One word…flatulence.
As others have said, I just hate the preachy ones.
I know animals die for the meat in my diet. I know how they die. No, a vegetarian diet is not inherently healthier. No, our bodies are not evolved for a vegan diet. Our dentition and digestive tracts are for an omnivorous diet. So quit telling me we weren’t meant to eat meat. Yes, I know where leather comes from. I’m aware of the origins of gelatin as well.
At various Dopefests I’ve been to, there have been vegetarian Dopers. They informed the rest of us ahead of time. People made sure there were dishes they could eat. They didn’t preach at us. We didn’t try to force animal protein on them. (
Yeah, I don’t hate them unless they bug me, and only then because they won’t win an argument with me. Yes, I know how they live and die; I majored in animal science for two years, saw the slaughterhouse in action, saw them on the farm, helped take care of them and everything. I’m not bothered by it, so they can’t even begin to make me feel bad.
I don’t hate vegans or vegetarians. I’ve never met one of either. In fact, they’ve never crossed my mind at all, except for now, since you asked. If I’d ever been lectured or embarrassed at a restaurant by one, I’m sure I’d have an opinion. I’m of the school of thought that whatever anyone wants to do is fine, if it makes them happy; it isn’t any of my business.
I don’t understand their argument when I point out that some animals eat meat, usually by attacking and biting on their prey. Why can other animals eat meat and we cannot? You still wind up with a dead animal being used for food regardless of who does it. And if you try to get a lion or tiger to be vegetarian, aren’t you denying them their right to their “animalness?”
And if we aren’t supposed to eat meat and vegetable-based food is so great, why is so much substitute stuff flavored like meat or an attempt to be like meat? Like those fake chicken nuggets and Boca Burgers and such? If you are not going to eat meat, fine, then don’t eat “pretend meat” because it makes you look like you really DO want to eat meat and enjoy it.
I don’t see anything wrong with “fake meat.” It’s possible to like meat just fine but choose not to eat it or to eat less of it for ethical or health reasons.
Other animals do plenty of things we aren’t supposed to do. They walk around naked. Most animals will commit incest if given the opportunity. Mother hamsters will kill and eat their own children. ‘But, other animals do it’ is a weak argument.
How about by eating a lot of lentils and stuff, the same way many omnivores got fat by eating a lot of what they eat?
Two words. Evangelical vegetarians.
There’s nothing wrong with being a vegetarian; in fact, I actually have a lot of admiration for somene with the willpower to voluntarily restrict their diet. However, those that get preachy about it can get on my nerves. The animal rights-oriented evangelicals seem more obnoxious and self-righteous than the health-oriented evangelicals.
I don’t mind vegetarians or vegans, unless they preach to me or go on about how much better they are than me. But I feel the same way about teetotalers, religious people, atheists, and people who don’t watch TV.
I actually have an easy time cooking for or going to a restaurant with vegetarians- I keep kosher (but will eat vegetarian or kosher fish in a non-kosher restaurant), so I check restaurant menus for vegetarian options, too. At home, I’d just make a dairy meal that didn’t include fish- during an average week, I eat at least one or two meals that are like that.
French fries could easily be made vegan, for just one example of a vegan food that not many people would have trouble imagining getting fat from eating. Quite a few people, especially teenagers, just drop the meat from their diets without making an effort to eat healthier when they become vegetarian.
Because we, unlike other animals, have the moral capacity to understand that (according to vegetarians, at least) we shouldn’t eat meat. It’s sort of like why your dog can legally urinate or have sex in public, but you can’t.
I don’t know about vegetarians, but I do know that those things are great for people who keep kosher. The kosher rules don’t have a problem with eating meat, but say you can’t have it with dairy products. But there’s no problem eating fake meat with dairy products.
I baked a vegan wedding cake once - it was horrible. But I did it for vegan friends as a wedding gift (they also got a cake with eggs and milk and buttercream frosting for their non-vegan guests to enjoy - though SHE was of the “everyone should have to eat vegan” school of thought and only wanted one cake). It isn’t easy to pull off vegan in such a way that non-vegans are going to find it enjoyable (possible, but not easy) - and its particularly hard to do it cheap and simultanously fancy. You functionally have to find a caterer who is a kindred spirit - there are so many gotchas to vegan cooking (when you are going beyond the beans and rice level). “Surprise” dairy and “surprise” eggs creep into the weirdest places. Not to mention “surprise” meat (like geletain). And things like honey and processed sugar that usually (not always) appear on the vegan “no” list.
Evangelical anythings are always a royal pain in the ass. If you want the right to live your life as you want to, you have to give that same right to everyone else (with the obvious extreme exceptions).
Vegitarianism, or veganism isn’t offensive in it’s own right. It’s when someone insists that their diet is somehow superior to mine, lacking any sound evidence, that I get annoyed. Oh, and self-righteousness tends to piss me off, too - coming from either side of the disussion.
Look at your teeth in a mirror. Those are teeth designed to cut and eat flesh. If you choose not to eat flesh, well, that’s your call, and may you be happy with your choice. But look down your nose at me for using my teeth to their full design potential, and see if I don’t return the scorn, redoubled.
In all other respects, eh. Eat whatcha want - so long as you aren’t bugging me or mine, knock your socks off.
And if you aren’t a big veggie eater - vegetarian often becomes “breadatarian.” I’ve known a lot of vegetarians who don’t like vegetables - and a few that like neither vegetables or beans. That can lead to a fructose heavy, carb heavy diet. Add a taste for salt (chips) and a corresponding sweet tooth (cookies, pop) and you can be sunk.
Meat may be argueably horrible for you, but removing it from you diet and filling the space left with potato chips, bread, and Hershey bars is not going to be a weight loss plan.
Short answer - Preachy (you need to do this because I know better than you) and alarmist (you need to do this or you’re bad, or you need to do this or horrible terrible things will ensue) veggiepeople bug me, but preachy and alarmist people bug me in general. Meat eaters tend to be just as preachy and alarmist, with the additional component of often being premptively over-defensive!
Longer answer -
I used to be a fairly strict vegetarian for a while, I’m currently an “opportunistic vegetarian” which I define as, I make vegetarian food for myself, and if it’s easy to do so elsewhere I will, but if someone else has made dinner and it’s not vegetarian I will still eat it, and if I’m out at a restaruant and there’s no vegetarian choices, or none that I like, I will have something non vegetarian instead.
I didn’t have strong emotional reason behind being vegetarian. Some friends were veggiepeople so I was aware of the various issues. All the reasons to do it seemed pretty good. Certainly it’s healthier - the China study showed a clear link between the amount of meat consumed and levels of disease. Not to mention the rising issue of hormones, GM food, mad cow, etc. There are some environmental benefits (clear cutting, animal waste, efficiency of land use, etc). And the moral reasons were beneficial to both animals (save the animal from both death and from suffering) and people (making choices based on caring in general leads to a more peaceful state of mind and probably makes your overall personality a littler warmer). Granted things like just eating organic/free range meat address some of those issue to a degree. So I didn’t feel I needed to pick a specific reason, there were a bunch of good reasons to do it, and it was just a general good idea.
But I do have a wide variety of friends with diets all the way from “raw/vegan” up to “meat makes me macho”. Some of my veg friends are preachy or alarmist about their diets, but they tend to be the sort of folk who are preachy or alarmist or just talkative anyway. But most are not, some might think it would be cool if everyone were veggie but don’t think it’s their place to tell them so. And others do it for personal reasons and don’t really care what else everyone is doing. I basically didn’t/don’t bring up my diet except if the topic was brought up or I was specifically asked about it.
The thing I find interesting is that a lot of meat eaters are overly defensive of their own diets, often to the point of being preachy or alarmist, and also often preemptively. Some will ask me if I’m a veggieperson, prefacing the question before i answer with a long defense of why they feel justified in eating meat, or why they feel guilty about it but do it anyway, etc. I don’t see why they feel the need to justify themselves at all about their personal choices to someone they know only casually, doubly so when the person hasn’t even told them their own opinion yet. And in some rare scenarios, I find that some meat eaters are bullish about their diets - they make light of veggiepeople, insist that anything veggierelated is wrong, unhealthy, and pseudoscience, haggle them to try meat, etc. Or that they are somehow stronger, more macho, powerful intelligent people for eating meat. Many are also alarmist, not just about what could happen to the non meat eating person, but also about how it will affect society - as though one person choosing not to eat meat is going to inevitably lead to a constitutional amendment banning meat and a police state locking them away for having a Big Mac.
My vegan friends have been pretty good at providing palatable food the few times they’ve invited us over. The vegan chocolate cake was perhaps not the best thing in the world, and was curiously flat, but it tasted okay— and they’re skilled enough to do things with vegetables and grains that are pretty flavorful. I just adopt a “when in Rome” attitude when I’m there, and I gamely try the various meat substitute products my friend likes. Some are much better than others. (The vegan “fish” was… interesting, and unfortunately I’ve yet to try any vegan cheese that wasn’t utterly disgusting.)
They’re actually pretty good about not sermonizing, but nonetheless little comments about the agriculture industry, the incidence of preservatives and chemicals in food, and how much their health has improved since giving up meat, etc., always seem to find their way into the conversation. Going out to eat with them is perilous because there’s nearly always some special request or other that the kitchen screws up, causing the meal to be sent back.
I think aside from the desire to convert, or to prevent cruelty, part of the reason vegans tend to *talk * so much about it is that being a vegan pretty much sucks. You miss out on a lot of things that other people find pleasurable, and that you probably used to as well. If you’re going to suffer, you at least want to make sure everyone recognizes and admires your suffering.
It isn’t?? Well damnit, there goes that idea.
Orginally posted by DocCathode
Wait, so you’re equating eating meat with something we’re not supposed to do? Okay, according to who’s authority and what evolutionary evidence? What incontravertable argument is there for that “not supposed to be eating meat” point? The point is, our bodies are equipped to eat meat just like other animals and we can and do eat meat.
And I suppose we could argue that as to the other things you say animals do that we are not “supposed” to do, are you saying they are “wrong”? If it were evolutionary advantageous for us to eat our young, or to go around naked or have incest when nothing else were available or it were the norm, then I assure you, we would do it. That’s the fun thing about nature, it does what it needs regardless of whether it’s “supposed” to.
Yep. This pretty much sums it up for me, too. That self-righteous attitude is what makes me want to shove a ham steak down their throats. If you have dietary restrictions that are religious in nature, I will respect them. If you are under doctors orders to not let animal products into your system because you will die, ditto. If you are doing it just to eat “healthier,” then I will try to be accomodating, but I won’t bust my hump over it. If you are doing it because of the poor little animals and their suffering, then you are on your own. I won’t lift a finger to help your martyrdom, and I’ll eat a double-cheeseburger in your honor.
No I’m not. I’m an omnivore. I was simply pointing out that ‘But, other animals eat meat’ is a weak argument. Anne Neville made the point that dogs walk around naked, and urinate and copulate in public.
If you’ll read my first post to this thread, you’ll see I agree with you that our bodies are clearly suited to an omnivorous diet.