do you assume the same about other restaurants/takeaway outlets, or just Indian ones? Have you reported your concerns to the FSA and your local EHO and trading standards?

The OP got her takeaway from a vegan takeaway.

Yes I know, but that poster is lolling that cross contamination between vegetarian and meat based dishes occurs in the restaurant itself - somehow she knows where op buys her takeaways from, or she thinks this is a standard practice across all Indian takeaways - which would breach a number of food and consumer standards.