Reader question: how do you deal with rude meat-eaters?
I would be curious how your vegetarian readers deal with friends who are carnivores and feel the need to explain why meat is good.
I’m not even a vegetarian, but I experience negative energy when I order vegetarian meals at restaurants with friends. It’s funny to hear the childish responses–from otherwise very smart people!
For me personally, I suppose I’m pretty lucky that I don’t get such reactions too often (although I definitely got my share of ridicule in high school, when I first became a vegetarian).
But I do get them - especially people who react to the news of my vegetarianism with “I could NEVER live without meat” or something of that ilk followed by a description of how much they like steak. What I really want to say in response is “Firstly, of course you could live without meat, and secondly, no one asked you to.” But I usually try to be polite and interpret their ridiculous comments as just trying to make conversation, however awkwardly. I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to social awkwardness. :)
So, readers, tell us about your experiences. Do you get negative reactions to your vegetarian choices from friends or acquaintances? How do you handle them? Share your stories in the comments!
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POSTED IN: Tales From the Veg Side, Thoughts
20 opinions for Reader question: how do you deal with rude meat-eaters?
Samantha
Feb 25, 2008 at 1:30 am
I deal with them by ignoring them. They can make their rude comments all they like; it really doesn’t bother me. I just roll my eyes and eat my vegetables.
Katie Edwards
Feb 25, 2008 at 2:07 am
I’m in highschool and a vegetarian.
I get negative reactions all the time for it and sometimes extremely funny ones.
Most of the time I just tune people out while they describe -in detail- just what they love about meat. And since I live in East Tennessee, just what they did on their last hunting trip.
Usually, I just tell them that I don’t care what they eat. That usually shuts them up because they are just trying to get a rise out of me.
My favorite reaction was that I was at lunch about two weeks ago, and this guy that sits at our table heard my friends and I talking about vegetarian-ish stuff, and he goes,”You’re a vegetarian! I’ve never seen a vegetarian before!”
Needless to say, I burst out laughing in his face. :D
Probably not the most tactful way of dealing with it, but…there it is.
oots
Feb 25, 2008 at 4:01 am
I’ve had negative and even inappropriate reactions and figure there are a few reasons for this.
One, the person is ignorant about vegetarianism. That perhaps we don’t really *understand* how important meat is, I mean come on: THE PROTEIN, WHAT WILL WE DO FOR PROTEIN!?!!
Sometimes people are just rude and insensitive, no helping them no matter what the topic of conversation.
Then there are the trickiest ones — the people who you strike a nerve with. They get defensive for some reason, so I think it’s best to let them sort through that. These are the most likely to become vegetarian if you don’t startle them! lol
Either way, I find it best to just put on a smile and pay no mind. Sometimes, people get interested and even make life changes as a result. So best to be respectful to others even when you’re not shown that same respect, you never really know where they’re coming from. :)
Ward
Feb 25, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It has never been much of a problem for me either. Maybe that is because I have generally lived in places that are more friendly to vegetarians. Do other people find it to be regional? More common among young/immature people?
Jul
Feb 25, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Samantha - “I just roll my eyes and eat my vegetables.” I think that’s my favorite quote of the day!
Katie - I think laughing in someone’s face is sometimes the perfect response. :) Also - I went to high school in eastern Tennessee, too! Small world…
Jul
Feb 25, 2008 at 2:07 pm
oots - The protein, indeed! I have yet another post on this subject in the works - it’s one of those misconceptions that just won’t go away.
Ward - I definitely get different reactions depending where I am. But I’ve lived in so many places, I’m having a hard time remembering which reactions were most common in which places… College was definitely the time/place where I got the best reactions, but that’s because meat eaters were practically a minority there. :)
Lisa
Feb 25, 2008 at 4:58 pm
My biggest challenge has been my mom. She grew up on meat and potatoes, with a side of some other veggie or salad - you know, the balanced diet. She had a really hard time figuring out what to do about me. My first couple of visits post-vegetarian were a struggle, and she would grill me about what I was eating, where I was getting my vitamins, my protein, etc. She quickly realized I was more educated about all of it than she, so she backed off :) She still won’t cook for me, but that’s a different issue.
Besides her, everyone I know has been more supportive than I thought they would - no judgements, just curiosity.
Healthy
Feb 25, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Here’s one of my favorite stories ever.
One Christmas I was dining in a restaurant with my family. Everyone had this gross meat type dishes. I choose a platter of raw vegetables.
I got the typical, “I can’t eat like that…” blah, blah, blah ….
Then once the food came, people were complaining, “Mine is overcooked … mine is undercooked.”
I laughed and said, “Mine is PERFECT!”
You just can’t go wrong with raw vegetables :)
Rox
Feb 25, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I get more funny reactions than anything. I can’t help but laugh on occasion. My mother in law once said “why can’t you eat beef, aren’t cows vegetarian?” I just laughed it off.. or the other favorite from my family is “you can’t eat fish! fish isn’t meat?”. Needless to say I go through the explanation of what is meat in both circumstances
Presh
Feb 26, 2008 at 1:35 am
Jul, thanks for putting up the question.
These answers are very informative and entertaining. Thank you all.
Jul
Feb 26, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Thanks to everyone for sharing their answers and stories. Keep them coming!
Presh - glad you’re enjoying the responses. :)
madeinalaska
Feb 26, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I choose to just ignore them as well. I went out to eat w/ a good friend of mine who is forever telling me she is hypoglycemic and needs to eat meat every couple of hours.. or she gets sick..I do believe she has told me this a thousand times… at dinner the tofu soup obviously was made w/ meat -eww so I politely passed on it. She tells me life is too short to be that picky..urrhhh ummm no its NOT!
I always want to pass the rude carnivors a card w/ the meet your meat webaddress on it.
Leng
Feb 29, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Oh I have had many many negative experiences when I first became a vegetarian.
The first comments I got were:
“oh, she fell into all the propaganda.” (this I don’t really understand because animal cruelty is a fact!)
“you’re wasting away.” (this comment hurt me the most)
“Eat something, I see your bones!” (which is odd because I’m at a healthy weight for my height, 5′4 @ 122 lbs)
I also got made of a lot! and because of that I lost many many friends. I guess they weren’t friends to begin with because they were never there to help me through it.
I spent so many days feeling sh*tty about myself and began to think that my decision to go meat-free was wrong, but I never tried to eat meat again–it just felt too guilty.
It was amazing to me that with all of this negativity surrounding my life there was (is) someone who supported me all the way through it–my dear sweet husband. He was vegan for about 7 years, then went vegetarian and He was my main support. I don’t think that I would have maintained a vegetarian lifestyle without him.
So, for those who are having trouble sticking to it or if you’ve went through what I went through, I would recommend trying to find something, or someone, in your life and focus on that to help you get through rough times.
Jul
Mar 3, 2008 at 12:50 pm
madeinalaska - tofu soup with meat? That kind of thing is so frustrating. I hate it when a perfectly good veg dish gets messed up because someone goes and dumps meat into it.
Leng - thanks for sharing your story! I’m glad you have someone so supportive to lean on.
Jules
Mar 4, 2008 at 4:57 am
My mom seems to “forget” I’m a vegetarian every time I visit. “Oh honey, you must try this pork. It’s delicious!”
Mom, I don’t eat pig, remember? “Oh, just try it”, she says. “I wish you’d just get over this.”
It makes me a little nuts.
Elaine Vigneault
Mar 8, 2008 at 1:31 am
I’m socially awkward so sometimes I’ll get all rude right back at them. Other times I just ignore them. Ideally, I like to have a witty comeback for most comments. But realistically, I’m just not that cool.
Generally, I make a mental note to avoid food centered events with them in the future. It’s a self-preservation mechanism. I’d simply rather not be surrounded by negative omnis unless I have to be.
Sistergolden
Mar 12, 2008 at 3:43 am
The last time I went home to visit, my mom made a huge pot of beans and ham (which I never liked, even when I was a carnivore). She said, oh honey, I made you and your husband an extra pot, they’re vegetarian!
We were grateful that she tried… but could tell she just put some of the big batch in the small pot, then picked out the larger pieces of meat. I can’t imagine Mom purposely tricking us into eating meat - I think some people just don’t understand.
Manda
Aug 5, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I’d really like to know why people feel the need to assert they’re meat-eatingness. They find out I’m a vegetarian and start flaunting the fact they eat meat. I ignore them of course, but it would be nice to know the psycological reasons. Is it they feel guilty? I’ve made no action or comment to condone they’re life style but they go out of they’re way to make sure I know theirs. Sheesh.
My mom just doen’t get it either. I come from a family of hunters. My grandfather raises his own cows for slaughter, and here I go…off into the blasphemous realm of vegetarianism! Mom will make comments like “It’s okay to cheat”. “It’s not a diet mom, it’s a moral choice. You don’t ‘cheat’ on your morals”, I say. I don’t think she gets it.
I’ve had ‘friends’, while eating at a resterant, lean over and chew they’re hamburger in my ear and say “mmm, beef”. I take it all in stride and laugh at them and say “have fun with that heart attack”, but it’s still very rude and a bit hurtfull that they don’t have enough respect for me not to do that.
Scarlet B
Aug 27, 2008 at 8:15 pm
When I first “converted” my boyfriend slowly turned too, whe I shared with him the benefits for athletes. He is a very confident (not cocky) guy and a “take me as I am” type of person, so we’d be haning out with a bunch of people and he’d go “Katie and I are vegetarians now” and I would just like *shrink* like, no don’t tell people! They’ll think we’re weird… as time went on, we both were amazed at what a hard time we got from just about everyone we told… But he always just let it roll off him, and he continued to share the info proudly. I’m trying to be the same way, but I just feel like it’s not fair that I have to justify myself to everyone. I know meat tastes good… I ate it for 23 years of my life… don’t make me gross you out with the reasons why I stopped eating it. Which, I wouldn’t. I just try to say, it;s a personal choice for me, becaus eI love animals, don’t want to impact the environment negatively, and find it a healthy and satisfying lifestyle… what I don;t get is, it’s not like I’m suddenly eating weird unacceptable things.. I’m just NOT eating meat… why does everyone have sucha problem with that? Thank God for my boyfriend..
mark
Oct 29, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hi Folks
I have not eaten meat for around 35 years, so tend to have afew answers
My favourite is,Oh, the poor thing didnt have a chance
Next is, ahhh, its still moving, its alive.
Of course, the best is, it looks like shit, and smells like shit, thats why they pour sause all over it.
Plus, now you know why all these people look so ugly, and are so fat.
I dont last to long in a restaraunt, lots of nasty looks
Or, I prefer animals alive, not dead
When they ask if I want meat, I say, no dead animals for me please
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