To be upset about meat being cooked in my house

[Meetmeinlove]

For context, I am 53 and a lifelong vegetarian. I have never cooked meat or eaten meat.

I was always clear with my kids that if they wanted to eat meat, it was their choice but it had to be out of the house. Put simply, I don’t want it in my house.

They both eat meat and I am ok with that.

But I came home and they have cooked it- used my wooden chopping board to cut it up. Left remnants on the worksurface.

i’m bloody upset and it feels so disrespectful frankly. It’s a real problem for me- I don’t want meat in my house- I have always been really clear about it.

aibu to be so upset about it? It’s a real problem for me.

It's not about vegetarianism really. Lots of vegetarians on the thread have disagreed with the idea of banning all meat in the house. It's about whether the house is an extension of one person's personal space or a space that is shared by all the people living in it. That's cultural (I don't mean in the sense of coming from different countries culture. More family culture). It isn't that one group are "right" or "wrong", but the refusal to see why controlling the space of the home might be a issue for a teenager shows a certain lack of theory of mind. And normally parents who are excessively "my home my rules" are running the risk visiting the family home becomes a burden not a comfort down the road. The "only vegetarians could understand" posts are ridiculous. I'm a vegetarian and I don't understand. I hate the stereotype of vegetarians thinking they are morally superior but there are definitely some who fit that stereotype.

I don't believe i said they should, just that they could.

Which would require them to choose this for themselves.

🙄

Stand your ground, your house/home your way of living. It's not that they don't know, they chose to upset and disregard your way of life. It is what teens do though and they need to learn and respect different ways of life.

Certain cultures don't eat pork or certain seafood, some only eat vegetarian, others don't have milk of any kind. I am sure that if opportunities arise their older children also go against the rules to discover and disrespect their elders.

eating Meat is a choice and not a need ( I eat it) I think it’s the Ops home her rules.. just the same with smoking and alcohol if she does not want those in her house she pays the bills - I would respect that and live my way when I move out … they haven’t been harmed growing up without meat in the house … some parents don’t let sweets and other unhealthy options either - -this is how she has chosen to raise her children and how she wants to live -

I find it really strange that for 18 years someone hasn’t eaten meat at home and then one day just randomly decides to cook with meat at home without realising it would cause an issue ? There must be more to it than and ‘oh I just forgot moment ‘
I agree with the majority on here , they live there too , it’s their home too and surely there can be some compromise ? Are there any reason why they can’t other than you don’t want them to?

This is an amazing post. I’m not being sarcastic. It really is. Balanced. Quite funny too.

Would you also refuse to eat out in anywhere that isn't fully vegetarian or stop at a hotel that isn't also veggie? You do come across as a bit unreasonable. I'm a vegetarian but I still cook meat for my children and partner. For me it's my choice and it's their choice to eat meat. 🤷 I feel like it's their home as much as mine so they have a right to eat what they want in their own home. But knowing your feelings they should get their own chopping board and clean up after themselves. They are old enough.

OP it is their home too, not just YOUR home. Of course they should be allowed to eat meat in their own home if they want to. The issue for me is that they didn’t clear up afterwards

It’s their home too…

When it comes to my kid wanting to eat the diet we were biologically built to eat then yes, I'd cater for them.
Any random no. But my kid. Yes. I can't imagine anyone I know saying they wouldn't.
But that's my view.

I don't get into religious debates over what's right and wrong with man made diets.
We are biologically omnivores that's how we are built. Anyone choosing another diet is up to them, lecturing is unnecessary but something some vegetarians and vegans do a lot I am just saying when it comes to my kid I do plenty I wouldn't normally. That would be included.

When did they start eating meat ? , as I’m Assuming all your meals for them growing up were vegetarian

And your point of view is fine, of course, I just disagree. I wouldn't have cooked meat in Gandhi's home, and my Mum deserves so much more respect than a man I never met, so I wouldn't have cooked meat in her home. I think it's easy to respect common (ie mainstream) ethics and values that differ from my own, without feeling that my own integrity is compromised.

I hate to state the obvious but OP has left the building quite some time ago....

your a liar , worked in animal slaughter for years, pigs are gassed and they scream when the gas burns their throats they also react when they are separated from the others. in an humane slaughter the lamb or calf is normally separated from rest whilst it's throat is slit but even them the other animals can smell and sense the death.. I can also tell you for a fact in factory farming the bolt and stun method rarely works due to speed of line the stun sometimes fails and the bolt misses so the cattle still dies but its far from instant and they carry on down the line struggling and gargling their last for I've seen 20 mins

You clearly know bugger all about a vegetarian diet. It is much healthier that that of a meat eater. Eating meat increases the risk of colon cancer. A junk food diet whether it includes meat, or is vegetarian, is the worst of all.

Also meat isn’t the “natural human diet”. Humans have always been omnivores, not carnivores as human teeth clearly shows. We were originally hunter gatherers, only eating meat when lucky with the sling shot, later the bow and arrow. Meat was a rare treat.

You come across as very smug for someone with so little knowledge behind your comments.

You haven’t properly read the OPs posts have you. Her children have a history of eating meat with the OPs blessing, just not at home!

I completely understand your feelings and I would be upset about this. I’m a vegan, my young children are veggie and DH is neither. He respects the fact that having dead animals’ flesh in my home is unacceptable to me and we eat a healthy, balanced, unprocessed vegan diet. The children eat eggs and cheese, and drink cows’ milk. This is something that I’m not comfortable with but we agreed it was the right choice for them. If they choose to eat meat or fish, that’s ok but I wouldn’t buy, prepare or cook it for them.

DH eats meat when we are out, or he is alone at home but I have never seen any trace of it and I really appreciate that.

I think your children have been disrespectful and while I do think you could compromise with a dedicated chopping board/knife/frying pan, if they can’t clean up after themselves then perhaps they don’t get a choice in what they eat.

There are several different claims being muddled together here.

Yes, humans are omnivores. That’s rather the point: we evolved eating both animal and plant foods. It doesn’t follow that meat was universally some occasional “rare treat”. Human diets have varied enormously according to geography and ecology. Traditional Inuit populations, for example, obtained a very large proportion of their diet from fish, marine mammals and other animal foods because relatively little edible plant food was available. Other hunter-gatherer populations consumed far more plant food. There was no single universal hunter-gatherer diet.

You’re also making far too sweeping a claim when you say that a vegetarian diet is “much healthier” than a meat-eater’s diet. Either can be good or dreadful. A vegetarian can live on chips, white bread, biscuits and ultra-processed meat substitutes. An omnivore can eat plenty of vegetables, pulses, wholegrains and fruit, together with fish and modest quantities of unprocessed meat. Overall dietary pattern matters enormously.

Where you are on much firmer scientific ground is bowel cancer. There is good evidence that processed meat increases colorectal-cancer risk, and high consumption of red meat is also associated with increased risk. That’s a good argument for limiting those foods. It isn’t evidence that eating meat per se makes a diet unhealthy. Poultry and fish aren’t even in the same evidential category as processed and red meat.

And human teeth aren’t evidence that meat is somehow unnatural for us. If anything, human dentition being adapted to omnivory supports exactly what we both agree on: humans are omnivores, not carnivores or natural vegetarians.
So by all means argue that a well-planned vegetarian diet can be extremely healthy. It can. But “vegetarian = much healthier, meat eater = less healthy” is no more scientifically defensible than the opposite blanket claim.

I didn’t suggest that human teeth indicated a natural vegetarian diet, but an omnivore, rather than carnivore diet. We don’t need meat. It’s a huge overstatement to say as you did that meat isn’t our “natural diet”.

As for fish and chicken being healthy to eat. That may have been the case in the past. Have you looked at the evidence regarding mercury and microplastics in fish these days. Also, much chicken is now bred in such as a way that it has a higher rate of fat than in the past and is pumped with all sorts of crap. Then there are the horrific animal welfare issues which most meat eaters are in denial about.