Groan… People who just can’t get over your vegetarianism
May 27, 2010
Way back in 1998, I made my first attempt at vegetarianism after being chewed out, rightly, by a young lady who thought I was better than that.
It wasn’t easy and like my many attempts, it only lasted a few weeks. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, eating meat is something that’s normalised in me.
The primary reason – always the primary reason – has been that of the suffering of animals.
This post has been moved here…
(Photo source: Davide Vizzini)
Advertisement
9 Comments
Comments are closed.
Wow, seriously? I really can’t understand this. Me, I’m always fascinated by how my vegetarian and vegan friends can make kick-ass dishes without meat. And I learn little things like how my wine was made with gelatin and my margarine has fish oil in it (srsly, fish oil? gross). I suppose the haters must be compensating for something.
I get the temptation to offer food (if non-vegan food) that I enjoy to friends who I KNOW are vegan. Sometimes, it’s simple oversight, just not thinking, like when I was passing out ice cream to a gathering of friends and almost handed a bowl to a vegan friend of mine.
The difference is that when I do that and the friend says, “Um, no thanks, ice cream isn’t vegan, dude,” I can just slap myself, acknowledge how stupid that was, and we move on.
“The observation that I’m avoiding doing something bad, something that they’re themselves doing, causes dissonance with my meat-eating acquaintances’ self-image of goodness.”
Yup, I don’t doubt for a minute that you’ve hit the nail right on the head. I’ve thought the same thing about my carnivorous impulses more than once.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the nasty types get you down. I’ve been vegetarian more than five years now and I’ll never go back.
I used to have difficulty being the lone vegetarian among omnivores. “Oh, it only has a *little* ham in it”. “That’s not even real pepperoni on that frozen pizza.” (As if overly processing the meat makes a difference.) To make matters worse, the area I lived in wasn’t the least bit veg*n friendly. Grocery stores had only tiny selections of soy and/or Seitan foods, and in most restaurants if I wanted to avoid meat I was relegated to salads or appetizers.
Now I’m living where there is an abundance of restaurants that cater to vegetarians, stores with much better selections, and my two sisters-in-law are vegetarians. I’m no longer the odd duck, nor do I have to deal with people who pretend they’re being traumatized because I don’t eat meat.
We are almost there, generally only eating 1 meat dish a week. I think I will find chicken the hardest to give up.
I’m in my first month of being a vegetarian and (though I was a big meat eater) I’ve found living without meat to be easy. But I’m sure I would find it hard without meat substitutes. I’ve been living on burgers, fake chicken schnitzels, fake chicken nuggets, fake chicken stir-fry strips, mince, sausages, hot-dogs, shepherd’s pie, etc. The sausages and hot dogs aren’t great but I’ve been surprised at just how good everything else is, especially Fry’s chicken nuggets – I’m sure most people would take them for real chicken nuggets if you served them as such. You can check out all available meat substitute products at Vegetarian Network Victoria – http://www.vnv.org.au/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=216&Itemid=78
I suddenly chose to be a vegetarian after resisting the call for many years as a direct result of seeing some award winning photographs of a slaughterhouse. The photos are so sad and gruesome I could no longer silence the little or big voice that I imagine tells many meat-eaters that it is cruel and unnecessary to kill animals for human consumption when other healthy food is available. You can see the photos here – http://bfox.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/tommaso-ausili-slaughterhouse-world-press-photo-2010/
Catching up on blog posts, so I’m a little late with this.
I’m not a vege, although I’ve tried on occasion. I too am motivated by animal welfare above all else.
I’ve never understood why people have such a difficult time coming to terms with another’s vegetarianism. It just doesn’t make sense.
Anyway, congrats on making it 6 months!
Catching up? Tell me about it!
(Hence my late reply!)
Cheers for the congrats.
Does your atheism cause as many problems?
Well it’s prevented me from getting a secular position within a secularly funded religious not-for-profit, so I’d have to say yes.