It's odd when people get defensive about it when you just say you're vegetarian, but I know it happens. My SO was vegetarian for 14 years and this happened from time to time. Sometimes the comment that having animals killed on your behalf is a flag that this person thinks it is amoral to kill animals for food. Meat is murder after all. I recognize very much so that not all vegetarians are like that.
Interesting. As a former vegetarian, I was always a little surprised when someone would take offense at my vegetarianism, even if I hadn't said anything. They just assumed there was a critique implied.
I was a vegetarian for a long time. It started with health concerns and morphed to ethical concerns. I noticed that a lot of people are hostile when you say you are doing it for ethical reasons (e.g. for animal welfare or environmentalism), but are satisfied with the idea that you're doing it for your own health.
To be fair, a ton of vegetarians are smug, moralizing douchebags who do attack others on their decision to eat meat. There's a humorous saying: "How do tell if someone is vegetarian/vegan? Don't worry: they will let you know."
There was a girl in my dorm during freshman year of college who would literally start sobbing if she saw anyone eat meat.
I've never been a vegetarian and never been tempted by it. However, if meat can be approximated very well then I'm excited by the idea of displacing much of the environmental impact of producing meat. Even if real meat never goes away fully.
I don't consider myself problematic for eating meat. However, clinging to meat on principle, to the point of getting triggered like this with accusations and insults, is just shitty.
I'm vegetarian. I never bring it up, but when other people find out about it they will not shut the fuck up about it.
They will tell me why they aren't vegetarian, they will ask me why I'm one, and they will tell me about all the vegetarians or vegans in their lives who they claim won't stop talking about it. I suspect that's more than a little projection.
Meat is just a part of some people's identity, just like sexuality, religion, and politics. And they react along the typical spectrum of reactions for those things.
I dated a vegetarian for a while and people would always ask her dumb questions about it and make unoriginal (basically exact same) jokes about it so I sympathize with you to a degree.
On the other hand, I find it annoying that a vegetarian can draw the line in the sand and decide what is morally correct for everyone to believe.
I'm sure there are vegans judging you for eating (milk, eggs etc. whatever you do eat), and there are "vegetarians" that eat seafood who think you are too extreme, and there are probably people who only eat plants that died of natural causes who think all those groups are terrible and should have more self control over their diet.
The article was pretty interesting and novel to me and if you get a few more dumb questions from people, I don't think it is the end of the world.
I'm not sure if this is what you were suggesting, but there seems to be some misconception that vegetarians don't like meat.
I like meat, in fact I love it. I used to contribute to a food blog reviewing steak restaurants. I love the smell and (the thought of) the taste. I haven't eaten meat for about five years because of environmental reasons, not because I dislike it.
Not eating meat is such an easy thing for most people to do, the facts are in front of us and it would make a significant difference. It does not fill with me with optimism that most are unwilling to do even this.
I loathe telling people I'm a vegetarian for this reason. People think that my decision to not eat meat is an attack on _them_ and not a choice I've made for myself.
Well the headline is about people's claims that they don't eat meat, not about whether that claim matches your definition of what a vegetarian is.
Similarly there are cultural and possibly generational differences to these things. In the US people seem to use a very strict definition, but I have lived in places where a meal without meat in it is considered vegetarian, even if it contains animal products like lard. These people might not be vegetarian according to your standards, but if they consider themselves to be how should they answer the question on a survey?
Plus I mean, it is ok. It is. If someone asks me I will tell them I don't smoke because my identity is as a nonsmoker, even though I had a cigarette a few months ago. Individuals could reject my claim based on their view of what that cigarette means, but that doesn't make me wrong to make the claim or identify in this way.
I've never seen myself as a vegetarian, but increasingly as I get older I can't deal with the cognitive dissonance of eating meat and my feelings about individual animals.
I mean, my fiancee and I used to rescue shelter dogs, and I can't square that behavior of putting through chickens and cows through hell in factory farms.
I still eat meat, but I feel like I'm getting closer to not doing that every day.
I tell people I'm vegetarian only when I am offered meat, which yes happens regularly. So I have no choice. Eating is social, so anyone who hangs with me for any amount of time is going to figure out I'm vegetarian.
I am not sure if that is even weird tbh. Maybe I am an outlier, but I know a lot of vegetarians and can't think of a single time where they have commented about someone eating meat.
The dogma around vegetarianism/veganism is absurd.
Someone who never eats meat and who eats meat a few times a year are nearly indistinguishable compared to someone who eats meat every day.
The purity tests are childish. Eating meat on rare occasions doesn’t make you not a vegetarian.
To your point, I have no idea and I would give little stock to someone who would actually care. You’ve almost certainly eaten some insects in your produce in your lifetime, does that mean it wasn’t vegetarian?
I've not intentionally eaten meat in over 15 years. The only real definition of vegetarian is someone who makes a conscious choice to not eat something that contains meat. Just because someone may still crave meat but chooses not to eat it doesn't make them any less of a vegetarian.
I'm omnivorous. I can't even imagine people having an issue with being vegetarian now. It's just so common. Around my area, finding out a person is vegetarian leads to an exchange of recipes.
I've personally dined with three vegetarians at the meals where they went to try the Impossible Burger for the first time.
It's dangerous to make blanket statements about what all vegetarians think. For example, on the question of why someone has chosen to be a vegetarian, I've heard a long list of different reasons, including: animal welfare, environment, their own health/longevity/energy, not liking the taste of meat, not enjoying the idea of eating an animal's flesh (even if it were ethical), their religion encourages it, and/or it's their default because they were brought up that way and have never tasted meat.
I'll just keep saying it in this thread, but not once did I say everyone should give up meat. In fact I said go at it, go hunt and kill and eat it!
But the fact that people feel defensive whenever the thought of vegetarianism comes up to me points to the fact that deep down people on an individual level know that it is, to some degree, wrong.
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