This is in part inspired by Prism02’s anti-Vegan post, but…
The Veggie/Carnivore debate we’ve seen here is being mirrored in my life. I’ve got a couple of friends who are sniping at each other (and me) about their (and my) food preferences. Let me be clear, to them and to those who might be tempeted to preach to me here on the board (no one has, yet): I DON’T GIVE A FLYING, FELTCHING, FARTING-FERRET’S FUCK what you eat. Short of Jeffery Dalhmer’s eatinghabits, very little to me is as boring as hearing my shrill Vegan friend tell me how many pounds of undigested meat I have in my colon OR my bellicose carnivore buddy telling me that the salad I’m eating is sprayed by oil-based pesticides and may give me the runs or cancer. SHUT UP about what I’m eating! (Note that both are wonderful people when not trying to ‘convert’ me.)
You want to be a Vegan? Fine, be my guest, you have my blessing. I respect the health-based or profound moral choices you’ve made. If I invite you for dinner, I’ll do my best to accomidate you. Now stop telling me about the living conditions of the chicken I’m cooking for myself, eat your kasha pilaf, and shut up.
You’re a carnivore who thinks that “potatoes” is synonomus with “vegetables” and thinks “rice” is a dubious exotic plant? (Really. The only vegetable my friend eats are potatoes. Won’t eat any greens. I don’t know why he’s not dead) Great. I respect that you believe that carnivores are more evolved than herbivores (“It doesn’t take brains to sneak up on a blade of grass” which you swiped from Larry Niven). Now shut up and eat your steak.
In any case, I’m an omnivore. If it looks and smells good, I’ll eat it. This is my personal philosophy and I’m damned sick of arguing about it. Again, short of cannabilism, I simultaniously respect and don’t give a damn about the food choices you’ve made (outside of what I cook for you.)
Fenris, having a roast beef sandwich AND a salad for lunch.
I hear you. If they don’t want to eat meat, and they aren’t bothering you about it, leave them alone. If someone wants to eat meat, leave them alone as well. It’s all a matter of our personal preferences, people!
Amen, Fenris. Amen. Does your friend eat ketchup? 'cause we all know ketchup is a vegetable!
I think that the #1 table manner, ranked above not chewing with mouth open, not talking with mouth full, and not pointing your elbows into the sides of nearby diners when cutting your food, should be:
**Thou shalt not comment negatively on what others at the table are eating. **
No more “I wish I could eat something with that many grams of fat…” as the person stares hungrily at your food and makes you feel guilty for eating it at the same time. No more “do you really think you should be eating that, it’s so bad for you!” No more “I could show you pictures of what happens to dairy food in your stomach!” No more talk about which foods cause cancer. No more kids traumatized into overeating by parents who insist on a clean plate! Play with your food if you want to!
Supreme table manner #2:
**No one cares which Sugar Busters The Zone Dr. Atkins Celebrity Liquid Juice Eat Right for Your Blood Type Vegan Protein Power High Fiber No Fiber Gluten-Free All-Bacon-All-The-Time Deal-a-Meal Jenny Craig Whole Foods of Tuscany eating program you are on. **
Spread lard on your Krispy Kremes, scoop your lentils up with naan, spread A-1 on your T-bone, squeeze lemon juice on your pile of chopped raw veggies. If everyone obeys Table manner #1, and you obey table manner #2, and everyone picks up their portion of the check with no scrimping on tax and tip, you might actually have a pleasant social eating experience!!
This is not terribly Pit-worthy, but it reminds me of the scene in Notting Hill where the woman turns down roast lamb OR salad because she is a “fruitarian” (BTW – is that a real term or is it made up?) and won’t eat anything that hasn’t fallen off a tree naturally. “Those carrots,” she intones, “have been murdered.”
Yep, the “fruitarians” are real, Jodi. They won’t eat anything that destroys the plant. So fruits (including squash, tomatos and avocados and that sort of thing) and some nuts are okay. I don’t know all the rules, but that’s the gist of it.
Nope. He scrapes the onions off his McBurger, and you should hear the howls of outrage if he should get “that ketchup or mustard glop” on it. His only condiment is Salt. Not kosher salt, no celery salt, no garlic salt. Salt.
Oh, and if a veggie is cooked into beef stew so that it no longer has any individual flavor or texture (carrots in Dinty Moore brand beef stew for example)he’ll grudging eat them. But only under protest.
Sorry, Fenris. You were in the running until magdalene showed up to score a 9.3.
Well ranted, the both of yas.
But . . . well, you gotta admit, “It doesn’t take brains to sneak up on a blade of grass” is a really great line. In context, of course, not as a justification for pro-meat rhetoric.
So I’m sitting there with my friend in some fast food place. He has two orders of some deep-fat fried mozarella sticks, I have a cheese burger. We’re both munching away when he turns to me with chin and fingers dripping grease and says “You know, that red meat is gonna kill you man.”
I can’t stand it when someone describes every single detail of the fad diet they’re on. I know this one lady who won’t shut the hell up about her diet–it’s something about gorging yourself on anything you want for 1 hour and not eating anything else all day. She comes up and says, “Well, I ate this and this and this during my hour yesterday, and I’ve lost 1.5 pounds since next week!”
Eating preferences are like religion to me. I don’t want to hear about what you eat and why I should eat it, and I don’t want to preach to you about why I eat what I do.
Yeah. Somehow “Bread” isn’t a vegetable or baked/refried beans. He’ll also occasionally eat corn on the cob. Most starchy plants don’t seem to equate to vegetables with him, Oh, and, he’ll eat artichokes…but only if they’re spread with Jif’s/Peter Pan’s Sugary-Peanut-Butter-Like Product (Years ago, we got into an argument with me saying that if he tried something different, he’d probably like it. Somehow, though I don’t bet, I wound up betting $20.00 that he wouldn’t eat a vegetable that I was willing to eat too. I cooked artichokes, knowing A) they’re good and B) they look scary to the uninitiated. After showing him how to eat them, he made “Blecchhy” noises and began rummaging around in my pantry. He found some of the Peanut Butter-like substance (left over from a visit from my nephew) and after smearing the stuff on each leaf, began happily eating the artichoke. When I said that was cheating, he pointed out that I was dipping the leaves in lemon-butter. Then he bet me $20 that I wouldn’t eat the remaining artichoke his way. He was right, the bastard.) He’ll still occasonally ask me to cook artichokes which he’ll eat with imitation-peanut-butter-food-product. I’m convinced, though, that he’s just doing it to piss me off, so I don’t know if it counts.)
