Not directly related to the post, but what is it with people getting all pissy when they find out you’re vegetarian/vegan? More than once I’ve had someone act like I told them I punch babies for fun when they find out I don’t eat meat. I don’t bring it up unprompted, it’s always in relation to a dietary concern. For example, I ordered a veggie dish at a restaurant, and they brought me the meat equivalent. I politely let the server know I ordered something else (apologetically I might add, because I feel like I’m being difficult to a service worker even though it’s about a dietary restriction), and she acted like I was out of line. Rolling eyes, huffy, and asked me if I wanted her to take it back (um, obviously?).
This has happened to me or friends in various social settings, and I just don’t get it. I even attended a cookout once where the host got mad at me for not eating his burgers. After I responded to the dietary restriction email. And brought my own dish. People act like you’re being a bitch for not eating meat! I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts, but people still talk behind my back like I’m being dramatic for not eating things I don’t want to.
The tension that results can make us feel stressed, irritated, and unhappy. But instead of resolving it by changing our beliefs or behaviour, it’s quite normal to blame these feelings on something else entirely – all without realising we’re doing it
In the case of eating meat, Rothgerber suggests we have a number of strategies – around 15 – which allow us to avoid facing up to the meat paradox. These include pretending that meat has no link to animals, imagining that we eat less of it than we really do, wilful ignorance about how it’s produced
[…]
Unfortunately, most of these are derailed by the presence of vegans.
According to Rothgerber, people tend not to think of meat eating as an ideology. The dominance of meat eating around the world helps the omnivores among us to avoid the idea that it’s a choice – it’s just what everyone else is doing. But when a vegan turns up at a dinner party, suddenly we’re bumped out of the comfortable “mainstream diet” category and into the unsettling “meat-eating” category. By their mere existence, vegans force people to confront their cognitive dissonance. And this makes people angry.
I’m always weirded out when people can’t just get over it. Things get hungry murder eat then shits it out. We all amount to nothing but one step in the great poop circle.
…or in some cases it’s much simpler: some of us have conditions that make it impossible for us to survive or to thrive on a vegan diet and we’re sick unto death of vegoons pushing Evangelical Veganism and acting like we don’t exist or we’re making it up to justify the moral failing of eating meat. And there’s the constant push to normalize veganism, which just expands the number of places I can’t eat and/or people I can’t eat with.
If that type of vegan didn’t exist I wouldn’t immediately start side-eying vegans until I find out of they’re safe or not.
Additionally, what conditions make it impossible to survive or thrive on a vegan diet? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious. Is it like multiple allergies? I know some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan. Is it like a fiber sensitivity or allergy problem?
There are about a dozen common ones that limit bioavailability of things like vitamin A or iron from plant sources. I don’t keep the list in my pocket, and the enshittification of search has risen to the point where trying to find it again just gets me lectured by an AI about how I should go vegan.
Also:
some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan.
While that’s technically true, it’s not actually easy to get things like Omega-3 from plant sources, and most of the nuts and seeds that have it are expensive and/or difficult to source.
You also have to basically spend a lot more of your free time figuring out a meal plan that will allow you to actually get all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients you need on a plant based diet, and you’ll still likely wind up eating the same meals every week bcs there’s only so many vegan sources of things your body really needs.
At the end of the day, veganism is a consumerist solution to structural problems. Much like snake oil to “reduce your carbon footprint”, it pushes responsibility for a societal problem back on the individual.
Is eating less meat, and having that meat be mostly fish and poultry a good thing for both your health and the environment? Absolutely. Is it nearly as impactful on either as getting rid of your car? I’d say probably not.
You’re taking veganism much too personally. I can count on one hand all the places that don’t serve meat at all within my city. Your options are not limited. Other’s dietary choices are not a slight to you. It is so easy to find a place that has at least one dish for either dietary preference. What if they were Buddhist, or another religion that restricts diet around meat, would that irk you as well? Why must others consume meat for your comfort?
I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
Huh. I haven’t heard of anything that explicitly requires meat protein for you to live, what do you have? And if you prefer not to say, obviously that is fine, I’m just curious. And not a vegan.
You must be like the only person in 100,000 to have a good reason to fear a vegan restaurant opening up nearby.
For me it’s a neuropsychological issue, not a digestive one.
I “can’t” eat most fruits and vegetables because they trigger my gag reflex so hard I can’t swallow them. After years of working with a dietician and a therapist, I’ve managed to get to the point where there are a few things I can eat that aren’t meat, bread, or ultra processed trash, but it’s hard.
Also: to be clear, I have just as much or more disdain for any other voluntary dietary restrictions. Kosher and Halal get the same side eye from me, having lived to middle age with both the constant side-eye from people who like to rag on “picky eaters” and the constant struggle of trying to find something to eat when out with friends, I view anyone who limits their eating options just because they can and they think there’s any kind of morality to what you eat as a person throwing away the massive gift of being able to just eat.
I hear you. I was raised vegetarian (mom is awesome) and have flip flopped between that and veganism my whole life. Growing up meatless and male has been a weird experience, with countless people telling me I’m not manly be cause I don’t eat dead animals. Wtf.
Sadly, I’ve also received the opposite, telling me I don’t really care because I’m not vegan enough (sigh)
Remind yourself that a lot of people fall into the trap of boosting themselves at the expense of others around them because it’s a low-hanging-fruit way to make themselves feel better. Their comments aren’t really about you. Someone’s always going to judge, no matter what we do. At least you try, that *is *worth something.
A good friend of mine is vegan and has been actually assaulted (old lady slapped him, which isn’t exactly being attacked with a tire iron, but it’s still fucking assault) because of it.
Another good friend is vegetarian, and when we went out for pizza, he ordered this one fancy pizza, and told them to hold the meat (entire pizza is veggie except for prosciutto). They brought it out with prosciutto on it, and when he said “I don’t eat meat” the server replied “it’s very thin” as if that made a difference to it being meat. It was genuinely quite funny in the moment. Lol. They did replace the pizza without any qualms or attitude, but I’ll never forget that moment. It’s thing, so it doesn’t count!
… Also, I do wish they’d left that pizza instead of taking it back. It looked so good, and whenever I visit them they like to starve me to death because they’re all tiny people with caloric deficits D:
Some people are just clueless. I was asking the hostess at a restaurant we were considering if they had anything vegan. And she said “we have shrimp?” Like, what rock are you living under?
Because your lifestyle choices are an affront to their lifestyle. In many places in the world eating meat is an important part of the culture. Saying that you don’t eat meat is seen as a rejection of the culture. And they will immediately label you as “the other”.
It’s like if a person says they are an atheist in a country where everyone is religious and religion is an important part of daily life. Even when the atheist isn’t judging anyone the atheist will receive negative reactions and even violence.
I try not to, but sometimes I have to for dietary reasons. I have to choose between going somewhere that has nothing I can eat, ordering a drink or a side, saying “I’m not hungry,” and eating at home, or risking peeving others with the audacity to not consume meat.
weirdly ive noticed alot of behavior like this even on lemmy and even in leftist communities on here. people just get really mad when a post even mentions someone being vegan. similarly i see people demonizing people who for riding bikes and i just get so confused at why they are on lemmy (a very leftist platform) if they despise commonly leftist things
There’s a name for this in the broader sense, though riding bikes may or may not fill into this (can if it’s for environmental reasons)
Do-gooder derogation is a phenomenon in moral psychology where a person’s morally motivated behavior leads to them being perceived negatively by others. The term “do-gooder” refers to a person who deviates from the majority in terms of behavior, because of their morality
Yeah it’s weird, I thought what’s the difference it’s like beans when I tried a vegan diet. Nope, I’ve never had anything that made my body want to vomit unless it was spoiled.
That is when you also mention you need to speak to a manager. l know it is now considered a “Karen” thing, but sometimes it really is the right course of action.
I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts
And that’s a good way to go about it. But unfortunately that’s not the case for every vegetarian or vegan, and as for every demographic, the loud and confrontational ones are always the ones that get the most attention. And this is coming from an atheist that doesn’t talk about religion unless directly asked about it, so I can sympathize.
The sad fact is that most people that are wary of vegans and vegetarians are like that because they’ve run into ones that are varying forms of asshole about their diets. Some of the antagonists throw insults, some will be dishonest, most will be some mix of the 2. Of course it’s not fair that those bad impressions are being applied to you as an individual, but it’s unfortunately also just human nature.
Just going through the other responses on here. Pretty much every other responder is trying to come up with some complicated Psychology 101 argument as to why people don’t like vegans despite the answer being simple.
Hell, I’ve run into vegans criticizing keto (which is weird because you can be vegan/vegetarian on a keto diet), and their tactic was to throw out something like 14+ research papers and pretend that they all backed up their claims. I went through all of the papers, and 1/3 were completely irrelevant, 1/3 weren’t even looking at proper keto (or even properly low-carb) diets, and the final 1/3 contraticted their points.
While this may have seemed like a tangent, it’s relevant to my point: people are messy, and they’ll sometimes be dishonest and/or contradictory, especially when they think they have the moral high ground. And people that are on the fence or disagree can see that dishonesty and it leaves a bad impression for the whole group.
To recap: just like with atheism, a lot of the issue is a small number of bad apples that give the group a bad name. All you can do is mind that fact and try to avoid being one of the bad apples yourself.
Not directly related to the post, but what is it with people getting all pissy when they find out you’re vegetarian/vegan? More than once I’ve had someone act like I told them I punch babies for fun when they find out I don’t eat meat. I don’t bring it up unprompted, it’s always in relation to a dietary concern. For example, I ordered a veggie dish at a restaurant, and they brought me the meat equivalent. I politely let the server know I ordered something else (apologetically I might add, because I feel like I’m being difficult to a service worker even though it’s about a dietary restriction), and she acted like I was out of line. Rolling eyes, huffy, and asked me if I wanted her to take it back (um, obviously?).
This has happened to me or friends in various social settings, and I just don’t get it. I even attended a cookout once where the host got mad at me for not eating his burgers. After I responded to the dietary restriction email. And brought my own dish. People act like you’re being a bitch for not eating meat! I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts, but people still talk behind my back like I’m being dramatic for not eating things I don’t want to.
The BBC has a good article on this concept
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200203-the-hidden-biases-that-drive-anti-vegan-hatred
I’m always weirded out when people can’t just get over it. Things get hungry murder eat then shits it out. We all amount to nothing but one step in the great poop circle.
…or in some cases it’s much simpler: some of us have conditions that make it impossible for us to survive or to thrive on a vegan diet and we’re sick unto death of vegoons pushing Evangelical Veganism and acting like we don’t exist or we’re making it up to justify the moral failing of eating meat. And there’s the constant push to normalize veganism, which just expands the number of places I can’t eat and/or people I can’t eat with.
If that type of vegan didn’t exist I wouldn’t immediately start side-eying vegans until I find out of they’re safe or not.
What do you mean “can’t eat at”?
Do you have an allergic reaction when you consume non-meat foods?
Something kinda like that, yeah.
Forgive my ignorance, but how tf are you alive?
Multivitamins and luck, mostly
Additionally, what conditions make it impossible to survive or thrive on a vegan diet? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious. Is it like multiple allergies? I know some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan. Is it like a fiber sensitivity or allergy problem?
There are about a dozen common ones that limit bioavailability of things like vitamin A or iron from plant sources. I don’t keep the list in my pocket, and the enshittification of search has risen to the point where trying to find it again just gets me lectured by an AI about how I should go vegan.
Also:
While that’s technically true, it’s not actually easy to get things like Omega-3 from plant sources, and most of the nuts and seeds that have it are expensive and/or difficult to source.
You also have to basically spend a lot more of your free time figuring out a meal plan that will allow you to actually get all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients you need on a plant based diet, and you’ll still likely wind up eating the same meals every week bcs there’s only so many vegan sources of things your body really needs.
At the end of the day, veganism is a consumerist solution to structural problems. Much like snake oil to “reduce your carbon footprint”, it pushes responsibility for a societal problem back on the individual.
Is eating less meat, and having that meat be mostly fish and poultry a good thing for both your health and the environment? Absolutely. Is it nearly as impactful on either as getting rid of your car? I’d say probably not.
I agree, but every little bit matters. You’re preaching to the choir here, I’m a leftist that would very much like massive structural changes.
You’re taking veganism much too personally. I can count on one hand all the places that don’t serve meat at all within my city. Your options are not limited. Other’s dietary choices are not a slight to you. It is so easy to find a place that has at least one dish for either dietary preference. What if they were Buddhist, or another religion that restricts diet around meat, would that irk you as well? Why must others consume meat for your comfort?
I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
Ah fuck. I didn’t know iron was derived from animals. Fuck, it’s basically blood!
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
I was joking about being a vampire and that being blood on Discord, I didn’t know I was twlling the truth 😭
There is also plenty of non-heme iron, to be fair, which is not from blood. Plants have tons of it from the ground and such
Huh. I haven’t heard of anything that explicitly requires meat protein for you to live, what do you have? And if you prefer not to say, obviously that is fine, I’m just curious. And not a vegan.
You must be like the only person in 100,000 to have a good reason to fear a vegan restaurant opening up nearby.
For me it’s a neuropsychological issue, not a digestive one.
I “can’t” eat most fruits and vegetables because they trigger my gag reflex so hard I can’t swallow them. After years of working with a dietician and a therapist, I’ve managed to get to the point where there are a few things I can eat that aren’t meat, bread, or ultra processed trash, but it’s hard.
Also: to be clear, I have just as much or more disdain for any other voluntary dietary restrictions. Kosher and Halal get the same side eye from me, having lived to middle age with both the constant side-eye from people who like to rag on “picky eaters” and the constant struggle of trying to find something to eat when out with friends, I view anyone who limits their eating options just because they can and they think there’s any kind of morality to what you eat as a person throwing away the massive gift of being able to just eat.
fuck that server though. what if instead of a voluntary dietary restriction you were allergic to meat?
What if – stick with me now – you wanted what you ordered and it was the server’s job to bring that to you? Fucking chaos, man.
I hear you. I was raised vegetarian (mom is awesome) and have flip flopped between that and veganism my whole life. Growing up meatless and male has been a weird experience, with countless people telling me I’m not manly be cause I don’t eat dead animals. Wtf.
Sadly, I’ve also received the opposite, telling me I don’t really care because I’m not vegan enough (sigh)
Remind yourself that a lot of people fall into the trap of boosting themselves at the expense of others around them because it’s a low-hanging-fruit way to make themselves feel better. Their comments aren’t really about you. Someone’s always going to judge, no matter what we do. At least you try, that *is *worth something.
A good friend of mine is vegan and has been actually assaulted (old lady slapped him, which isn’t exactly being attacked with a tire iron, but it’s still fucking assault) because of it.
Another good friend is vegetarian, and when we went out for pizza, he ordered this one fancy pizza, and told them to hold the meat (entire pizza is veggie except for prosciutto). They brought it out with prosciutto on it, and when he said “I don’t eat meat” the server replied “it’s very thin” as if that made a difference to it being meat. It was genuinely quite funny in the moment. Lol. They did replace the pizza without any qualms or attitude, but I’ll never forget that moment. It’s thing, so it doesn’t count!
… Also, I do wish they’d left that pizza instead of taking it back. It looked so good, and whenever I visit them they like to starve me to death because they’re all tiny people with caloric deficits D:
I think some cultures are entirely unfamiliar with the idea of not eating meat at all.
Like that line from Big Fat Greek Wedding. “He doesn’t eat meat? Is okay, I make lamb.”
They treat it the same way we might treat the phrase “he doesn’t drink.” Which means no alcohol, not “no consuming liquid of any kind.”
No meat is just taken to mean no whole meats, like cuts of steak. So you get “no meat in the soup, just a bit of the chicken stock for flavour.”
Some people are just clueless. I was asking the hostess at a restaurant we were considering if they had anything vegan. And she said “we have shrimp?” Like, what rock are you living under?
Because your lifestyle choices are an affront to their lifestyle. In many places in the world eating meat is an important part of the culture. Saying that you don’t eat meat is seen as a rejection of the culture. And they will immediately label you as “the other”.
It’s like if a person says they are an atheist in a country where everyone is religious and religion is an important part of daily life. Even when the atheist isn’t judging anyone the atheist will receive negative reactions and even violence.
https://lemmy.ml/comment/27989092
https://lemmy.ml/comment/27989092
Hugs.
This is why I don’t bring it up to other people.
I try not to, but sometimes I have to for dietary reasons. I have to choose between going somewhere that has nothing I can eat, ordering a drink or a side, saying “I’m not hungry,” and eating at home, or risking peeving others with the audacity to not consume meat.
That’s fair. I usually keep quiet and don’t eat, ordering a drink or maybe fries. I can understand and I’m glad you speak up for yourself though.
It points out how shameful and lazy meat eaters are to their face, and people don’t like having their poor choices pointed out to them.
I think it partially has something to do with the internet brainrot propaganda against veganism/vegetarianism
weirdly ive noticed alot of behavior like this even on lemmy and even in leftist communities on here. people just get really mad when a post even mentions someone being vegan. similarly i see people demonizing people who for riding bikes and i just get so confused at why they are on lemmy (a very leftist platform) if they despise commonly leftist things
There’s a name for this in the broader sense, though riding bikes may or may not fill into this (can if it’s for environmental reasons)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-gooder_derogation
Coming off the back of an asshole vegan calling meat eaters ‘genocidal monsters’, yeah im not seeing this supposed unprompted hate on vegans.
Generally I don’t care. I prefer phrasing it as dietary restrictions. I can’t eat wheat or lentils. And a lot of fruit makes my lips tingle and itch.
No dhal tadka? Damn, sorry to hear that mate. I’d be morose for ages. Also my favourite type of veggie burger.
Yeah it’s weird, I thought what’s the difference it’s like beans when I tried a vegan diet. Nope, I’ve never had anything that made my body want to vomit unless it was spoiled.
That is when you also mention you need to speak to a manager. l know it is now considered a “Karen” thing, but sometimes it really is the right course of action.
You’re probably right but my social anxiety would never let me lol
It is the same when telling people that you dont drink or take other drugs…
“You don’t smoke crack?! If I couldn’t smoke crack, I’d kill myself.” ~ them, probably.
deleted by creator
And that’s a good way to go about it. But unfortunately that’s not the case for every vegetarian or vegan, and as for every demographic, the loud and confrontational ones are always the ones that get the most attention. And this is coming from an atheist that doesn’t talk about religion unless directly asked about it, so I can sympathize.
The sad fact is that most people that are wary of vegans and vegetarians are like that because they’ve run into ones that are varying forms of asshole about their diets. Some of the antagonists throw insults, some will be dishonest, most will be some mix of the 2. Of course it’s not fair that those bad impressions are being applied to you as an individual, but it’s unfortunately also just human nature.
Just going through the other responses on here. Pretty much every other responder is trying to come up with some complicated Psychology 101 argument as to why people don’t like vegans despite the answer being simple.
Hell, I’ve run into vegans criticizing keto (which is weird because you can be vegan/vegetarian on a keto diet), and their tactic was to throw out something like 14+ research papers and pretend that they all backed up their claims. I went through all of the papers, and 1/3 were completely irrelevant, 1/3 weren’t even looking at proper keto (or even properly low-carb) diets, and the final 1/3 contraticted their points.
While this may have seemed like a tangent, it’s relevant to my point: people are messy, and they’ll sometimes be dishonest and/or contradictory, especially when they think they have the moral high ground. And people that are on the fence or disagree can see that dishonesty and it leaves a bad impression for the whole group.
To recap: just like with atheism, a lot of the issue is a small number of bad apples that give the group a bad name. All you can do is mind that fact and try to avoid being one of the bad apples yourself.
I, too, hate it when people get all uppity about something.