Philosophical Vegan Forum

Do you have family members, friends, and co-workers who try to trick you into eating meat? every time I visit my mom she tries to sneak meat or broth into food, and my co worker has several times tried to convince me that some dish he made is vegan. does anyone else deal with this? share your stories!

Twizelby wrote:Do you have family members, friends, and co-workers who try to trick you into eating meat? every time I visit my mom she tries to sneak meat or broth into food, and my co worker has several times tried to convince me that some dish he made is vegan. does anyone else deal with this? share your stories!

When i was younger and went vegetarian, my grandmother tried to grind up pieces of meat in some of her dishes. She stopped that immediately. Plus I don't eat anything she eats (more concerned with cross-contamination and her poor cleaning skills)

My brother absolutely hates the fact me being a vegetarian, because of the extra pans to wash and separately making meals sometimes. So he does try to convince me that I should eat meat again, and is very persistent in doing so, which makes me very tired sometimes. Thankfully the rest of my family is pretty tolerant and my mother and father love to eat vegetarian more often themselves (although I don't live with them anymore).

Nobody tries to sneak in some meat. It seems a very strange thing to do. Is this a common activity for some?

I dealt with this problem a few times when I went vegetarian, years ago.
I don't fully understand what's the point of it: what are they trying to achieve? Mock and have a laugh? Do they think that meat is required for the human body, so they try to worry about my health? Are they curious to know what the reaction would be? It seems a very childish thing to do. Not only you go against my wish, but you also try to trick me, lying about it?
However, now that my relatives know my temper and that I'd get very upset if something like this happens, no one is trying to do similar things anymore.

On more than numerous occasions have my family members tried to sell food off to me that they said were "vegan" but were actually not. Because of this I have developed a sort of paranoid attitude towards eating things that I didn't make. It's only when I go to certain restaurants such as "Wild Ginger" (the vegan one) that I can go there without having to worry about it too much.

dan1073 wrote:On more than numerous occasions have my family members tried to sell food off to me that they said were "vegan" but were actually not. Because of this I have developed a sort of paranoid attitude towards eating things that I didn't make. It's only when I go to certain restaurants such as "Wild Ginger" (the vegan one) that I can go there without having to worry about it too much.

I feel the same way.

I'm kind of frustrated at the moment because my brother mixed his macaroni containing ground beef with my vegan macaroni. It's not that he mixed all of it, but I put my part into the baking dish and he just put it on top of it and after that spread it towards his side... It inevitably mixed with my side, so I had to give up a lot of my macaroni to make sure it was meat-free.

And this was after I told him I'm not doing this out of personal perfection, but for the animals. But eating minced parts of dead animals goes one step to far for me. After stopping to eat meat—even while it's not that long ago—I have an enormous aversion towards it.

Sorry for whining, but I had to take it off my chest.

Volenta wrote:But eating minced parts of dead animals goes one step to far for me. After stopping to eat meat—even while it's not that long ago—I have an enormous aversion towards it.

Same goes for me. I'd never be able to eat meat again. My relatives sometimes try to convince me to get back to eating meat, showing me their 'delicious' dishes.
They don't know how disgusted I am by it. Even if I tried to eat it, I probably wouldn't be able to.

Ive also experienced the lazy attempt of some people who purchase something that is apparently vegan when not. I can understand this from someone who has no idea what veganism is, and has never looked at a label before, but I've had it where people who have long accepted that Im vegan will provide me something that is not vegan, and they didnt even bother to check (i.e. dairy in prepared soup, or non-vegan broth, or cooked in oil/pan that was used for meat, etc).

Well, where should you draw the line? (Well, it's probably personal opinion) When doesn't it bother you?

What about vegan snacks that have been fried in a deep fryer that also has been used to fry meat snacks? Or buying a product that has the possibility of containing milk or eggs because it's made in a factory where they also produce products with milk and eggs (if there isn't an alternative)?

If you're bitching about small things you will inevitably be compared to a Muslim that does it out of purity... And since it doesn't necessary mean more suffering, where do you draw the line?

Like I said, in the case of a meal that contains meat, I just feel disgusted about it. But I'm not really bothered by the examples I just gave (although I would prefer to avoid it of course). If it's baked in a pan that still contains meat juice, it would really bother me though.