I don’t care if I offend people who are offended by that. I even heckle vegetarians while they’re eating. I’m paying for it. The menu prices reflect the cost of doing business, and it costs more to put vegetarian selections on the menu. If you don’t like what the restaurant serves, eat somewhere else, or learn to like it, which my mom made me do when I was five years old.
One serving of meat per week or month or year is not going to shorten your life, or save the planet, or improve your chances of getting into Heaven.
It’s a moot question for me. I wouldn’t be eating* with someone who concerned themselves with my diet choices, or who defined themselves by theirs. Order what you want, and I’ll do the same.
I can’t imagine any situation where my food choices depend upon who I’m with, unless I was specifically invited to try a certain meal. So I’d order what I want and I certainly wouldn’t make a big deal about what another person orders.
I would order whatever seemed most appealing to me on the menu, which would probably but not necessarily include meat. I would be open to the possibility of going to an all-vegetarian restaurant, if I had reason to expect that it would be good, and in that case, I’d obviously be ordering something vegetarian. And if it’s a context where we’d be expected to be eating the same food, such as a pizza place, or most home meals, then I’d eat vegetarian.
I did once highly confuse my father at a restaurant. It was a pizza place, and I recommended one particular pizza they had that I’d had before and liked, and which happened to be vegetarian. He couldn’t fathom the idea that anyone would ever voluntarily not eat meat, in any situation where eating meat was an option.
Normally I would order the meat I want, I may offer the vegi sides to them, but I in no way want to start the precedent that I will not order meat, because I have found that I need it, both physically and spiritually, and need to listen to my body. For some vegetarians it does open up the lines of discussion of thankfulness and spirituality is not tied to being a vegan (or vegi-t) as I’ve heard some claim (that vegi-t is required for higher forms of spirituality), but that is just legalism (legalism is normally christian used term for a religious like practice for it’s own sake and to condemn others who do things differently, and sometimes associated with a demon).
Strangely (to me), I get more comments from people about what I eat or don’t eat that have nothing to do with being vegan or vegetarian. (I am not vegan or vegetarian.)
People I’m eating with will make a huge deal out of the fact that I won’t tolerate olives in any form being on my plate. I ask about it when I order and, if necessary, remove the olives from the dish and dispose of them on a side plate. I’m not allergic to them. People (including vegetarians) will make a big scene out of this. It sometimes becomes embarrassing.
A similar thing happens with beans, peas, and other legumes. I love them. I’ll order split pea soup every time if I can get it. But other diners will often go out of their way to tell me how much they hate them and how they can’t understand someone eating them. (“My mother served split pea soup and my whole family wondered why we were being punished!”) For some reason, this does not include lentils. Lentils must have better PR or something.
Two of my best friends are vegetarians (well one will eat fish). One, I know would like to eat meat. She told me the other day how she dreams of a good corned beef and cabbage. So that’s right out. I’m not a big meat eater, but while I do enjoy a big ole piece of prime rib once in a while, I’ll order something a little less “in your face meat”.
Yeah, I’m with those who will order what they want and let the vegetarian deal with his or her own issues. I don’t tell them to eat meat, and they don’t tell me not to.
Having said that, I have no problem eating vegetarian and probably half of my meals contain no meat anyway. I’ve had friends who are vegetarians and when they’ve asked me to dine with them made great apologies about wanting to go to mainly vegetarian friendly places. No worries. I don’t have to eat meat at every goddam meal, and many vegetarian dishes are delicious. Plus, I like to try new things anyway.
I am a vegetarian, and I do not police other people’s eating habits. Indeed, I find the whole topic extremely boring. Eat what you what to. And order alcohol, but don’t expect me to eat the flesh and drink the booze.
Having eating out with some strict kosher folks, I also have no problem going to a strict kosher restaurant.
What restaurant are we eating at and how was it chosen?
If I chose it, knowing that my dining partner was a vegetarian, odds are it has some really good vegetarian options and possibly good meat ones too, and if they chose it, odds are that is has good options for both.
Given either of those like John Mace I might try a veggie choice that sounds adventurous or different. Or not if something else appeals more.
If this is a restaurant that the vegetarian has to have steamed broccoli and a baked potato or a plain salad and that has no appealing vegetarian choices then I would wonder why we went there. Is this a conference or meeting of some sort with a colleague I just met and we decided to grab a meal together to continue our conversation with my not knowing their dietary status and they said naught as I suggested the “American Grill” place down the street? Then I’d feel a bit bad as I ordered the ribs I had had the hankering for but really they should have spoken up. But even those places usually have decent veggie plates and if so then I don’t feel bad at all.
No I would not order a plate of steamed veggies out of fear of offense. And I’ve never met that mythic vegan who gets offended if a non-vegan eats non-vegan near them. Oh the rare one who implies some ethical superiority on their part but they are usually new to the choice.
Making a choice that you know will leave your dining partner with only poor or no food choices when there are other places to go that have better choices for them is rude. I can find lots to enjoy at almost any restaurant, vegan, kosher, halal … so going to one of them is not rude to me.
I often have breakfast with a friend at the local diner. We both order the bacon and egg special with fries and toast. Since she’s a low-carb person, she eats all the bacon and most of the eggs, while I eat a little bit of eggs and all the fries and toast.
I order what I want to eat. The vegetarian is free to do the same.
Most vegetarians piss me off, but not for their food choice; what anyone shoves in their calorie hole is their business, not mine.
No, what pisses me off about vegetarians is their tendency to either “witness” to me like an Evangelical Christian about the superiority of their food-choice lifestyle, or to try to guilt-trip me over mine, with their smug sense of moral superiority.
Seriously, I could stab 'em in the thigh with a greasy steak knife.
Are these seriously real life experiences you’ve had? Because I’ve known many many many vegetarians, hell each of my kids went through a phase of being one (“they got better”), and I’ve experienced very very very little of that (and then from one fresh to having made the choice and brimming with new conversion enthusiasm which faded fast). What crowd do you hang with? I seriously wonder why your experience and mine differ so much.