Your SO is a vegetarian, has been her whole life. She orders a couple different dishes of Chinese food for herself while you’re not at home and eats some. You come home and she gives you her sweet and sour TVP (textured vegetable protein) chicken, saying she didn’t like it. She’s eaten about a quarter of it.
You take it in another room, eat some, and realize they mistakenly brought her real chicken. She didn’t notice because it’s heavily breaded and sauced (and of course how would she know what real chicken tastes like?).
That was my thinking, though the only scenario I could think of where I would realistically shrug it off and not say anything at all would be if she was a vegetarian in name only who periodically ate meat. Of course, that’s a different situation than the OP describes, and I can’t imagine someone being a vegetarian his or her entire life without some strong moral, ethical, religious or medical reason.
I’d probably tell. My understanding is that some vegetarians can get pretty sick if they eat meat after avoiding it for many years. So I’d want to give him fair warning.
Please don’t tell her. All it would accomplish is to give her an excuse to pretend to be violently ill so she could bore people with her stupid story of “the one time I ate meat” for the next 20 years.
I’m having trouble with your setup because it assumes a level of ignorance about meat that’s pretty astounding unless she was raised in a vegetarian commune.
I’d definitely tell her if there was any chance of her ordering again because if she orders it again she’s likely to get the same mistake made. Physically the meat will not harm her. However, some vegetarians can get pretty psychosomatically wound up and hyper stressed if they think they’ve ingested something they should not have so that could be a real issue. You need to decide if she’s likely to go that route. If so you may need to keep your mouth shut as the harm from the stress will be more than any imagined harm from the dead animal flesh.
I’ve only heard of this happening with red meat, not white meat like chicken.
IMHO there’s no point in telling unless you intend to complain to the restaurant. I’m semi-vegetarian (no red meat) and would want to know if I were about to eat/was in the process of eating something that contained red meat so I could stop. I once got really annoyed with my mother for letting me order and eat soup in a restaurant that she knew was made with beef broth without giving me a word of warning. But in the OP’s example the chicken has already been eaten and bringing up that it was indeed chicken is only going to make the SO feel bad about something that cannot be changed.
However, if someone doesn’t think they can truly say nothing about it ever then I’d recommend telling the SO immediately rather than waiting, dropping hints, or telling the story to friends.
I’d probably say something, if only because when I was vegetarian, eating more than just a couple of bites of meat made me feel really sick. If I were in her situation, I’d like to know in advance what to expect.
I don’t follow. As a meatatarian I eat a lot of chicken, among lots of other tasty, meaty critters, but I’ve also had a lot of vegetarian meat analogues and I can honestly tell you, when heavily breaded and drowned in sauce a la sweet and sour “chicken,” even I can barely tell the difference without dissecting a piece. I am continually surprised at how well they can make high-quality TVP imitate chicken (other meats not so much, but they’ve got chicken down).
My GF has been a veggie over 3/4 of her life, a good 26 years or so. For all intents and purposes at this point, that’s essentially her entire life, at least regarding this particular aspect of it.
I eat lots of fake chicken (“chik’n” is what it tends to be called) and sometimes it’s so realistic that I worry I’ve accidentally eaten real meat.
If I accidentally ate real meat and somehow didn’t notice, I’d appreciate it if someone told me so I wouldn’t repeat my mistake. I don’t think vegetarians getting sick after eating meat is purely psychosomatic either- if you haven’t eaten it in ages I would imagine a bad case of the shits at the very least.
I’m vegetarian and I would not want to be told and would want a SO who would not make an issue of it. But I would also want my SO to gently steer me away from ordering from the same place if there were a likelihood of their repeating the mistake. And only tell me the reason why if I would insist on the same place for some reason. Or else discreetly intervene with the place to tell them to be careful to get it right.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 19 years and might not recognize real chicken. I would want to know though. Not to get worked up into a tizzy but just for reference. I don’t think eating a little meat, especially chicken would be too big of a shock to my system but a whole burger or steak might give me serious indigestion.
I didn’t vote. I’m a vegetarian and I’d be really grossed right out if I found out that I just ate a bunch of chicken. The last time that happened was a couple of years ago, I bought some stove top stuffing assuming there was no way there was meat in it. There was some sort of chicken something (I don’t remember now).
I’m surprised that there are people who think it’s so far out of the realm of possibilities that someone might not know much about meat. I’ve never eaten a steak, pork chop, fried chicken and lots of other meat.
My ex grew up in a vegan home so when I met him, he’d never even eaten an egg. I also went to a Seventh-Day Adventist school from grade 1 to 6 and 90% of the kids had never eaten any meat at all.
I’m an omnivore. Personally, I’d say there’s no reason to tell a vegetarian they unintentionally ate meat unless there’s a health problem arising from it. It would be like telling me there was an insect in my food after I ate it - if I’ve already eaten it, I’d be happier not knowing.
But I see there are several vegetarians who say they’d like to be told if they were in the same situation. Maybe their opinions are more on target than mine.
I’m a vegetarian and I’d want to be told. Why? So I could call the restaurant and demand a refund and/or replacement!
Beyond that specific situation, though, I’d like to be told… that way, at the least, I can stop eating whatever it is I’m eating, instead of obliviously shoving more in my face.
ETA: similarly, my friend prefers real Coca-Cola and occasionally gets served diet. He doesn’t think the taste is right, asks me to try it, I realize it’s diet… what am I supposed to do, shut up and let him drink his crappy drink, or let him know so that he can be served what he asked for?
I had the the “vegetarian” bowl several times at an Asian restaurant operated by recent immigrants from asia who don’t speak fluent English. I eventually learned while ordering from a local who is employed there that it has meat in the spicy soup mix. They apparently mean a generic “vegetable” though it’s on the menu as “vegetarian”. It was good to know. Most vegetarians would want to be informed of it.