AIBU to expect vegan guests to avoid preaching at shared meals?

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I’m a flexitarian. Meaning I have a mostly plant focused diet. But if invited to, say, a work event or a wedding or to dinner at my oldest friend’s parents house, I’ll eat a lot of salad, potatoes, and bread. Maybe even a bit of their chicken or beef roast to not cause offense or awkwardness. So, that’s my choice. I have long term dear friends who are vegans. I respect that. But I want them to contribute an appropriate dish to share with everyone if it’s that’s so important to them. That said, I think they should just eat and shut up. Do what works for them and leave other people alone. Judging and preaching at
your host and other people is bad manners. No matter how passionate you are, there’s no need for that. You don’t persuade people by bullying them. Am I wrong?

Sigh. (And I am partially deaf)

But words such as "caravan" have actual meanings. No one would claim their bicycle is a caravan. "Flexitarian" is meaningless and therefore pointless. There's no cut-off point. Do you stop being flexitarian if you eat meat twice in the same month, for example?

It's a vague term. Most of our terms are vague. 'Tall' is vague (where's the cut-off point?) but that doesn't make it meaningless. It's not a silly or pointless word - it's useful for describing a person. 'Flexitarian' seems similar to me.

A closer analogy might be 'night owl' - like someone might say 'I'm a night-owl', and this expression has a vague boundary (how late do you need to stay up, how often etc to be a night-owl). But it's obviously a useful term, and doesn't make people cross! There's a reason why people are cross at the word 'flexitarian' and I'm pretty sure it's not because terms being vague generally makes people cross. It's something else, and I'm interested in finding out what.

Because as various people (including me) have said...

A "flexitarian" is soneone who considers themselves to be vegan/veggie but will eat meat. Which is absolutely nonsense. It them affects how people see vegans/veggies and undermines their dietary choices.

If you eat meat and veg then you are omnivorous. It doesnt matter how often. You don't need another word to make you feel special or different from all the other people who eat meat and veg.

"Night owl" is a vague concept. It doesn't specify that you have to go to bed after a certain time. Whereas being vegan/veggie has actually meaning and definition. So they are not comparative.

Oh joy....the weekly vegan hate thread zzzzzzzzzzz

And "tall", compared to what and who says that? I'm son is tall compared to a 6 year old but he is short compared to a sky scraper. So again, it's comparative and meaningless without context. Vegan/veggie doesn't need context. It is what it is in any situation.

Totally agree, and the fact that the OP is unwilling to cook a vegan meal for her vegan friends makes the flexitarian thing seem especially meaningless. Someone who's veggie/vegan most of the time but can't/won't cook a vegan meal when hosting? It doesn't make sense.

Same. "You don't know what you're missing" to me when I was with DH and his friends and they were all eating beef in the pub. Er, yes I do! Most of us in those days didn't grow up vegetarian. I ate beef up until I was 21 and never liked it! Idiots.

Tbf it's turned into a "flexitarian hate thread". 🤣

I know FFS change the record

But the bulk of your argument is misinformed, and the rest of it stupid.

About 75% of soy is used for animal feed.

Much of the rest is in biofuels, as well as cooking oils, salad dressings, chocolate, baked goods and other foodstuffs.

Only about 7% is used for what you might call "vegan" foods, like tofu, tempeh, edamame and miso - but the vast majority of people who regularly eat those foods aren't vegan.

So you're magnitudes off with your numbers.

If everyone in the world (A) went vegan tomorrow, and (B) replaced every single meat item in their diet with tofu, that would result in about a 60-70% drop in soybean agriculture. It takes 50 to 100 times as much land to produce a kilocalorie of beef or lamb versus plant-based alternatives.

I doubt any vegans actually substitute tofu for mear on a 1:1 basis but, even if they did, they would be reducing their "soybean footrpint" by somewhere in the region of 75-95% (depending on the types of meat they previously ate).

If your "point" is that vegans still have some residual "soybean footrpint", that's incredibly specious.

If someone told you that, through finding alternative products/services, they'd managed to reduce their monthly outgoings by ~80%, "lol, you still spend some money so you shouldn't have bothered" would be a ridiculous position - and its basically yours, here.

Incidentally, I'm not vegan, but I find some of the arguments advanced against veganism to be embarrassingly empty-headed, and more rooted in insecurity in personal choice to eat meat than anything else.

I’ve been pondering the term Flexitarian and surely it just means you eat anything (meat fish poultry etc) so it’s just regular eating really, maybe I am missing something ?

No, you're not missing anything. The term means nothing or to be fair, very little. A 'flexitarian' is someone who sometimes eats meat, sometimes will opt for a vegan or vegetarian option. So, someone who eats whatever they want meat or otherwise but probably eats less meat than some people and more than other people. Basically the same as most folk in the Western world.

Pointless.