AIBU to expect my parents to manage one vegan barbecue meal?

[veganbbqdrama]

Surely most people can survive if they have just one vegan meal ???!!!

My parents have decided they don’t think they can attend a bbq at my house due to the fact we are a vegan family and they are worried about ‘nutrition gaps’ !!!

Neither have any health conditions.

It’s one meal and we are offering a wide variety of things plus desserts. I said to then if they don’t fancy it that’s fine but they said it’s because they are worried about the food, and asked could they bring their own (no! ) or would I get them a few bits they can eat (non vegan) to which I said I can’t have it in the house.

Surely they could just come for a drink and eat later at home ? They are making such a fuss ?? It’s not like we are pushing veganism or the ethics behind our choice we weren’t planning on talking about it just having a nice family get together !

Certainly no huffing and puffing going on here, just pointing out peoples choices matter, just like you mention you would choice to take a sandwich to fasting households, that would likely go down as well as the non vegans wanting meat in a vegan household 😄

But it's a choice based on moral values. Would you insist a z Jewish person is just being moody for choosing to not let you bring your own bacon and cook it or a Muslim for not letting you chuck some beef in the pan to go alongside their meal? +

Genuine question, but why? Do you Hoenstly have animal products in every single meal?

So serving meat is a moral belief of yours? You think it's unethical to eat vegetables? If that's genuinely your moral belief then yes, I'd say it would be hypocritical of them to expect vegetables when you're morally opposed to them.
Except you're not. You're jsit a fussy eater who chooses to not eat meals without animal products in them.

The thing is veganism isn't an ethical choice its an erroneous belief system.
The harms that mono farming does to the environment and wildlife far outweighs the harms caused by the meat industry.
If you look at oat or almond "milk" for instance,
1st you need to grow the oats or almond, oats are better for the environment as they require less water but worse because of the mono farming and pesticides and fertiliser.
2nd you need to grow the oil crop whether thats rapeseed or sunflowers etc again mono farming with all its harms.
3rd you need to use tones of water and energy to make the "milk"
4th you need to produce the vegetable/seed oils again water and energy high processes
5th you need to combine the oat/almond water with the oil and emulsifires to prevent separation. Emulsifires are industrially manufactured aswell with all the added energy costs
6th add vitamin and minerals which have also been manufactured.
All of that for 1 glass of oat/almond "milk".
Whereas cows milk Involves
1st take 1 cow add grass (food)
2nd milk cow
3rd pasteurised the milk (not nesscary in the uk where bovine tb isn't an issue but most do)
Thats it thats all that is needed. OK the cow will have to have a calf once per year but female ones are kept in the milk herd and the male ones become beef.

Now with mono farming 1000s of animals and insects are killed often in horrible ways (death by combine harvester is not pleasant for instance) and water courses are polluted with run off from the crops which kill off fish and aquatic life.

Given all of this how can anyone say that drinking oat or almond "milk" is more ethical than cows milk

I put milk in quotation marks in reference to oat and almond "milk" because they are not legally allowed to call themselves milk after an EU ruling

like most people do, when I entertain I always try to accommodate dietary issues and food preferences of my guests. However, I have noticed that for many vegans in my circle this doesn’t seem to work both ways and some will utterly refuse to cater to non-vegans, even vegetarians.

OP - I put you ANBU but these are your parents so perhaps cut them some slack and let them bring they’re own food to cook

You used being pissed.off as an excuse for attacking my spelling rather than disagreeing with my points so yeh its you with the anger issues

A lot of older people struggle digestively. Vegan food often is either very low calorie (and you need to eat a lot of bulk to get enough protein), or relies on carbs for calories. There are relatively few sources that provide anything like as much protein by weight as fish, eggs & meat. Eg chicken has double the protein per gram vs tofu. A lot of older people struggle to eat the volume of vegan food you need to eat to get enough calories & protein.

A lot of people also find vegan food quite bland, it often relies on salt or chili for flavour but i cant eat much of either!

Id usually just offer something to meet their prefences that i could buy in and not need to do much to cook/prep.

Ahem
Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? | Our World in Data

If I was going to family or friends for a meal/ bbq there is no question that they'd cater for me being vegetarian. I'd offer to bring my own food of course . So I think catering to meat eaters is also reasonable. Ask them to bring their own meat / food.

Well a Muslim wouldn't mind you adding beef as its meat that they eat.
Both Judaism and Islam ban pork, its Hinduism that ban beef as the cow is sacred to them

Your bbq sounds ace, can I come?

I admit your spelling of the word knock is not what I should have picked up on but I thought there was little point in arguing with you on your factually-incorrect post as you are so sure of your 'facts' and can't consider that it might be a bit more complex than you care to admit.

If someone else is willing to cook for me then I will eat whatever is offered, as is polite. One meal is not going to affect me - if the food being served is something I physically can't eat for some reason then I will just eat the side dishes/desserts/the bread rolls.

The only reason I would ever query it would be if someone invited me to a meal that I had never heard of and I was uncertain as to what it consisted of. Obviously, I'd still go (someone else cooking for me, etc) but I'd ask when I got there and if I couldn't eat it - well, side dishes, desserts, bread bun etc.

No i think that veganism is unethical and harmful to wildlife and the environment so no I wont have vegan substitutes in my home especially as many of them could kill me due to allergies.
Expecting people to cater for your dietary requirements but refusing to do so for others is hypocrisy

I’m far from vegan i’d say quite the opposite and even I would just eat the vegan bbq? Its a non issue at all really there being daft

For heavens sake, they are being a bit daft. I have 2 vegans, 1 vegetarian and 1 meat eater in my house. My side of the family.are mainly vegetarian. We do a vegan bbq every sunday during the summer and a vegan roast during the winter. My dad comes each week and enjoys himself no end. Id say come on, do you want to miss out on family time and company. It sounds like they do not agree with your dietary choices but its not their decision.

@Meadowfinch

“I happily eat veggie food but I melt butter into my jacket potatoes, spread it on my toast before the beans.”

Most vegans do too 😂 Flora is vegan.

Not the buttery one which is the only one which is actually nice!

My children have always had choices. In fact my daughter at 14 decided to be vegetarian after dating a boy who was a none meat eater. She announced it on Xmas eve, and I duly went out and stocked up on an alternative meal for her for Xmas day rather than turkey. I’m doubting children of vegetarians have the same options…..

Flora is also not butter!

I don't think any of my meals are vegan by default. Many are vegetarian and could probably be made vegan if needed without too much effort but generally there's going to be some dairy, egg, meat stock, Worcester/fish sauce involved.

Buttery is vegan - they briefly changed it a few years ago but then changed it back again:

www.flora.com/en-gb/our-products/flora-buttery

Human beings are unethical and harmful to wildlife and the environment but I still have them in my home.

Re what to put on your baked potato, olive oil is nice. I don't eat them anymore though as I try to avoid nightshade plants.

Well thats a biased article written by someone who ignores most of the harms of mono farming, uses American water use stats (very different from British stats due to the main cattle/milk production areas) uses American feed stats where most cattle food is soy based rather than the grass pea pods diets of British cows and the claims about calcium content are due to the added calcium in the oat/almond "milk".
American and British/EU farming practices are completely different so American data cannot be transferred to UK or EU farming to produce factually accurate statistics.
But thank you for the article and attempt to debate

Yeah, I wasn’t being shitty, I was thinking about what all the people around me (friends, family, colleagues) around me have for breakfast and lunch and I was struggling to think of anything that didn’t contain animal products. It surprised me a bit.