''She told me that I was being selfish and didn't care about her

In My Humble Opinion
21

A lot of r/AITAH (and reddit in general, really) is just rage-baiting trolls out for the lulz, karma-farming bots, etc. I suppose it’s good entertainment if you’re really bored and there’s nothing trashier on TV (the bar just keeps getting lower, doesn’t it), but don’t think too much of it.

As for the vegan stuff in particular, though:

Oh yeah, definitely.

Anecdotally, I’ve been vegan for nearly two decades and have met quite a few others through potlucks, gatherings, and such (there’s almost a hundred of us in the world, I swear!!). We span the spectrum of militancy, from “righteous crusader who will not deign to see an animal frown anywhere within 500 miles and will interrupt your restaurant meal to spread the good word” to “oh yeah, by the way, I’ll probably bring my own food because I have dietary restrictions”.

I’m more of the latter. My family collaboratively cooks and hosts a big mixed Thanksgiving potluck every year. It’s mixed both in terms of dietary restrictions (vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free/pescetarian) and cultural backgrounds, so it’s a bit of a free-for-all fusion buffet with enough food to feed ten people for a week. Some of the aunts are blessed with culinary ability and can make extraordinary vegan dishes that even the meat-eaters enjoy. But some of the attendees are obligate carnivores who eat nothing but the BBQ ribs. We all just get along and people eat whatever they want, but we do make an effort to separate the dishes and label them appropriately.

But here’s the thing: If anyone insisted that anybody else eat like them for any reason, we’d all just look at them funny, like “Are you ok? Do you have a fever? What’s wrong with you?” Not only would we not take them seriously, but we’d suspect some sort of brain injury on their part. Nobody in the family is an extremist asshole (of any type), thankfully.

I also sometimes host friends or go to their places for dinner, and it’s up to whoever’s cooking whether to accommodate the diets. Some cooks take it upon themselves to experiment with new internet or YouTube recipes, to mixed success — personally, I’ve found the best vegan dishes to often actually come from omnivore cooks who are just really good at cooking to begin with and willing to experiment, vs the ideological vegans who cook because they have to just to eat. But in this case, too, it’s expected that everybody will just be chill and respectful. Sometimes I bring my own food, sometimes I cook, sometimes they bring their own food, sometimes they cook… it’s just not a big deal. We get together to enjoy each other’s company, not to fight over food systems. Nobody wants an annoying, demanding asshole around, regardless of their reason.

(Edit: I should note that I’m younger than many on the boards here, being in my 40s. Many of my friends are also Millennial or younger, and we grew up with dietary differences already embedded in pop culture as a norm, so it’s not a big deal to anybody.)

I took this to mean “the person with crazy dietary restrictions” is always a she, not “the asshole is always a she”.

If so, in my experience, the overwhelming % of vegans I’ve met were indeed women — probably 80-90% of them (and this number corresponds to at least one study: BBC: Why are there more female vegans?). My guess is that it’s largely cultural, since meat is so often tied to masculinity (at least in the West).

I don’t, however, think the level of assholeness/militancy is tied to gender. Age and general lack of life experience and interacting with people of different backgrounds and values, more likely.

22

Agreed.

On the flip side, my wife bought treats for a Scouting event. One scout has to eat gluten free, so we always make a point to ensure something is GF.

The GF scout was unpacking the bag, checking out what my wife sent and absolutely lit up saying “They’re ALL gluten free!” like it was fucking Christmas morning. For once, she wasn’t relegated to the alternate food.

23

Geeze, that sounds so painful. I’m traumatized just reading that. What’s the point of life without dem tasty carbs?! :anguished_face:

Sincerely,
Your neighborhood obligate carbovore

24

Emphasis added by me.

IMO, you’d really have to be a jerk to dislike something just because there’s no meat in it. I’m a meat-eater (ovo-lacto-carno-pesco vegetarian :wink: ) and I enjoy non-meat foods. It’s harder since I avoid pasta/bread/rice/beans/grains/root vegetables (and still the weight persists!), but there’s nothing wrong with non-meat dishes. (While I can and do cook vegetarian dishes, I have not intentionally attempted vegan ones.)

25

You (me really) can lose a lot of weight that way. And more size than weight.

And best of all, you (me really) don’t finish killing your pancreas which would result in both losing your career 15 years early and needing to shoot insulin every day for what’s left of your life.

That’s the point.

I now eat some (simple) carbs, but not many. A long term nil-carb diet has health issues of its own.

26

I was going to ask the same question. (Glad I searched for Johnny_L.A clarification posts first)

OK, how far would I go to accommodate someone? Generally speaking, considerably farther than I feel obligated to in the name of fairness. Not that I’m never selfish, but I’m inclined overall to be accommodating.

I’m not automatically The Asshole in every situation where someone thinks I should have behaved differently. But I strive to be a notch better than Not The Asshole, if that makes any sense.

27

Thanks for that clear explanation. I hoped that was the case.

On the specific scenario of catering to individual preferences when having people over for dinner, I don’t know anyone who has ever been difficult about it, so while I’m unfamiliar with the genre, it makes sense to me that most of the questions are made up.

Before hosing a dinner, I generally ask, if I don’t already know, if people have dietary restrictions. They’ve always been reasonable and easy to accommodate, plus it helps that I like to cook and enjoy the challenge of making a tasty meal within guidelines I don’t usually need to follow. For example, I made a fancy vegan dinner once that everyone loved, though only one person present was vegan. However, she made it clear that I did not have to cook to her preferences and would happily contribute a dish (for everyone) that she’d be able to partake of. It was my choice to cook entirely vegan. (Results: utterly delicious, but every dish was a bit fussy to make, and I realized too late that nearly all dishes contained at least a little quinoa, so the food was slightly repetitive.)

The one instance where I was frustrated was when a couple came and stayed with us for about five days. I forget their specific restrictions now, but it was a “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean” type of deal, so just about everything I can cook was off the table, literally and figuratively. I did manage to feed them, but it was insipid cuisine.

28

See, this is the kind of thing that happens in real life that makes the AITA stories only too plausible, even if some are made up. People like this are everywhere, walking around among us.

(Unless, of course, you’re making up that story yourself. :smiley: And for the record, my own vegan guests have been nothing but gracious; but then, I do cook and serve only vegan on such occasions, not that I feel obligated to; it’s just easier to cook one way instead of two ways.)

29

I may be gullible but I find it all plausible because I was raised by a person who finds offense everywhere, and will hold on to grudges about totally innocuous shit for years.

That said, I do think a lot of people who post there are looking to have their feelings validated and, unconsciously or not, distorting reality accordingly. A lot of people are like that - especially the unreasonable ones.

As for the OP, with advance notice I think you can reasonably expect a vegan food option, but not a vegan four-course meal with multiple options - even though I’d probably do something like that as a host, because I try to be accommodating and know plenty of tasty vegan recipes.

30

And really, even then, the simple fix is: just don’t eat it, lol. No need to make a big ol’ fuss about it. There’s plenty of vegan dishes that I wouldn’t eat either — especially the stuff I try to cook :sweat_smile:

I mean, really, it should go both ways. Honestly, for every time I’ve heard, “Eww, I can’t be around meat, it’s gross!”, I’ve heard “There’s no meat in that?! You’re just eating leaves?!” ten times as often. My god, just let it be and eat your own food!

I once had an argument with an uncle over this. He was generally a kind-hearted man, but at times over-traditional, maybe, and he was the kind of person who mostly thought with his heart, for better or worse… by that I mean well-intentioned, but not always reasonable.

I was much younger then, and at that point I’d been vegan for about three years. One day on a random car ride, he started an argument out of the blue and went on a long, angry monologue about how much of an extremist I was being, how I must learn to be more tolerant, how the world operates in shades of gray, how people are more important than animals, etc. Totally unprompted. I was just listening to music before that.

I listened to him as long as I could and then, exasperated, just asked, “Wait, uncle, where is this even coming from?! I’ve been doing this for three years already, and I have never once asked you to accommodate me. I always offer to bring my own food, I never preach, I never try to change your mind or tell you what you or anyone else can eat. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever even talked to you about it besides the first time you asked me, years ago. Why the sudden anger about all this? I’m not doing this to spite you or in any way because of you, it’s just a personal ethical choice that I want to stick to, one of the very few that I’ve ever made in my life. It’s important to me, but I never once asked or expected you or anyone else to follow it too. Who’s being intolerant and unreasonable right now?”

He thought about it for a few minutes in silence. It made for an awkward rest of the car ride, but he never brought it up again, and meals were never an issue again after that (not that they ever were before, as far as I knew). Apparently he’d just been harboring that anti-veggie rage inside him the whole time and needed to let it out? I dunno.

I think some people find veganism (or maybe any non-traditional diet) to be a frontal assault on their culture or something. I’m not sure.

He sadly (perhaps ironically) passed away from a stroke or heart attack before I ever got to revisit that topic with him… good guy… maybe a bit argumentative at times, but never mean-spirited.

And I don’t blame ya there, especially if you’re trying to go carb-light! All the really good proteins are generally from animal sources or else ultra-industrialized hyper-processed legume powders (which still often have leftover carbs).

Depending on your culinary background, there may or may not be easy vegan substitutions. But you should never be forced to do that for some demanding guest, especially if it means sacrificing your health — veganism can be healthier than some of the worst omnivorous diets, but it can also be worse if you’re, say, substituting nutritious real cheese with extruded tapioca starch and coconut fat.

If a guest tells you they’re vegan, you’re not the asshole for simply telling them “Oh, sorry, I don’t know how to cook vegan!” To which, I’d expect a reasonable response to be something like, “Oh, no worries, do you mind if I bring my own food then?”, or “I’ll eat beforehand”, or “Wanna go to restaurant ______ where we can all eat?”

If they’re pushier than that… well… why are you inviting them to dinner? If they’re obnoxious, why are you even friends?

It’d be their personality that makes them an asshole, not their diet. (And to be fair, there really are obnoxious vegans like that — I’ve met more than a few, but none that I keep in touch with.)

31

There are tons of easy vegan recipes online. I know, because I’m not that good of a cook, but I can follow a recipe and make a good meal. I eat meat but I also eat a lot of beans and vegan dishes. Tofu is not required. I generally hate tofu. But how about mango curry chickpeas and rice? Delicious. If you’re looking to up your vegetable game, vegan meals will do it for you. Lots of vegetable soups. Winter lentil vegetable stew.

One of the main reasons I often cook vegan is my husband is allergic to dairy.

That poor man has thirteen food allergies, and people have never been anything but accommodating. They often get it wrong, but they try, and trying counts a lot for him.

32

We’ve got one who’s nut and seafood allergic, and another who’s a pescatarian (he’s got the nickname “Fish Man”.

Everybody’s cool about it, although every now and again the scouts get confused like they did on one campout where we were supposed to have one pot of shrimp jambalaya, and one of sausage and chicken jambalaya, and we ended up with one pot of sausage and shrimp and one of chicken. It wasn’t malice, it was just 11-14 year old boys being knuckleheads and not realizing how that had to work. It went something like “Well, J can have this one, there’s no shrimp!” and then when we pointed out that M can’t have it, they were like “OHhhh. Didn’t think of it like that.”

But neither expects everyone else to bend all the way over for their needs; they just work around it, and the boys try to be accommodating, when they’re not being stupid. I’m actually glad we’ve got them in the troop; it is something the boys should know how to handle, and having peers with those issues is a great way for them to learn.

And yeah, we(my family) typically try to make stuff for the Courts of Honor that are nut, seafood, and fish free- so mostly stuff like cheese enchiladas, macaroni and cheese, and various nut-free desserts.

33

Actually, there’s tofu in the fridge right now. I should see if it’s still good. My wife has trouble with bell peppers and onions sometimes, so I don’t know if I’ll make ‘family-style tofu’. She can pick out the veg if they bother her. I’m thinking I’ll try to make taco filling. It would only be a $3 experiment.

Sounds delicious! I’d just have to leave out the mangos, chickpeas, and rice. :wink:

34

In the non-asshole world, when we first started hosting Thanksgiving, we invited my SIL, a vegan, to join us. She replied that she wouldn’t enjoy a meal where a dead bird was featured prominently on the table, and she would enjoy Thanksgiving with her local vegan friends. And we said, “okay, we’ll see you for some other event.” And we have. When she’s come to, for instance b’nai mitzvahs of our kids, we made sure there were good vegan options, and also, she brought her own food just-in-case. (and it’s a point of pride to me that she didn’t need to break into the food she brought. But I thought that was a reasonable precaution for her to take, as we aren’t vegans.)

We did serve meat and dairy to other guests, and she was polite enough not to complain. Because, you know, neither of us is an asshole, and the point wasn’t the food.

Yup. When I invited a couple over, one of whom has celiac disease, I made sure there was nothing with gluten on the table. When I invite a bunch of people over, I make sure there’s enough food for each one, and warn people what foods they can’t eat. My New Year’s Eve spread is clearly delineated between the meat, veggie, and vegan options, and I also have a place for pareve fish dishes. And I discuss the foods individually with people who have oddball food issues, like the woman who can’t eat corn or chicken (including corn starch and corn syrup and eggs) and the guy who has a deathly allergy to nightshades (potato, tomato, peppers, eggplant), and the woman who is allergic to peanuts

And I think this is normal.

Yeah, I jokingly identify as an obligate carnivore, but I stayed with a vegan friend in NYC whom I treated to dinner at a fancy vegan joint, and all the food was delicious. I’d miss meat in a few days, but I was extremely happy enjoying that meal with him.

I can prepare plenty of delicious vegan food for a meal or two, but once, when a vegan was visiting during passover (and she also kept strictly kosher for passover, including no legumes) she offered to bring her own food, and I said, “yes, please”. There were about a dozen people visiting, we all danced together, and we all ate in the same room, and I think a good time was had by all.

35

I could not eat tofu that was cooked with pepper, fwiw. That pepper essence gets into everything, and tofu is especially absorbant.

36

There are some people who have to make drama over everything, and I’ve worked pretty hard to remove those people from my life, or at least not invite them over for dinner. I don’t know how I come across online, but in reality I am incredibly laid back, in the sense that my expectations for other people are pretty low, and I don’t really have strong preferences in social situations. I am hard to offend. If for some reason I had a limited diet and my host failed to accommodate, I think I would be slightly annoyed/disappointed in the moment, and then never give it another thought. I just don’t carry that stuff with me.

37

I may be less laid back than you in general, but i am aware that my dietary needs aren’t entirely standard, and don’t fall into any of the common buckets. I’m certainly unhappy in the moment if there’s nothing i can eat, but other than maybe requesting bread and butter, or eating a lot of the white rice, wouldn’t do anything about it other than skip those foods. I certainly wouldn’t hold a grudge that someone trying to entertain me had done so imperfectly.

38

Hijack.

Re: The tofu. I’ve sliced it into triangles and put them in a bag with some olive oil soy sauce, and a little sriracha. I’ll put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake them later. Don’t know what to do with them after that. Maybe go get some bok choy and green onions. I have a jar of minced ginger in the fridge, I think. Do a quick stir-fry, and add the baked tofu in. Maybe throw in a few cashews. Or just eat the baked tofu triangles. I don’t know. Whatever happens, it will be eaten… even if I have to eat it myself.

39

If you’ve ever been excluded because of your dietary needs you’ll understand how the guest feels.

The hostess/hosts job is to make all guests fell welcomed, effortlessly.

They cannot if they don’t know.

The guest would be the asshole if they didn’t say so, bring their own or beg off the event. If they cause a kerfuffle when food is being served they are wrong.

It’s a good way to not get invited ever again.

It’s touchy either way.

40

Well, I think this is the reason to keep reasonable friends around and cut out the drama queens & kings :slight_smile: It’s just not worth getting upset about.

Personally, I wouldn’t even be annoyed. Vegans are what, 2% of the population? I certainly don’t expect the world to cater to me. I’m ecstatic whenever someone does offer to cook, but I wouldn’t take it for granted and I wouldn’t fault them for not wanting or being able to.

It’s one thing if I’m deathly allergic to something and the host flaunts it to my face (and risks my life in doing so). But most vegans are ideological or health ones, not because they’re actually allergic to the foods.

I guess I also take it less “seriously” than some vegans, though. It’s a lifestyle to some, a religion to others.

Oooh, speaking of non-militant veganism, that reminds me of a cool group… when I lived in Chicago, there was this group of vegans that organized a monthly eat-out at normal restaurants. But they were never militant about it.

Instead, they would reach out to restaurants around town (who normally did not have a vegan menu) and ask them if they’d be willing to cater a special night for a group of vegans. It was all prepaid, and any restaurant could say yes or no. Many would say “yes, but we don’t really have experience with this”, to which the organizer would say “no problem, I’ve taken a look at your menu and have some suggestions about how to easily veganize it for us… want to work together on a plan?” And so we’d end up dining out with delicious meals at places that were normally not at all vegan.

For some restaurants, it’d be a one-and-done and they never make those meals again. Others will take some of the entrees and incorporate them into their regular menu, while others will make a separate vegan menu after that.

That group has had way more success in pragmatically spreading vegan foods than I think groups like PETA ever did. Militant advocacy only speaks to a tiny amount of people, but everyone likes good food.