Don’t make my meal miserable by making faces and noises like yewch, and I won’t do it for you. Do it and you can eat by yourself. I also won’t redo the menu to be fully vegetarian. The other guests have just as much weight in deciding what is in a meal.
I don’t have anything against vegetarians. I just hated walking into the school cafeteria to find an atrocious looking meat dish and something that would look delicious if only it had more meat and less tofu in it as my choices for a main course.
(I have nothing against tofu either, I just don’t care for it in any real amount)
As was said, I can cook around almost any dietary restriction. And I will be glad to do it. Not only that, I will do it well enough that people without that restriction are going to eat it and like it (and maybe not even notice, in some cases). Just don’t surprise me. Tell me in advance. Heck, I might even be able to whip something up if you arrive early and tell me before I am ready to serve.
I don’t mind the veges/vegans who sit at the table and eat just some bread and salad because I didn’t know I had to prepare for them. Don’t bring your own food, though. I find that to be the rudest thing. At least check with me first. Don’t just pull some tin foil out of your handbag and open it on your plate.
Well, when you put it like that, what’s not to dislike? 
Seriously, all of the stuff you list is your opinion, and you present it with an air of superiority. That’s what gets people going. Beyond a healthy diet, nothing you put in your mouth “betters yourself” - and a vegan diet can be unhealthy, and an omnivorous one can be healthy. The environment? Protecting animals? Taking advantage of animals? All of these are also up for debate. I’m not saying I myself don’t agree with you on some of them, but there are other people with other opinions that can back them up with facts and sites that don’t agree with you.
Veganism isn’t an end-all great thing that makes you a better person, and I get sick of people presenting it as such. That said, I don’t care what you eat, as long as you don’t proselytize about it. Just say “I’m a vegan” and be done with it. Don’t tell me “I’m a vegan because I’m for the environment! It makes me a better person! I’m for animals!” like it’s impossible for someone who is NOT a vegan to be for the environment, a good person, or like animals.
The “What are your main beans with Atheism” thread?
This attitude? This right here? Is what I hate. The smarmy, judgemental attitude that essentially boils down to: “why don’t people understand how much better I am than them?”
Irks me to no end, whether it’s coming from smug vegans, smug religious folk, or smug rich folk.
Ditto. The only time I’m annoyed is when they don’t let me know about their restrictions prior to dining at my place. I always go out of my way to serve three or four vegetarian-friendly dishes for the anti-meat folks. And I feel like a lousy hostess if everyone else is pigging out while the vege-head is nibbling on a breadstick.
I also agree with the others who are annoyed by those who say they’re eating healthier than the rest of us. Man has chowed down on meat since forevah, and there’s no health risk that I can see, as long as there’s no obesity.
Come to think of it, most of the vegans I know could stand to lose a couple pounds. Too much pasta maybe?
I’ve been known to describe myself as a vegetarian who hates other vegetarians. I say that because of the kind of casual superiority you’re displaying here. I don’t think I’ve met any other vegetarians like that on a personal level, but there seem to be enough advocates who will talk that way.
Vegetarians don’t annoy me, certain people do. There are annoying meat-eating people, too, who believe a meal just isn’t complete unless you have all meat in there. Veggies are yummy.
Yeah, if all these vegans have “bettered themselves” by being vegans, I would have hated to meet them before they were vegans.
I’m going to have to agree with this. It bugs me to no end that some vegetarians/vegans or organic/free-range-only eating folks have a holier-than-thou attitude. Yes, there are terrible problems with the meat industry, and animals are cool, but just because someone eats meat doesn’t mean they don’t care about the environment or animals.
Most people I’ve run into who look down on such vegetarians/vegans I believe do so because often they see them as condescending. “I’m better than you because I choose not to kill poor, helpless animals for food.” I gotta say, it doesn’t make one want to respect your dietary decisions all that much, regardless of whether or not they’re actually better on some grand moral scale.
I know plenty of aforementioned vegetarians/vegans or organic/free-range-only eating folks, and I can’t think of anyone that I’m friends with who displays this attitude towards me. I have, in the past, come across people with whom I’m not terribly close to who did, however. It may be part of the reason I’m not so close to them. If you want to be a vegan, be a vegan, just don’t attack the rest of us because we aren’t. If you want others to better the environment, as well as yourself, advocate reform in the meat industry.
Folks, the OP is 14. Can you blame a 14 year old who already posts to the Dope for feeling a little superior? 
Agreed, but OFFER to bring your own food (or better yet, a dish to share). I’ll say no. But its the acknowledgement of “I don’t want you to have to cook special for me.”
The veggies we have that come with their own cooler do it out of self defense. They’ve been to too many BBQs where they’ve been forgotten (though they’ve been vegetarian with the same friends for 20 years - and aren’t even the only vegetarians) and have gotten to have a dinner of potato chips and a hamburger bun. And they come with three kids who need to eat something other than potato chips. So they bring the cooler. And, after 20 years - hey, they bring the cooler. We much perfer that to the surprise vegetarians or the ones that you planned for and then announce that Boca burgers or Morningstar Farms burgers aren’t acceptable because they are owned by a non-green conglomerate.
I’m a vegetarian. I hate people who try to sneak or force meat on me. I hate people who think vegetarians eat fish (I hate fish and wouldn’t eat ir under any circumstances). I hate people who make a big deal abou what they can/cannot eat.
I usually bring some fancy cheese to bar-b-cues. While I’m eating cheese and veggie sandwiches, other people are enjoying different cheeseburgers and cheese dogs.
There is also a real visceral reaction to someone who won’t share food with you. So many social rituals are centered on a shared meal–it seems to be pretty deeply embedded in people’s mind that our friends are the people we eat with. I, for one, wouldn’t eat with or provide food for one of the 2-3 people I’ve known that I really think are bad people. So I think people have a negative emotional reaction when people reject an offer of food. Now, that can be overcome–being civilized is all about rising about gut-level negative reactions–but I think vegetarians and vegans need to remember that when they are rejecting food it often is seen as rejecting not food, but a gift. And rejecting a gift is a delicate thing.
Well, there are people who claim to be vegetarian and DO eat fish, so I can sort of understand that one.
Trying to foist meat on people who don’t want it is incredibly assholeish though.
No doubt the OP comes off as more than a little self-righteous. And you’re right to question the health effects, and maybe even the benefit to the environment. But please direct me to the debate over whether veganism is more protecting of animals than a diet and lifestyle involving animal products. I just don’t see it.
I said that I didn’t necessarily subscribe to those beliefs! But I have talked to people who would argue that animals don’t need to be protected, or that factory farms actually prolong the species, or whatever. Like I said, it’s not a belief that I myself follow. But there’s whackjobs on all sides of the spectrum, and the point I was making is that there’s many sides to a story, and in general people find it annoying when other people present their opinion as fact or the only “right” opinion to have.
Also, the argument that being a vegan = protecting animals doesn’t necessarily follow. Omnivorous animal rights activists exist. In my opinion, someone who actively promotes animal welfare (working in animal rights, or a job that involves making sure farm animals are treated well, or a really great veterinarian for example) is higher on the “protecting animals” scale than someone who simply doesn’t eat meat. Just deciding to avoid meat is passive & relatively easy compared to going into animal rights as a career.
While I’m endlessly amused by the “can you believe they tried to serve me chicken! I told them I was vegetarian and got the ‘but you can eat chicken’ line back, again!” stories - they really aren’t great stories to drop in the middle of a dinner featuring Aunt Sue who doesn’t know a thing about vegetarians and believes you are mocking her - because she always though vegetarians could eat chicken - she knows someone at work who eats chicken and describes themselves as a vegetarian.
Be explicit - there are self described vegetarians who run the whole range from “we have a vegetarian household at home and around the kids, but if I go out with friends I’ll eat steak” to vegans who refuse anything manufactured with animal products (including leather). I have a friend who won’t eat red meat - unless he shoots it himself (he hunts deer), one that added fish only when the kids were born, one that is an “in the house for the wife” vegetarian - the variation in self described vegetarians is huge.