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?

Christmas was a long time ago. Maybe unclench?

What exactly did they say ? And what do you mean they weren't even at the meal???

How do you know if someone is vegan? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Never gets old, does it?🙄

OP needed to share a complete run-down of her eating habits to convey the superiority of her position.

Ironic that.

The OP is not going to say; too many posters have asked them to do it.

I'm a lot like you in that I don't eat much meat and, as my previous post illustrates, I'm quite happy eating vegetarian/vegan food, although do draw the line at vegan cheese.

I don't particularly like beef and would never eat steak at a restaurant because to me, it's a total waste of money. It's usually the most expensive thing on the menu and can be cooked in 5 minutes by anyone so why pay restaurant prices for something that you can make at home with no effort or skill?

I often choose food without meat in a restaurant and get the comments and confusion from people who think that must mean I'm vegetarian. Funniest time was when I was working away and had spinach and ricotta cannelloni for dinner, something I really enjoy and often choose. No comment was made until I sat down the next morning in front of the same people with bacon and black pudding from the breakfast buffet.

It's all just food, humans are omnivores, unless you have actual dietary requirements or allergies what more needs to be said?

No, and inarticulate, thin-skinned and bad-tempered are a poor combination. I’m surprised one of her visiting vegans didn’t whack her with a nut loaf.

I find it really odd that you eat a plant-based diet most of the time (in your original post) but then expect vegans to bring their own food when hosting. Why not just cook the plant-based meals that you apparently enjoy and cook for yourself most of the time when you have people round for dinner?

You're a terrible host if you expect people to bring something.

The most bizarre thing is that you indicate you're a people pleaser and eat food you don't want to so as not to be difficult but you're resentful of someone else having boundaries and eating around other food.

Which seems like baloney to me because if you're mostly plant based yourself and you est that way out of choice, how much non-vegan food are you making for their visit?

Its completely meaningless and tells a host nothing about what the person actually eats. What are the “dietary principles” of someone who eats the same food as everyone else around them? Plenty of people eat a lot of meat free or vegetarian dishes in their diet - they are still bog standard omnivores who want to be speshul IME and I’ve had far more preaching from self described “flexitarians” than any veggie or vegan.

Eat veggie/vegan or don’t - I really don’t care. But this nonsense of making up meaningless terms just makes life more difficult those who are actually vegetarian or vegan.

OTOH if I’m hosting someone I don’t expect them to bring their own dinner either just because they don’t eat the same as me. If the OP is so keen to be “plant based” by which I assume they mean vegan, then I would expect them to cook a vegan dinner, not meat with the vegans providing their own.

Sounds like you’re vegetarian, if you only ate a bit if chicken ‘to not cause offence or awkwardness’. In that case, be up front about your preferences.

Arf.

Goodness it’s been at least 2 days since there was a vegan bashing thread.

Maybe worry more about how obsessively annoyed you are by vegans to be starting a thread about hypothetical preaching and work on your boundaries so that you are not eating meat for the sake of not offending people.

What you see as preaching is much more likely to be people having spines and sticking to their principles in a way you are unable to. It’s really not that hard - ‘no thank you, I don’t eat meat’.

No, vegetarians don’t ever eat meat, fish or poultry.

Such a stereotypical response from uneducated, bigoted omnivores.

This doesn't happen most of the time.

Why are you so rude about vegans? I'm an omnivore, but I'm not an arsehole about it to people who choose not to eat animals or animal byproducts.

YANBU. Reminds me of the old joke...... "How do you know someone's a vegan?" "They tell you!".

🤦‍♀️

How do you know someone eats meat?

They’ll be on every vegan and vegetarian thread having a meltdown about it.

The thin skin and inferiority complex don’t belong to the plant eaters.

Yet more lazy stereotyping.

This just isn't true of any vegans and vegetarians I know.

Why the need to vegan bash? Hmm?

I'm an omnivore BTW, just not an arsehole.

This! It doesn’t matter if you eat mostly something. If you eat meat, dairy, plants, fish.. then you eat everything.

How do you know someone is a lazy stereotyping vegan basher?

They will come on to mumsnet and tell you, and they think they are being so original and witty about it.

They are just so boring and predictable.

I'm not vegan or vegetarian. I'm not a twat.

I had one militant vegetarian as teenager. She would absolutely preach to you during meals. The one time I lost it with her and it was last time I eat in her company was when bunch of us went for pizza and few of us had meat ones and she went off telling us how bad it is and how we shouldn't eat it and how we should care etc. Totally ruined mood.
We were teenagers though and she was very passionate.
Met handful of people like that as adult. I got more "you shouldn't eat that much carb" at meals at one point when it was in 😂

@Miranda65 how do you know someone’s a super clever, hilarious meat eater?

Don’t worry they’ll tell you their super original vegan joke, after it’s already been posted 100 times.

Eating meat doesn’t do much for intelligence or originality, does it.

That was a long 45 minutes!