by publius
Ben Adler has a good thorough rundown at TAP on the effects of meat consumption on global warming. Interestingly, he notes that environmentalists have been hesitant to urge people to eat less meat, despite the fact that it’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint. The reason, Adler suggests, is that they’re scared of looking like dirty hippies:
To most Americans, veggies and tofu are a laughable substitute. . . . Environmentalists, who know they must change the stereotype that they are all either tree-hugging radicals or self-righteous scolds, may be reluctant to embrace vegetarianism because of those easily caricatured cultural connotations.
This stuff just drives me bonkers. I mean, the environmentalists are right, I suppose — people do perceive non-meat eaters in these caricatured manners. But this stereotype provides an example of how familiarity prevents you from stepping back and seeing the sheer lunacy of a given perception.
You want to eat a diet that makes you live longer, feel better, help the environment, and even (god forbid) save a few animals? WEIRDO!! Get a haircut, Tofu!
It’s the same deal with lattes. I heard Janeane Garofalo say this (I think) in the early days of Air America, but what precisely is so horrifyingly weenie-fied about steamed milk and espresso? I mean, it’s steamed milk. Jeez.
Same deal for the whole “hawk”/”dove” business, which I’ve written about before. It’s easy to lose perspective on the magnitude of the absurdity of this commonly-held stereotype. The people who, you know, generally oppose using military force to resolve complex problems are the wussified doves. By contrast, the people who are more happy to start wars are the serious respectable meaty-armed “hawks.”
But anyway, let’s get back to non-meat eating. I’m being snarky, but I’m honestly curious. What are the precise origins of these stereotypes with vegetarians? Is it that vegetarianism is an implied rebuke? Does merely proclaiming you eat no (or little) meat make others feel defensive, thus triggering a need to ridicule them (or, more often, silently dismiss them)? Or is it a class thing? A culture wars thing?
I’ll just open the floor. Again, the precise question is why exactly non-meat eating is associated with these absurd connotations — particularly given the gazillions of benefits this diet has over a “real” American diet.
(For the record, I’m not a vegetarian, though I try to eat as little meat as possible. Burgers are generally my undoing).
UPDATE: As luck would have it, today’s NYT has more on meat consumption and emissions.
UPDATE 2: Fester over at Newshoggers has a few related thoughts on this.
what precisely is so horrifyingly weenie-fied about steamed milk and espresso?
You need steamed milk….in your coffee? WTF? Are you three years old?
What is wrong with drinking, you know, coffee? Just coffee. Just make the coffee, don’t put any non-coffee substances in it, and drink it. No milk, no baby formula, no sugar, just coffee. Why do people have to make every thing so god damn difficult? You’re worse than my cat.
You go into a coffee joint and order “coffee” and they look at you like you’re from outer space. Like how dare you.
Does merely proclaiming you eat no (or little) meat make others feel defensive
If I go to a vegetarian’s house for dinner, I’ll eat what they serve. No problem with that. I like food. I don’t expect them to change their ways just to suit me. Give me some food and I’ll eat it. How hard is that?
If a vegetarian comes to my house, they’re either going to eat bacon-wrapped steak or they can graze on the grass in front of the apartment building. They don’t like that, but that isn’t my problem, it’s theirs.
I’m not defensive, quite the opposite, I’m at the top of the food chain.
Meat (particularly big chunks of high-quality meat) has been associated with high status for at least 3000 years. Probably, actually, since settled agriculture begins. Why? Because it’s more expensive to produce than vegetables (or more complicated to acquire, if it’s game) and thus proves that you’re ‘rich’.
The classic Western food of the rich has always been big roasts. It’s what you sacrifice to the gods in ancient Israel or Greece. It’s what you eat as a medieval noble and as an eighteenth century British yeoman (the roast beef of old England).
In contrast, peasants traditionally eat vegetables most of the time and meat as a treat. When Henri IV of France in C16 wanted to express how much he cared for his peasants he said he wanted them all to have a chicken in the pot each Sunday. And when poorer people did eat meat it was mostly worn-out old animals, not prime stuff, judging by archaeological studies of animal bones. Eating only or mainly vegetables has been a sign of lower status since at least the Biblical book of Daniel (chapter 1).
It is very difficult to change these deeply-held ideas of what makes a ‘good diet’ in a social sense, as the similar example of eating to excess shows. It is still a status symbol in some circles to have meals with more food than you could comfortably eat, dating from a time when this proved you weren’t really poor. Such an idea persists even when obesity is a greater problem than hunger.
There is a complicated history of the meaning of food and simply dismissing it as irrational may be accurate, but doesn’t get you any further.
I’ve been a vegetarian all my life. (maybe 100 meals with any dead creature out of 48,000 or so). My parents and grandparents are mostly vegetarian too. The two grandfathers averaged 85 at death and the grandmothers averaged 96 at death.
I don’t really know why it is considered odd. I live in California where it is probably more common than in the midwest and east. Maybe it is because of the larger asian population here. I’m mostly german ancestry and culture.
I spent some time in Nebraska and Iowa a few years ago and people acted like I was an alien. They treat vegetables more like garnishes than actual food you can live on.
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I am a vegetarian, but a non-evangelical one, and I’m from Kansas so I experience this “you’re a (insert synonym for crazy hippie here) vegetarian?” all the time. I think it’s really just a cultural thing, and I take it back to, I guess, the 60s and 70s, when vegetarianism and veganism — which are confused more often than you’d think — were tied to the hippie lifestyle directly (Gypsy Boots on Steve Allen, for instance, or even fey Hutch getting ribbed by macho Starsky for liking alfalfa sprouts). So I think vegetarianism got tied to activism in that way, and through groups like PETA, etc., and so it became a knee-jerk reaction for many in the red-meat producing states to assume that anyone who didn’t eat meat was actually someone who opposed their very way of life.
I think chosen vegetarianism is partly a class thing: in a country where meat of sorts is available as a cheap food, vegetarian options may not only be more expensive, but more complex to make. In a country where meat is an expensive treat that you have to be above-average wealthy to eat it every day, declaring you don’t eat meat at all by choice is also a class statement.
The “vegetarian option” on a menu frequently doubles as the “health option” or the “diet option”. (Not just in the US. In France, it is nearly always possible to ask for an omelette to replace the main course in the meal because an omelette is regarded in French meal planning as the invalid’s alternative to real food, ie meat.)
National cuisines which have vegetarian dishes as part of the regular eating of the country (Italian; Bangladeshi) do not have this association, as far as I can tell.
For some people, the presence of a vegetarian enjoying a felafel wrap while everyone else is tucking into burgers, is regarded as a personal affront/annoyance. Not many, but I’ve been lectured by more meat-eaters over the years about how they eat meat and aren’t about to stop now, or “how do I know vegetables don’t feel pain”?
//Eating only or mainly vegetables has been a sign of lower status since at least the Biblical book of Daniel (chapter 1).//
Also associated with better health in the same book.
//For some people, the presence of a vegetarian enjoying a felafel wrap while everyone else is tucking into burgers, is regarded as a personal affront/annoyance. Not many, but I’ve been lectured by more meat-eaters over the years about how they eat meat and aren’t about to stop now, or “how do I know vegetables don’t feel pain”? //
Exactly. I get this too. Why should they care what I eat? I don’t care what they eat.
Travel tip: Singapore is wonderful for vegetarians. Three indigenous vege cuisines: Indian (north an south), buddhist chinese, and vegetarian muslim.
I believe that life begins at germination.
Why should they care what I eat? I don’t care what they eat.
Way to miss the point. We don’t care what you eat. When you provide the food, we will eat it, even if it is vegetarian. When we provide the food, it will contain meat, and you can eat it or go forage elsewhere. No whining.
The coffee comments above reminded me of a comic strip where Frank and Ernest were viewing the menu at a coffee shop. One said to the other, “Once I got so confused by having so many choices that I ordered an Al Pacino.”
Eating only or mainly vegetables has been a sign of lower status since at least the Biblical book of Daniel (chapter 1).
Preference for meat over other foods is all over the Old Testament. Try Genesis 4, where Cain’s hatred of Abel was a result of God preferring Abel’s meat to Cain’s vegetables. The thing that’s noteworthy about Daniel 1 is that it shows vegetarianism as a healthy alternative to eating meat.
As a vegetarian man, I see the PR issue with meat as less of a tree-hugging-hippie vs. mainstreamer issue, and more of a hawk vs. dove issue. The time I see this most clearly is when people make playful comments about my diet; it always comes down to masculinity. Meat is macho, and tofu just isn’t. I mean, it’s called tofu, for crying out loud. Doesn’t hit you in the gut like “beef.”
I think that, for a lot of men, this will be the battle that is hardest to win. Macho men do not willingly sacrifice their masculinity, and it’s hard to imagine meat ever losing its tough-guy image.
It’s very unwise to target meat as such, because there is nothing wrong with meat production and consumption as such, as there are ways to produce and consume meat that are environmentally sound.
The problem is the mass production and consumption of meat, but this problem is certainly not unique to meat:
The terrible environmental effects of overfishing are known to everyone who wants to know. The same goes for the mass production of grain in monocultures. Similarly concentrated dairy farming comes with a whole bunch of harmful side effects. And the mass cultivation of soy is problematic as well, especially if it results in the decimation of the rain forest like it has in Brazil.
So there is really no easy answer to all of this, instead we have to reassess our whole system of mass food production. Eating less and better meat should be part of this process, but that alone will not save us and punishing those who produce and consume meat in environmentally sound ways is counterproductive.
What is it with Now_what’s whining about vegetarians? Recently get turned down by one?
I hope I never get invited to now_what’s for dinner. Not because I’m a vegetarian (I’m not) but because I suspect it would be very boring.
A blog discussion on the merits or lack thereof of veg(etari)anism and noone mentioned Hitler yet? Would be about the first I see without someone trying to prove the evil of plant predators by referring to him.
Oh digestive final product, now I have put it on the table 😉
Personally I am addicted* to meat (no surprise given the variety of sausage types available over here). I respect people that do not eat meat but they have to be careful to get the balance right (especially those that will not eat/drink any animal product).
Btw, is honey considered “kosher” for vegs or is it too a forbidden animal product?
*I don’t think that is an exaggeration. Trying to live on cheese** (on bread) for a few weeks was worse enough, the mere idea of plant-only is a nightmare to me.
**replacing sausage totally. I have nothing against cheese in moderate amounts
I’d be wary about getting associated with vegetarians, although I’m concerned about food production impact and try to eat vegetarian dinners several times per week. See, I have rarely met someone who was just a vegetarian. They are typically vegetarian and adventists, vegetarian and Hare Krishna, vegetarian and followers of Rudolf Steiner, etc. The two vegetarian restaurants here, for instance, one is adventist, the other is Hare Krishna. Not only do they have quirky beliefs, they have quirky beliefs about food unrelated to vegetarianism – the recipe leaflet I bought at the adventist one informs me that vinegar is poison, Hare Krishna also have vegetarian ingredients they avoid, and Rudolf Steiner asserted that potatoes make you stupid.
Not to mention the new Supreme Master of the Universe (google suprememastertv if you haven’t heard of her). Her ads look like a cross between deranged mail-order dietary supplements and parody of vegetarians (little clip-art pigs proclaiming “Don’t eat us! We love you!”).
I may want to go vegetarian diet-wise (actually I will always keep eating sustainably caught fish, as I believe the impact from that would be lower than growing the equivalent amount of protein from soy), but I don’t want to be associated with vegetarianism…
Btw, is honey considered “kosher” for vegs or is it too a forbidden animal product?
Hardcore vegans won’t eat honey. They say because it involves exploiting bees.
I’ve tried explaining to them that bee farmers do not stand over the bees with little tiny whips forcing them to labour in the flower fields, but they look at me funny. Personally I think it’s the bee spit that puts them off.
now_what sounds like a perfect host. Courteous and obliging to a fault.
If I go to a Jewish person’s house for dinner, I’ll eat what they serve. No problem with that. I like food. I don’t expect them to change their ways just to suit me. Give me some food and I’ll eat it. How hard is that?
If a Jewish person comes to my house, they’re either going to eat bacon-wrapped steak or they can graze on the grass in front of the apartment building. They don’t like that, but that isn’t my problem, it’s theirs.
“When you provide the food, we will eat it, even if it is vegetarian. When we provide the food, it will contain meat, and you can eat it or go forage elsewhere.”
You seem not to grasp the concept of being a good host, or even a decent human being. Hell, I’m as rabid a meat-eater as anyone, but I wouldn’t dream of serving food that my guest wouldn’t eat. Would you serve Pad Thai to someone with a nut allergy?
When we provide the food, it will contain meat, and you can eat it or go forage elsewhere. No whining.
A poor host and an unimaginative cook is no way to live.
My grandfather was the meat buyer for a small chain of markets in NYC when I was growing up so he made sure our freezer was well stocked with meat. (Aw mom…not rib steaks again…) But we also are blessed with the Eastern European Jewish genetic tendency toward atherosclerosis so I eat much less red meat than I did when I was a kid.
We have very good friends who are vegetarian and share certain holiday meals with them every year. If we eat at their home, the meal is 100% veggie. If they eat here, there may be meat in the meal but there are also totally vegetarian dishes for them. I don’t view it as an imposition; we enjoy their company and want them to be as comfortable in our home as we are in theirs.
Not to mention the new Supreme Master of the Universe (google suprememastertv if you haven’t heard of her). Her ads look like a cross between deranged mail-order dietary supplements and parody of vegetarians (little clip-art pigs proclaiming “Don’t eat us! We love you!”).
“Deranged” hardly does it justice. That is nasty.
I’ve got no problem with vegetarians, at least the ones who know enough about nutrition to avoid getting ill down the road. I’ve even been known to complain to my wife that she doesn’t serve enough veggies. But there’s some ill feeling between us omnivores and vegetarians due to the latter’s tendency to assert moral equivalence between an intelligent species at the top of the food chain, and really stupid critters well down it. Which is somewhat insulting.
Sorry, as you said Ginger.
When meat becomes a statement that panders to our sense of self, status, perceived normality, or habit – it drains it of it’s inherent pleasure. I’ve seen too much badly cooked meat by people who supposedly love it. If we ate less meat, ate better, cooked it more imaginatively, took an interest in who raised it, and mastered it (deboning a chicken, cooking the cheap cuts, using offal) we’d be a lot better for it.
I’m still working to find vegetarian food that I actively like. A friend has done some neat stuff with Tofu that I need to get the recipe for. Cause heck if I can find 4 vegetarian meals that I truly enjoy and look forward to cooking and make two a week, that’s nearly 30% drop in my consumption of meat for very little pain.
But culturally? We’ve hit the high points, meat has been a sign of status, and hell it tastes good. From what I recall of my food chemistry classes, sugar, salt, fat all taste good because the body requires them to function and they are a pain in the ass to obtain in the wild. Now we’ve got convenient supplies.
As far as feeding friends, I have friends with celiac’s, I’ve got friends allergic to cilantro, mushroom and milk products. I don’t cook for any vegans (and not sure what I’d come up with them) but I do my best as a good host, if warned ahead of time, to provide tasty food for my guests.
And frankly, when I go to a vegetarian’s house for dinner, I don’t WANT them to cook me a steak – give me something they KNOW how to cook and cook well.
in addition to all the above, because it’s the non-default choice, and is relatively difficult to do in the US, vegetarianism comes across as somewhat ascetic. and that makes it easy to see vegetarians as people who have decided that you are wrong; and that they are going to be right, no matter how difficult or onerous it is. it’s easy to take that personally. and it’s pretty easy to find people (young people, usually) who are more than happy to tell you how eating meat is gross and immoral and wrong and bad for the world and bad for you and… etc. etc. which makes them self-righteous jerks. and those are the people who give vegetarianism a bad name.
cleek: which makes them self-righteous jerks. and those are the people who give vegetarianism a bad name.
Hm. You know, of all the people in this thread coming across as self-righteous jerks over what they eat or don’t eat, I’d say now_what takes the prize… yet for some reason, it’s always presumed to be vegetarians who are guilty of that, even though we have to put up with self-righteous jerks like now_what.
I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 30 years, and I’m not nutty in other respects (honest!). I never, ever, whine, or question other people about what they are eating.
I live in California, where you’d think vegetarianism would be more accepted- but I soak up hostility similar to what now what expresses on a regular basis.
If someone invites me over to dinner I am happpy to eat only bread and salad- but I have many times been invited to dinner by people who, knowing that I’m a vegetarian, put chicken in the salad, bacon in the veggies, leaving literally not one dish on the table without meat- and then pressure me to eat, saying “just this once won’t kill you”.
Business meals are a killer. Yesterday I had a business lunch with a colleague from another office of my employer- and when I asked the waitress to omit the chicken from my salad, he spent the entire lunch lecturing me about how being a vegetarian is absurd. Next week I’ll be on travel with several colleagues, and we’ll be sharing a rental car- and they’ve already informed me that dinner (every night!) will be in a steak house that has no veggie entrees.
And the weird thing is, they admitted that if I were an Orthodox Jew and ate only kosher meat, they would make an effort to accomodate me.
I absolutely do not get why this has to be such a problem.
I think the idea of eating meat as manly is going to be a particularly difficult one to counter, because two different sterotypes feed into it. One is the image of man as hunter versus women as gatherer: men eat things they’ve killed themselves. (That stereotype is peculiarly resistant both to the fact that most of us buy our meat rather than killing it and that in societies which really depend on hunting, you don’t actually eat meat that often, because it’s hard to catch).
The other problem is that the more you show that eating meat is a bad thing, in terms of health, the more that feeds into a certain kind of macho posing that sees trying to avoid risks as unmanly. Real men don’t worry about their arteries hardening, because they’ll die fighting sharks or driving fast cars first.
Maybe what we need is the return of the image of the early Christian male ascetic, who is so tough that he chooses to live on a handful of dried peas and water and fight the hunger, even though he could have better food if he wanted it.
There’s a long history of vegetarianism and its cultural implications. High caste Hindus and southern indians are (supposed) to be vegetarians for a variety of reasons including ethnotheories of the body and the nature of foods which can be considered “heating” or “cooling” to the passions and the blood. The historically “martial” castes and the muslim converts after Mughal rule eat meat because it is associated with killing, warfare, physical strength and the angry passions.
In the western tradition vegetarianism goes way back but is associated with lent, fasting, poverty, and sacrifice–always the opposite of the martial virtues.
Meat consumption is also associated with wealth since meat was formerly quite expensive. As the prices of things have flipped over time so that vegetables (truffles? arugula) become associated with wealth and fish stops being a poor man’s food culture warriors can play on the tropes in a number of registers–not only is taking our red meat stealing our manhood but it is also an elitist attack on our working class! See how that works?
I highly recommend the book “My Year Of Meat” for a very funny, sad, painful, fictionalized account of a woman trying to shoot a series of pro-beef commercials in America to push beef consumption in Japan.
aimai
This isn’t so much about vegetarianism per se, but about the whole “healthy alternative” food thing. I think that something that that rubs a lot of people the wrong way when it comes to alternative diets is that there’s often a pretty rancid classism bound up with it. Which is why those who are continually panicked about the “obesity epidemic” eventually wind up remarking that the poor need to start eating better food. Sometimes the mask really slips and you see them hand-wringing about how Latinos/as and black people don’t hate their bodies enough.
And then there’s things like Michael Pollan calling for America’s very own Year Zero.
It’s the same sort of obnoxiousness of people who say, “We fat Americans need to lay off of our empty, consumerist ways. No, my entire study full of Mac products doesn’t count as consumerist because… Uh… It’s Mac products, so I’m an artist, not a consumer.”
it’s always presumed to be vegetarians who are guilty of that
many are.
and many aren’t, certainly. i have quite a few friends who don’t eat meat for various reasons who aren’t proselytizers or scolds about it.
My family, who never miss an opportunity to gently poke at my (non-proselytizing) vegeterianism, are notorious steak burners. If you must eat meat, at least make it taste good.
And if it helps skew the data a bit for our demo, I’m a mechanic who can bench-press nearly twice my weight.
This column has got me wondering if, perhaps paradoxically, deer hunting for meat is green. If cows contribute to global warming, so, too, must deer, and deer populations are up, at least in the eastern U.S. So its seems that deer hunting reduces carbon in two ways–one by eliminating a carbon producer, and two when the deer meat is eaten instead of beef.
Crazy, I know, but I thought I’d put it out there.
You know, of all the people in this thread coming across as self-righteous jerks over what they eat or don’t eat, I’d say now_what takes the prize… yet for some reason, it’s always presumed to be vegetarians who are guilty of that, even though we have to put up with self-righteous jerks like now_what.
You’re a precious little one, aren’t you?
I’m not self-righteous about what I eat, I eat what I want to eat. That happens to include plenty of mammals and if you don’t like it, I don’t care. Publius was wondering why vegetarians get stereotyped as such wusses, and the responses in this thread should help enlighten him.
If I am being hosted by a vegetarian and they serve me a vegetarian meal everyone including me is fine with that, if I host a vegetarian and serve them a bacon-wrapped steak, I’m a self-righteous jerk, boring, a poor host, an unimaginative cook, etc.
If we eat at their home, the meal is 100% veggie. If they eat here, there may be meat in the meal but there are also totally vegetarian dishes for them
When you’re at the vegetarians’ house you play by their rules. When the vegetarians are at your house, you play by their rules.
To do otherwise would make you a boring, unimaginative self-righteous jerk, and a poor host as well.
I wonder why there is this stereotype of vegetarians as complete weenies. It’s a mystery!
That’s because you’re a dirty hippy, publius.
I’m perfectly ok with vegetarians, as long as they’re perfectly ok with me. I look at it kind of like this: for years, my sister would lecture me on the dangers of eating cheap (i.e. supermarket) food, because of the chemicals and additives, etc, and that I really ought to be drinking barley green and oh by the way this fiber drink is absolutely critical for healthy bowels. If you’ve seen The Road To Wellville, you might have the sense of things.
It’s not that she’s necessarily wrong, mind you, just that I don’t like people telling me what I should and should not be doing; I consider that highly rude. Sometimes vegetarians are like that with me, and so I tend to be less respectful of their food choices if that sort of thing persists.
But vegetarians are tastier than other humans.
Meat production involves violence.
American culture worships violence.
That’s not the whole story, but it’s a big part of it.
I wouldn’t take that as a valid generalization about vegetarians; Jesurgislac is like that about practically everything.
Still, she has a point. When you have guests over, you serve them food that they’ll eat, or you don’t invite them. If you know one of your guests is allergic to rosemary, for instance, you don’t put rosemary in all the food. It’s not a demand, it’s courtesy. And…you don’t have to be courteous, but you might find yourself unbefriended by people who don’t dig the discourtesy.
Oh, another example: my wife’s uncle is diabetic. When he’s here, we serve tea with sugar-free sweeteners, and my wife makes him sugar-free desserts. Why? Because she loves him, and wouldn’t dream of setting food in front of him that she knew he wouldn’t eat.
Absolutely: I like steak because of the violence. That’s it! And while I’m cooking it, I’m smacking my kids around, because sauce for the goose!
Sometimes I even drag my kids out of bed in the middle of the night and spank them, just because it makes the popcorn taste better.
Confuses the hell out of the little brats, but it’s a price my taste buds are willing to pay.
Food – yum – I love thinking about it and talking about it. And eating it.
For a long time I didn’t eat any meat, but now I eat free range poultry occasionally. Much more rarely, I’ll have a bite or two of some other meat from a source that purports to have raised the meat humanely. (I admit to some guilt eating mammals from any source, especially pork). My biggest beef with meat, in addition to the environmental issues involved in raising it, is that animals aren’t respected in the process of turning them into food.
Although I don’t deny the “food chain”, I am appalled at the suffering that is taken for granted in raising farm animals. By treating meat consumption as an extraordinary event, and trying to take care where I got it, I try to assuage my conscience a bit – at least I’m thinking about the animal involved.
I find that there’s a certain stigma attached to worrying about animal rights, even in a very basic way. People seem to be more understanding of a purist vegetarian than someone who is merely concerned about the care and treatment of farm animals. It’s certainly easier to avoid meat altogether than working through the ethical considerations involved in eating it. I was heartened by the passage of Proposition 2 in California, where I don’t live, to see that other people are supporting taking steps to diminish animal cruelty.
I was a vegetarian for about five years (although always making an exception on an opportunistic basis for shrimp). I began eating meat again on the advice of a Chinese health practicioner.
Not enough yang, sez he. Eat meat.
I’m with novakant. There are sustainable kinds of meat, and sustainable ways to raise it.
As an aside, I believe the point in Daniel 1 was that the vegetarian diet Daniel insisted on was LESS healthy than the one including the king’s meat. That was the point — it was through the miraculous intervention of God (so the story has it) that Daniel thrived on his vegetarian fare.
Thanks –
Perhaps because meat is not an essential part of a meal, so that by eating a vegetarian meal at a friend’s house, you are not deprived of anything, but by insisting on serving a meal your hypothetical vegetarian friend will not eat, you are demanding that they abandon their ethics/beliefs/[insert reason for vegetarianism] to do something that is not necessary.
I once saw an article concerning life in the Canadian Forces in my local newspaper describe “pasta with chicken and pesto” as the “vegetarian option.” I’ve never wanted to find out if that’s really “vegetarian” for members of the Canadian army, or if it was just terrible editing.
I’m not a vegetarian, but I eat very little meat (certainly less than once a week – but I just can’t make myself give up sushi). Although I agree that class and status and the belief that not eating meat is associated with other unusual/worrisome beliefs are important parts of why vegetarianism is sometimes looked down on, I think plain old habit is also part of it. I grew up eating meat very rarely, but my partner’s family, or my dad’s family for that matter, seem to have a tough time wrapping their heads around what I eat instead. (When I was a kid, I spent 6 weeks with my grandparents, and my grandmother kept offering me plates of cheese – several times a day – because she was convinced I couldn’t possibly be getting enough protein.)
Hartmut, if you attempted to replace meat/sausage with *only* cheese, you were DEFINITELY not getting the balance right.
I’ve been a nearly life-long vegetarian (parents decided to adopt the diet when I was about 4) and one thing I notice is most people who try to “covert” later in life have a very simplistic idea of what a vegetarian diet is. It is not “meat-eating without the meat” unless you want to feel like hell.
Becuause vegetarianism is generally a conscious choice, and is difficult, there is reasonably a perception that you need a good reason to do it. The problem is that most of the reasons (other than religion) to become vegetarian have a serious potential to seem aribitrary and inconsistent, if not hypocritical.
For instance, if it’s for health reasons, then “just this once” shouldn’t really matter, should it? The comment that “there’s nothing I can eat here” doesn’t really fly, because you can eat those bacon bits on the salad. Really, you can. It’s not like it would violate your religious principles, which are different than your dietary preference.
If the reason is primarily, “don’t hurt the animals,” then you should in theory be able to eat meat that is humanely raised and slaughtered, right? And if that’s your moral stand, have you also applied it to wearing leather? How about your shoes and belts? Handbag? Wallet? Why should one be different than the other. [Note: I understand there are often good answers to these questions; I am trying to show how these reasons for vegetarianism have the potential to seem hypocritical]
If the reason is environmental, why choose this difficult thing, given the negligible impact your personal choice is likely to have, and still do things like drive a car?
As for hosting or being hosted at another’s house: It’s polite to make an effort to eat what is presented. I have choked down frozen fishsticks when offered by my grandfather, and though even the memory makes me want to vomit, but I was being polite. A good host will ask about your preferences and make an effort to accomodate them, but you should still be polite even if your host has not been accomodating. The solution is to not to complain — just don’t go to dinner at that person’s house again.
The best answer I have heard for much of this is, “I’ve been doing it for so long now that my system can’t really handle meat.”
American culture worships violence
Right. That’s why we had a total freak-out over Palin giving an interview with turkeys being slaughtered (not even slaughtered as that part was off camera) in the background. The outrage! It was pretty hilarious, all the outrage and pontification a couple of days before the same folks had their Thanksgiving dinner.
To most Americans, meat is something that comes shrink wrapped sitting on Styrofoam. The vast majority have never killed and prepared an animal for consumption. Most have never even seen it done as a “farm” is someplace you take the kids for a hay ride and to pick out pumpkins for Halloween, and working in a meat packing plant is for illegal aliens. I know plenty of people who have never even caught and cleaned a fish in their lifetime.
On the rest, it’s a strong cultural image. Think of a steak coming sizzling off the grill – what do you picture? Cowboys and backyard BBQ with Dad running the grill… Now think of tofu… Yeah – dirty smelly hippies…
You’ll get me driving a Prius before you’ll get me to give up one ounce of steak or burgers. Reducing emissions is just generally a good thing so it’s something I can support. But if my doctor can’t get me to reduce my meat consumption for perfectly valid health reasons then environmentalists aren’t likely to convince me based on an unproven hypothesis.
My wife is moving more and more vegetarian. We don’t eat much meat in the house, and it’s been difficult to me. Most of what I know to cook is meat-related (or meat-included) and I’ve had trouble trying to cook non-meat recipes (that aren’t mostly premade). While I’m not anti-vegetarian, my wife gets that vibe a lot from anti-vegetarians when planning meals (we’re currently in the South now). They don’t know how to work with a vegetarian diet, don’t want to try, and are upset that they have to plan for one more hurdle.
I’m not saying it’s a fair attitude (it’s not) it’s just the way people down here see it.
To me, the vegetarian diet doesn’t fit me well. I’m very athletic, and eat alot. To keep myself full (without meat) I need to eat alot of beans (chili, bean salads, stews etc). After a few days with beans, my wife complains. If I’m cooking beans for myself anyway, i’d rather throw chicken on the grill (so I do).
Occasionally, I have found faux-tofu recipes to be good, but generally I have texture issues with tofu to keep me from loving it any other way.
Now-what: if I host a vegetarian and serve them a bacon-wrapped steak, I’m a self-righteous jerk, boring, a poor host, an unimaginative cook, etc.
*nods cheerfully* As many non-vegetarians on this thread have already pointed out to you. Serving cake and ice-cream to diabetics, traif to Jews, wheat bread to coeliacs, or live ants to almost anyone, is also a sign of being a poor host: you’re a self-righteous jerk if you complain about their refusal to eat it. This is so obvious I think you’re troll-baiting, hence my initial comment to you in this thread…
Slarti: But vegetarians are tastier than other humans.
So they tell me. *winks*
the stereotype started because, for a long time, so many vegetarians WERE self-serious, humorless scolds that looked down on everyone who ate meat.
i’ve been a vegetarian 10 years now, but during my 1st month i met another one who, when she found out i was, whispered conspiratorially that we “were so much better people” or some nonsense like that.
i made up my mind then to never be one of those type of people.
plus, up until fairly recently, there were very few vegetarian-specific foods, so you were always eating something different than everyone at the family dinner table, at restaurants, etc., and we see how much in America we hate to be DIFFERENT.
now, there’s morningstar, boca, plus most chain restaurants even offer a veggie burger substitute, so its become less and less odd.
V for Vegetarian!
World-class straight man, me.
i do all the cooking in our house, and i’m sure my wife would like it if i cooked less meat – and i can even talk myself into be repulsed at the idea of eating meat, if i try. but i have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a meal without meat. in my head, meat is the center of the meal; everything else is there to compliment it. she: “what’s for dinner?” me: “pork chops! and [mumblemumble…brocolli]”. it should be easy, but i just can’t seem to grasp the notion that broccoli or beans or pasta could be the center. plants are sides.
That’s just because of your violent tendencies, cleek. WEAN YOURSELF FROM TEH VIOLENCE!!!eleven
I think a lot of our attachment to meat is cultural; we’ve grown up with relatively cheap and plentiful meat, and it’s what we remember Mom and Dad cooking. (I wonder if it’s coincidence that vinceneilyoung’s family never cooked meat particularly well!) When people attack meat-eating, they’re attacking our memories. It’s the same reason, IMO, that Atkins never caught on; we all ate too much bread and pasta as children to permanently think of it as ‘bad.’
And I second the recommendation of My Year of Meats; it’s an excellent book and very funny.
As someone with celiacs, eating out or at others homes can be a scary proposition. When ever I am challanged on just how much a little
beer in the soup or soy sauce in anything (unless its gluten free) can hurt, I give the polite answer first, if they persist, I give the gory details with full scatological visuals. If someone cant or prefers not to have some type of food in their diet, just do the right thing and let it go cause it might just be someone like me that will make it a point to ruin your appetite if you persist.
The relationship between white tail deer and agriculture goes way back before 1492, and the overpopulation today is a result of growing so much grain for fuel and feed for cows and pigs. Same for Canada geese. So deer hunting is an eco friendly green way to work out that macho war-making meat-eating instinct. At least thats how we see it in my house. That said, if we invite you over for dinner, and your a vegetarian you will be served a delicious vegetarian meal. Vegans on the other hand will be on their own,because hard as I try, I simply dont understand.
No, that’s your problem. If you invite guests into your home, it’s considered basic human courtesy to offer them food they can eat. It’s also considered pretty damn rude to bellow “Eat what I’m eatin’ or go hungry, weirdo.” But, you know, that assumes you are more interested in being a good host than dick-swinging about how you’re on the top of the food chain.
(And yes, I eat meat. I don’t find that makes it impossible for me to offer vegetarian friends something they can eat when they visit.)
But anyway, let’s get back to non-meat eating. I’m being snarky, but I’m honestly curious. What are the precise origins of these stereotypes with vegetarians? Is it that vegetarianism is an implied rebuke? Does merely proclaiming you eat no (or little) meat make others feel defensive, thus triggering a need to ridicule them (or, more often, silently dismiss them)? Or is it a class thing? A culture wars thing?
If I had to put one word to it, it’d be an acronym: PETA. If you don’t actually know any vegetarians, most of what you know about them is probably through PETA, which has probably done more to associate vegetarianism with moral scolds than all the right-wing blowhards put together.
A look at their news page gives some idea as to how that impression got started.
Not to come across as a crazy hippie or a self-serious scold, but a few points. I am not a lifelong vegetarian, I became one. Since I’m in the strange bind of being opposed to a habit I once strongly identified with and now being a member of a group I once hostilely ridiculed, I recognize that moral bluster isn’t the best idea or tactic. But some things I beg you to consider:
1) What do you mean by “proselytize”? I’m not a member of a cult or militia or even any organized group. When I try to convince someone that they ought to (or must or should) stop eating meat, how am I “proselytizing” any more than any other moral, political, or cultural viewpoint. When someone makes the argument “You should tolerate people who eat meat. Here’s why…” or “You should vote for [insert candidate here]. Here’s why…” or “You shouldn’t prohibit the sale of firearms. Here’s why…”, why isn’t this “proselytizing” as well? Like “ideology”, this is one of those words that I find people use pretty inconsistently and disingenuously, naturally to their own favor.
2) I am a vegetarian; I find the current prevailing practices in the west of producing and consuming animal products to be objectively morally repellent. This is an uncommon viewpoint in the world. I also find slavery to be morally repellent. This is (at this point in history) a more common viewpoint in the world. If I express my disgust at ongoing practices of slavery that persist around the globe, am I “proselytizing”? To use an extreme (but still interesting) example, if slavery was still around in the U.S. today, how would people treat the issue? Would there be a more expansive brand of “anti-slavery” products that you could buy at certain upscale markets and stores? Would some restaurants or farms in college towns be “slave-free”? Would this engender similar elements of classism among poor and rural populations (“Pretentious latte-swilling abolitionists can afford to buy products made by uncoerced labor!”)? Would we have bizarre arguments over whether a slave-owning host should suspend the activities of his slaves while abolitionist friends are visiting? I do not consider my vegetarianism to be a “Wooo, go Red Sox” attitude. It is not something I do to be “radical” or “different” or a part of the team of “morally righteous”. In fact, I precisely do not want to be different or special or righteous. Ideally, I would like to be the norm, with everyone supporting a healthier animal agriculture. Until that day though, I will continue to confront meat eaters over what their justification for that particular activity is, just as I would any other problematic and contested social activity or policy.
3. The “I eat what I want to eat” or “I didn’t make it to the top of the food chain for nothing [by the way, you had nothing to do with this evolutionary trend, and thus reap no dessert from it]” arguments are so vacuous that even when I ate meat I knew better than to consider these as anything other than bad faith posturings. I don’t care to offer a complete reconstruction of this line of reasoning, but it seems to hinge upon a proposition something like, “If I can do x, I am allowed or entitled to do x”, or more sinisterly, “If my body’s tastes and cravings inclines me to do x, I am allowed to or entitled to do x”. Not even an Ayn-Rand-reading crackhead would endorse these propositions unqualified. The latter is pretty easy to see why it is completely false and perniciously so. No one excuses pedophiles, rapists, or cannibals for their behavior with this logic, and for good reason. I realize that for certain people in certain times and places, meat tastes good. I don’t give a shit. No one says about rape, “You don’t have to rape other people if you don’t want to, but don’t go telling me what to do, you ninny! I don’t have a proportionately larger body mass than my smaller and weaker targets for nothing! And plus, it just feels… so… goddamn… good!” This clearly ignores the moral status of whoever or whatever is being “raped”, if they possess such status at all. The moral status of animals (and the billions of humans whose lives are adversely effected by modern agricultural practices) is not a clear or easy question, but it is still a question. Rubbing your tummy and wearing a t-shirt that says “For every cow you don’t eat, I will eat five” is not a legit response.
4) A common response by many meat-eaters put on the spot (or actually anyone whose values are put under judgment), is to get sort of jokey and dismiss the issue in a lighter way (for good examples of this, I recommend you peruse this entire thread again, which is rife with witty banter that shoves aside the actual issue). Given how many severe problems there are in the world, what a shitty job our laissez-faire society does in handling them, and how many problems there are we probably haven’t even become aware of yet, I think it’s far better to be humorless and “self-serious” in this way than someone who blithely makes remarks like “The only good Arab is a dead Arab”, “So many women wouldn’t have eating disorders if they were good-looking in the first place”, or “Bacon tastes better with suffering”.
I will make no argument for vegetarianism here. I only wanted to point out: 1) there’s nothing crazy or unusual about trying to change someone’s behavior and viewpoint, either through argument or social pressure and 2) while there are some weaker and stronger arguments for the moral permissibility of meat eating, the “Let me do what I want, hippie” arguments are pretty shallow (to put it gently). Sorry for the length of the post.
I think the idea of eating meat as manly is going to be a particularly difficult one to counter
I would counter with these guys. They look pretty manly to me and they only eat bamboo and such stuff.
The other problem is that the more you show that eating meat is a bad thing, in terms of health, the more that feeds into a certain kind of macho posing that sees trying to avoid risks as unmanly. Real men don’t worry about their arteries hardening, because they’ll die fighting sharks or driving fast cars first.
Eating meat is not bad for you as such, eating too much bad meat is.
But you have a point regarding macho posing, yet it cuts both ways. I’m in the curios position of being a smoker who doesn’t drink alcohol, which at least in the UK puts me in a very odd spot (drinking a lot is a national past time, yet everybody and their dog has stopped smoking a couple of years ago). I never, ever lecture anyone on drinking and since I go out a lot, I am constantly surrounded by people drinking and generally have no problem with that.
My friends and acquaintances are all cool, but almost every single time I meet strangers my abstinence comes up as a conversational topic in one way or another at some point and depending on how polite or rude these people are, this can turn out be mildly annoying or downright offensive. So I think I can relate to what vegetarians must feel sometimes.
Yet, as far as lecturing on smoking goes, UK society seems to have decided that smoking is the number one health priority (never mind the binge drinking, the emissions or the obesity rate) and one is constantly confronted with all sorts government sponsored announcements telling you that it’s bad for you, to which I reply: I KNOW THAT, do you think I’ve been living under a rock, that I’m an idiot or a 4 year old? – so leave me alone!
And yes, sometimes my inner libertarian/macho (I’m not much of either in general, but it’s there somewhere) gets so incensed by all this paternalism, that I want to keep smoking just out of spite. So convincing people to change their behaviour is a tricky balancing act indeed and I’m not sure if some of the government’s efforts aren’t actually counterproductive.
Further evidence that vegetarianism and meat-eating are heavily influenced by cultural pressures: when’s the last time you’ve met a right wing vegan? It is unsurprising that food choices get bound up with political identity, since pretty much everything else does too.
ChuckD, thanks for your extremely on-point comment analogizing meat eating to rape.
Fixed: “which is rife with witty banter that shoves aside my actual issue”
It’s kind of a meat-rape-violence connection, BrianA.
Sometimes a pork loin is just a pork loin, though.
If it’s the case that reducing meat consumption has a strong effect on carbon footprint (specifically, consumption of factory-farmed, long-distance-shipped, grain-(and worse-)consuming beef, chicken, and pork), then environmentalists who want to encourage that reduction are well advised to go the route of recommending particular non-meat-containing menus and dishes that contain less meat. I.e., emphasize the positives rather than focusing on the absence of meat.
Advocating complete vegetarianism does raise the whole set of associations discussed here: self-righteousness, scolding, eccentric or unpopular beliefs on non-meat questions, etc. (and brings on the corresponding counter-self-righteousness and hostility). Experimenting with dishes containing less meat or no meat can be a pleasurable exploration.
There are quite a few fine, non-self-righteous cookbooks aimed at people interested in that exploration, whatever the reason (health, budget, environmental impact, animal welfare). All-or-nothing is not a sound way to begin, even if the reasons are moral or religious.
Food shouldn’t be a crusade. The most effective “evangelism” is the quiet kind, in which the food speaks for itself: Good cooks sharing good food with family and friends.
now-what
//Way to miss the point.//
I was not responding to you. I was reacting to the quote by someone else that was imbedded in my comment.
Way to miss the point.
I suspect that many meat-eaters ridicule and attempt to marginalize vegetarians for many of the same reasons that schoolyard jocks and bullies ridicule and attempt to marginalize “nerds.”
Full disclosure: I love meat, but acknowledge that the best thing (for our health and for the environment) would be if we were to eat a lot less of it per person. Especially a lot less red meat. I don’t think there’s a need to go completely vegetarian, but we probably eat many times more meat than we ought to.
My problem with now_what’s original post has more to do with self-preservation: it makes me nervous when my host makes a point of saying he’s at the top of the food chain.
There’s an old Hollywood stereotype of the self-righteous crusading vegetarian who lectures other people at the table. Usually it’s the sitcom episode about some kid becoming vegetarian for the first time–the standard kid-gains-passion, kid-goes-overboard, status-quo-lovingly-restored plot.
I’m not a vegetarian but I fitfully and inconsistently try to reduce my red meat consumption for health reasons, which involves eating vegetarian sometimes. I’ve noticed that the vegetarian options in places like institutional cafeterias are often horrible–the only choice aside from the salad bar is usually some kind of token meatless pasta laden with so much cheese and butter that it probably has more fat than the steak, and leaves me feeling sick.
People have mentioned class issues but there’s also a gender angle. Low-fat and low-calorie items on restaurant menus often are in this sort of cutesy ghetto, advertised as being for women who are trying to lose weight, with names making references to them being “guiltless” or “sinless”. I get embarrassed enough ordering them; I can only imagine how it would be if I actually were a woman trying to lose weight.
Health and environmental and social-justice considerations don’t always pull in the same direction. I eat a lot of fish because it’s good for me and makes me feel good, but it’s not environmentally benign. I get a little twitchy when people suggest that the solution to obese poor people is that food should be more expensive–the side effect is that somebody’s gonna starve to death.
(On the other hand, as somebody suggested above, legally hunted venison is both healthier, probably better for the environment, less cruelly made and better-tasting than beef–worse on these grounds than vegetarianism, but a spectacular win if you’re going to eat mammals at all. Of course, the fact that it’s hunted places limits on how much people can get without causing trouble. But I think anyone who accepts eating meat ought to be ethically OK with well-regulated hunting.)
The American culture is one which has a particular admiration for physical vigor and athletic prowess; however, it’s more difficult (though certainly not impossible) to build and sustain muscle mass on a purely vegetarian diet. So, an association between meat-eating and physical heartiness may be one more factor in creating a cultural bias against vegetarianism.
The point about muscle mass is true, though of course if that were really the rationale you’d think Americans would be working out more.
No, that’s your problem. If you invite guests into your home, it’s considered basic human courtesy to offer them food they can eat.
Vegetarians can eat meat. They aren’t allergic to it. It won’t kill them.
When they serve me food, I will eat what they choose to serve and like it. When I serve them food, they will get bacon-wrapped steak and like it.
Matt and Marie,
You can sustain a high degree of muscle mass on a vegetarian diet if you’re willing to consume a large degree of protein powder and soy products.
Now then, building muscle mass on a vegan diet is something else entirely, but then, since most Vegans I’ve known have tended to smoke like chimneys, I don’t think they’re in it for the health benefits anyways.
I am a vegan and very much like to think of myself as not a complere jerk…
I would try and make the case for veganism but judging from what appears to be the consensus view among you, that would be considered obnoxious finger-wagging and self-righteous proselytizing so I’ll just stuff it and let you enjoy the apocalypse (ups, I think I just did it anyhow, didn’t I…)
ChuckD–I’m not a vegetarian, but I appreciated your point, particularly on the fact that people are all to eager to laugh and joke and ridicule their way out of a moral challenge to their lifestyles. Probably we all do this.
That said, though, self-righteousness isn’t the way to change people’s minds. I don’t know how one does do it.
now_what: regarding your use of the word “can” — would you apply the same standards to someone who doesn’t eat meat (or at least certain types of meat) due to religious observance?
I’ve faced some interesting attitudes about this in my own extended family, both over vegetarian diet and not drinking alcohol. My father (currently estranged, his choice) would ALWAYS ask before I visited him if I was still choosing not to eat meat, and would ALWAYS offer me beer, etc, even though he knew that not consuming these things was part of my spiritual practice. However, my aunt’s husband, a recovering alcoholic, was never offered beer.
At some level it comes down to a fundamental disrespect of the choices a vegetarian has made, when you insist that they “can” eat meat because it won’t kill them.
environmentalists who want to encourage that reduction are well advised to go the route of recommending particular non-meat-containing menus and dishes that contain less meat.
A personal recommendation.
Also, Middle Eastern and Indian cuisines offer many, many delicious vegetarian and/or low-meat-content choices.
It’s actually not that hard, it’s just making a new habit. Assuming it’s something you’re interested in.
Chacun a son gout.
Thanks –
now_what:
Serving me a bacon-wrapped filet would make you a bad host.
The unspeakable acts I would do to your bathroom after eating said steak would make me a bad guest.
@ChuckD:
Though I’ve experienced many occasions where people made offensive comments of the sexist and anti-Arab racist variety, I’ve not run across anyone, however meat-loving, who’s said anything like “Bacon tastes better with suffering.”
If you have, could it be that something you said provoked that reaction?
There is a moral dimension to food production, as there is to the production of just about everything we consume. Exposure to the realities of production creates uncomfortable knowledge for urban/suburban-raised first-worlders, and it can be hard to avoid being overwhelmed. In my experience, the best outcomes result when people undertake that exposure themselves.
What do you mean by “proselytize”?
proselytize
v.tr.
To convert (a person) from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.
When I try to convince someone that they ought to (or must or should) stop eating meat, how am I “proselytizing” any more than any other moral, political, or cultural viewpoint.
what does “any more” have to do with anything ? either you proselytize for vegetarianism, or you don’t. if you do, some people will be annoyed; if you don’t, they might not be.
Most of our semi-hemi-demi vegetarian cooking comes out of the Moosewood books, of which we have four, I think.
“What are the precise origins of these stereotypes with vegetarians? Is it that vegetarianism is an implied rebuke? Does merely proclaiming you eat no (or little) meat make others feel defensive, thus triggering a need to ridicule them (or, more often, silently dismiss them)? Or is it a class thing? A culture wars thing?
I’ll just open the floor. Again, the precise question is why exactly non-meat eating is associated with these absurd connotations”
PETA
The fact that it is harder to keep the over-muscular build that many Americans seem to idealize in masculinity (the fact that many Americans don’t hold to that from the larger end is indeed ironic).
Actual Moral Scolding and self-righteousness(see the rape analogy above).
People are weird about food. Seriously.
The problem here, as with another more prominent political disagreement, is that the moral status of the beings in question is subject to very differing axioms. Axioms that are self-evident to YOU, but self-evidently wrong to the person who disagrees with you.
Amusing anecdote about a dear friend who also has a slight propensity toward hectoring about veganism:
I drink 2 gallons of whole milk a week. I’m not really sure how that fact came up, but my friend was aghast and tried to argue that it was grossly unhealthy for me. His main point was that 40% of adults are lactose intolerant so it couldn’t be good for me. My response was “at 2 gallons a week, I would have noticed if I were in that 40% by now”. He continued in the ‘it just isn’t good for you’ vein for quite some time.
I think I like the story because it includes one of my pet peeves: misunderstanding of how an accurate statistic applies to the situation at hand.
N.B.—the actual percentage is more like 25% of adults, but among African-Americans the percentage is about 70%. My friend is black, so I can understand how his personal experience likely inflates his perception of how many people are lactose intolerant.
Well, d’d’d’docile dave in this thread certainly isn’t conforming to the stereotype one might have expected from his contributions to other threads.
Seb — if it’s not organic milk, you might consider contacting the company to see if they’ve tested for melamine transferring into the milk from contaminated feed.
I used to be a dedicated milk drinker, and regularly put away 1/2-gallon of whole milk a week. so, 2 gallons? wow, I’m impressed.
i’m sorry, but steamed milk IS not a very attractive thing to be identified with in a post 9/11-culture.
Right. That’s why we had a total freak-out over Palin giving an interview with turkeys being slaughtered (not even slaughtered as that part was off camera) in the background. The outrage! It was pretty hilarious, all the outrage and pontification a couple of days before the same folks had their Thanksgiving dinner.
I don’t remember any outrage, actually. I remember laughing at the way Palin kept prattling on oblivious, while the farmworker behind her kept looking at the camera with this expression that said, “Huh…this is kinda awkward.”
Just to clarify, I would never recommend being self-righteous. I would recommend being open and direct, without resorting to ridicule or dodging the issue. This may seem “asshole” to some people, but it can be done with respect and patience. I might not even be a vegetarian now if I had been exposed to a lot of aggressive vegeterian dicks.
Regarding the definition of “proselytize”. The problem is it has a religious or fanatical dimension. Whether they are good or bad, I am a vegetarian for what I consider to be REASONS (maybe they’re not very good reasons). If I argue for the proposition “You shouldn’t eat meat from a factory farm”, this is no different than any other secular issue: “You should tolerate other religious faiths”, “You shouldn’t spank your child”, “You should give money to charter schools,” etc. In one sense, yes, I am trying to convert you, but it’s nothing insidious, it’s just the everyday process of adapting our beliefs and practices.
Nowhere did I imply that eating meat is as barbarous as human rape (raising an animal in a cage for slaughter is more barbarous than bestiality, though). I just was illustrating the completely valid and true point that no one would bring up the possible “enjoyment” of rape in a serious moral conversation, but somehow we can’t avoid giving moral weight to the equally irrelevant “enjoyment” of meat.
I have heard terrible things about animals from meat-eaters (that t-shirt slogan is a real one). The difference between these statements and the racism of an anti-Arab individual, is the anti-Arab individual is probably more sincere and the anti-animal peson is probably just trying to get under my skin.
People are making good points about the different cultural aspects, but no one has brought up my question of what abolitionism would look like now. If the slavery debate raged in our current cultural climate, wouldn’t it somewhat resemble in form every other unproductive debate we have as a society (“Ignorant, immoral backwater hicks!” “Fucking elitist hippie scum!”). What if your friends were slave owners? Would you mandate anything of them regarding their meals, dinner parties, or gifts (“Merry Christmas! Sulu spent all last week in the ol’ asbestos mill making this for you! Do you like it?”)? Wouldn’t it just seem silly to even try to reconcile your completely different moral viewpoints in such a temporary and slapdash way?
Slarti’s mention of the Moosewood cookbooks reminds me that the previous high point for interest in home gardening, and in cooking with less or no meat, was during the 1970s. (counterculture diffusion, environmentalism, and inflation being the biggest spurs).
This was accompanied and followed by a huge increase in availability of and knowledge about different foods. Those of you under 40 take that part for granted, but it’s sometimes difficult even for us geezers to remember how much more limited pre-1970 supermarket offerings were.
We’re re-embarking on a surge of organic gardening, home cooking, and reduction in meat consumption. But we’re doing so at a much higher level thanks to the institutions and knowledge built during and since that earlier wave –Seed Savers, square foot/intensive gardening classics, shelves of excellent cookbooks for vegetarian (full to hemi-demi) and less meat-intensive cuisines.
Does noone remember the bumper stickers with “I am a vegetarian not because I love animals but because I hate plants” on them?
—
farmgirl, The “food x only” periods were usually dictated by outer circumstances and limited to a few weeks, the most exreme being the preparation for a colonoscopy: No vegetables (esp. no potatoes*), no grains (i.e. only bread from finely milled grain), no milk products (i.e. no cheese, yoghurt etc.) for two weeks (a lot of types of fruit were also on the list). Since I get toothache from jam/honey/etc. it was German (grey) bread with sausage almost exclusively. On other occasions it was no meat for about the same time (with cheese as the replacement)**. I can cope better with “meat only” than “no meat at all” and there are a number of common vegetables I have an extreme dislike for (e.g. the mere smell of leek or radish causes nausea, although I could eat it without endangering my health).
—
A classical method to spoil the appetite for meat are educational movies at school showing abbatoirs and meat processing***. In my expericence the effect is only temporary though (and seems to affect girls more than boys).
*that was the worst part. I love potatoes.
**I am an agnostic but the environment was not and there was a holiday approaching with a preceding no-meat fasting.
***in a neutral way, not the “if you eat meat after that you are a Nazi” variety
“Right. That’s why we had a total freak-out over Palin giving an interview with turkeys being slaughtered (not even slaughtered as that part was off camera) in the background.”
Count me, and most of the population, out of that “we”; It’s so entertaining when the media tries to create widespread outrage over things most people just don’t care about.
In order to stabilize my yo-yo weight problem I’ve been sticking to a low carb high protein diet for the last 8 years. It’s really the only system that’s kept my weight constant. That means meat three times a week and lots of salads and berry type fruits. But I need the low carb protein(meat).
kcindc
//Well, d’d’d’docile dave in this thread certainly isn’t conforming to the stereotype one might have expected from his contributions to other threads.//
Y’all may disagree but I don’t consider myself particularly right wing. I’m more about individual rights and responsibilities than right and left. The right often seems predatory and imperialistic or wanting to legislate morality. The left seems too focused on class warfare and whingey it’s-not-fair-isms or just outright marxism. They also seem to want to treat people who make stupid choices as if they were forced into it by ‘the system’. [I owned a mobilehome park at one point and believe me, there is a surprisingly large group of people who are determined to make stupid choices over and over again.]
“I used to be a dedicated milk drinker, and regularly put away 1/2-gallon of whole milk a week. so, 2 gallons? wow, I’m impressed. ”
It is mostly because I eat a lot of cereal. I’ve probably had Cheerios (original, not that honey-nut stuff, the sugar that early makes me crash an hour later) with milk in the bowl and a glass of milk on the side, 5 mornings out of 7 for the past 30 years. And I have it when I’m in a hurry as a snack too.
To be honest, I hate cooking and I really hate cleaning up after cooking, so milk is a great non-cooking source of protein.
2 gallons? wow, I’m impressed.
I never knew it was a way to impress a farmgirl, lol, but I drink about the same amount – water bores me to death, and you can only drink so much espresso, diet coke or fruit juice until your stomach lining starts to revolt, so I find milk very pleasant. And since it’s organic I have nothing to worry about, right?
“Nowhere did I imply that eating meat is as barbarous as human rape”
Quite true, but the unwritten rule on these things is that an activist who thinks society is fundamentally wrong on some moral issue will be held to the very highest rhetorical standard, and anything in your words that can be twisted to make your viewpoint seem ridiculous will be used for that purpose.
You might want to skip the meta-discussion, though, and just make your case for vegetarianism.
A large measure of our dietary choices is determined by afordability. Fresh fruit and veggies are expensive and corn and beef are both heavily subsidized in the US (as is beef in the EU). Fewer people would eat beef if these cost supports were removed.
Anyone have a decent comparison of the relative food efficiency of the various animals we consume for protein and of the land use patterns most suited to balancing carbon footprint, food demand, and other environmental concerns (like animal waste)? I’ve poked, but couldn’t find any good summaries.
American culture worships violence
Oh. Is the rest of the world vegetarian then? I must have missed that. I wonder why my strict vegetarian best friend had such a problem eating in France… (They kept telling her things like “but there IS no meat in this onion soup! Just ham!”)
The following is, obviously, NOT meant to be a universal pronouncement:
I grew up in a religion where being a vegetarian was somewhat obnoxiously privileged. The institutions would serve vegetarian food, colleges, schools, church dinners and whatnot.
The thing is, the majority ate meat at home. Meat allowed by Leviticus (cud-and-cloven-hoof, fins-and-scales), but still, meat. (This might also be an intersection of culture and religion — the religion was American by my particular church was pretty much wall-to-wall Caribbean immigrants and were not about to give up curry goat.) And those who were vegetarian (this is simply my own experience) were INSUFFERABLE about it, as though they were more religious, even though the church did NOT require vegetarianism (just the Leviticus rules). And they would cite things that were not true, or things that had been true in the 1840’s but were not true today, now that we have laws — to back themselves up. So it became less about being healthy and more about hierarchy.
Plus, with a very few glorious exceptions, vegetarian meat is horrible. Tasteless lumps of gluten and sodium in tart brown gravy forced on children at summer camp. And called “burger” or “spaghetti sauce.” I see no reason why spaghetti sauce needs anything in it other than tomotoes and spices, and if I ever do decide to “repent,” I will eat vegetables, not vegetables pretending to be The Enemy.
(Also, when I was in college with the cafeteria veggieburgers, I weighed twenty – thirty pounds more than I do now, cooking for myself. They were Doing It Wrong, I suspect. Or one of us was.)
Oh, and by the way, nobody ever told me I couldn’t have vinegar. No caffeine (which recommendation we all broke in college anyway), maybe, but vinegar? What the hell? Vinegar is awesome. It preserves tomatoes and makes fries yummy.
I still can’t eat pork, though. Actively sickens me.
(I second the book rec for “My Year of Meat.”)
Like other non-normative things, vegetarianism is to a large extent only visible to others when practiced obnoxiously. I am a vegetarian. Most of the people I deal with on a day-to-day basis don’t know this. Not because I devote effort to hiding it, but because it simply doesn’t come up. Some of my acquaintances may even falsely believe that they don’t know any vegetarians, or that the only vegetarians they know are self-righteous types who can’t shut up about it.
But what the heck, it’s not like we’re being oppressed.
Thanks for this post (and the replies, even from the vehemently pro-meat crowd). It summarized a lot of reasons I feel frustrated with my newly vegetarian diet. My mom would be cool if I were gay, but is horrified that I don’t eat meat. I never ate much anyway, but taking that final step is apparently traumatic to everyone I know except my husband.
And I live in Massachusetts.
Also, lattes are delicious. But I definitely prefer tempeh to tofu.
mac
Which academy did you go to? The caribbean immigrants suggest it was in new york or england.
I think Publius is on to something. People are leery of vegetarians, feminists, atheists, etc. because they’re all lumped together in people’s heads as something that only dirty hippies would be. Not all of the above are humorless scolds, or at least not any more than any other subgroup on average.
The problem is that most of the reasons (other than religion) to become vegetarian have a serious potential to seem aribitrary and inconsistent, if not hypocritical.
Even if that was true, so what? Plenty of my friends have quirky beliefs, religious and non-religious. If your friends just happen to not like broccoli or Chinese food you probably wouldn’t have the same desire to force them to justify why they don’t want to eat it.
Deciding what to eat or not eat is a personal decision that doesn’t have to be justified to anyone. If not liking something is good enough for people to get out of eating somebody’s lasagna or Phad Thai, why isn’t that reason good for vegetarians? Maybe they just don’t like meat. They don’t need a ‘reason,’ hypocritical or otherwise, for that.
“World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. … The next-best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount…in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which takes about thirty seconds in the case of Cap’n Crunch.”
Or you just eat Grape-nuts, which doesn’t have such a short edible life after the milk is poured, and which actually fills you up without having to eat three or four bowls like the fluffy cereals.
ChuckD:
Speaking strictly for myself, I haven’t responded to your abolitionism analogy because I don’t agree that the situation is at all analogous.
There are a large number of reasons why people might decide to eat less meat or no meat that have nothing whatsoever to do with the treatment of animals or moral convictions about the killing of other animals for human use.
Even people whose main concern is the treatment of animals need not become vegetarians. It’s quite doable for someone with that commitment (and resources) to ensure that all the animals whose meat they consume are ethically raised and slaughtered.
The conviction that there can be no such thing as morally permissible killing of other animals for human use is a minority position even among vegetarians. Active political promotion of this view does have some analogies with early British and U.S. abolitionism. The confusion of this position with vegetarianism generally, much less with the simple activity of reducing meat consumption, is a vivid illustration of the concerns that led to publius’ questions in the main post.
And yes, I’m illustrating Donald J.’s point about standards applied to those holding views that society at large is in moral error.
{The loathsome pagination of comments makes ChuckD less likely to see this, other commenters less likely to know what I’m responding to, and me grind my teeth.}
But anyway, let’s get back to non-meat eating. I’m being snarky, but I’m honestly curious. What are the precise origins of these stereotypes with vegetarians?
Well, for starters, eating animal protein raises testosterone levels. Eating soy does the inverse.
Oy, veh ist mir. I’m getting out of the commenting game.
Feh.
Double feh.
i am certainly no novice – been eating cereal for most of my 38 – but i prefer the middle between bone-dry crunch and milk-logged. give the milk a little time to start relaxing the cereal, but not enough to turn it into bloated, sodden mush.
my bowl of choice these days is Cinnamon Strudel Mini-Wheats – which isn’t nearly as disgusting as it sounds. Kashi’s version of the cinnamon mini-wheat is also good, and oddly, cheaper.
die italics. die.
there’s always granola. or is that too DFHish? 😉
I also don’t want my milk “cryogenic”. The refrigeration is to keep it from going bad, not to make it mouth-numbingly cold.
And please don’t serve me beer in a fresh-from-the-freezer mug that causes ice crystals to form at the bottom and may even turn the thing into beer slush. I’d like to be able to taste the beer.
Second Nell on the pagination. Boo!
there’s always granola. or is that too DFHish? 😉
Meusli for me. Simultaneously dfh’ish and effete.
If I ate it with soy milk I could claim some kind of elitist trifecta, but I just can’t bring myself to go that far.
Hey nous, when I get home I’ll see if I can dig up some information on land, water, and petro use by animal. That stuff’s all out there if you dig a bit.
Thanks –
Right. That’s why we had a total freak-out over Palin giving an interview with turkeys being slaughtered (not even slaughtered as that part was off camera) in the background. The outrage! It was pretty hilarious, all the outrage and pontification a couple of days before the same folks had their Thanksgiving dinner.
I don’t remember any outrage, actually. I remember laughing at the way Palin kept prattling on oblivious, while the farmworker behind her kept looking at the camera with this expression that said, “Huh…this is kinda awkward.”
I think the point may have been the irony – she was there to ceremonially pardon a turkey, and then you go out back and they’re slaughtering turkeys, perhaps the same one that just got pardoned. It’s like something out of a Vonnegut novel.
Or maybe it was just metaphorically apt – a Republican chatting amiably in the foreground as grisly slaughter is carried out in the background.
Either way, I don’t think anyone was saying “OMG someone’s killing innocent turkeys! We must stop them!!”
My main thought was, bemusedly, “Could she possibly be anymore clueless?”
(Man, I could go for a hummus sandwich right now.)
now_what: Vegetarians can eat meat. They aren’t allergic to it. It won’t kill them.
When they serve me food, I will eat what they choose to serve and like it. When I serve them food, they will get bacon-wrapped steak and like it.
Would you feel the same way at a cannibal’s house? Eating human flesh wouldn’t kill you, either.
when’s the last time you’ve met a right wing vegan?
Not familiar with members of the Hardline movement, are you? Count yourself lucky. It’s the fascist analogue to Crunchy Cons.
Anyone have a decent comparison of the relative food efficiency of the various animals we consume for protein
Of the big three, chicken is the best at about 2:1 feed weight to body weight, beef is the worst at 8:1, and pork is in between at about 4:1. A good rule of thumb is that the longer an animal lives before you eat it, the less efficient it is as a source of food. Most chickens today are eaten when they’re 10 weeks or less old, most pigs when they’re several months old, and cattle when they’re between 18 and 24 months old.
The flip side is that there’s a lot of cruelty involved in raising animals as efficiently as possible. Chickens can only reach a marketable weight as fast as they do if they’re raised in tight confinement, induced to eat as rapidly as possible, and otherwise manipulated. Even feedlot cattle get much better conditions than that, and free range cattle live in something vaguely resembling their natural environment.
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-11-26/news/the-pope-of-pork-in-tiny-towns-across-missouri-old-school-hog-farming-stages-a-comeback-mdash-and-at-tables-across-the-nation-diners-rejoice/
This is a very interesting article about a pig farmer in Missouri who almost quit the biz because of the ‘industrialization’ of raising animals for food. He found a better way and is almost succeeding. Very interesting.
My maternal grandfather was a butcher. We would get a side of beef every year for Christmas. When my parents had steak, we kids did, too. My paternal grandfather had a huge 1/2 acre garden that we could raid anytime we wanted. We had fresh potatoes, carrots, greenbeans, peas, corn, brussel sprouts, broccoli. Also, fruit trees, grape arbors, you name it. We always had good wholesome, healthy food to eat. I JUST DON’T LIKE VEGATABLES! I can eat some of them, but I don’t like them. And I don’t eat most of them… I have friends who are “vegheads” (their term) and they sometime come across as a bit superior. Their excuse is that they “just want me to be healthy & live longer”. My response? Both my grandmothers lived into their 90s and grandfathers to almost 80. I think that is long enough.
@Slartibartfast:
Excellent use of the Stephenson quote. I enjoy those digressions in his writing, but his stories would be a lot faster and tighter if he could lay off that stuff.
“That stuff” is why I like him. But I’m all about digression.
Italics fixed, BTW, not that it now matters.
“There are a large number of reasons why people might decide to eat less meat or no meat that have nothing whatsoever to do with the treatment of animals or moral convictions about the killing of other animals for human use.”
Yes, there are, but I wouldn’t want the treatment of animals to be seen as less important than the other issues. I’m not an animal rights person or even a vegetarian, but I do think that if we eat animals or use them for other purposes we have a moral obligation not to be cruel. Which of course will make the price of meat and chicken and turkey go up. Of course that hurts poor people the most, but since I’m just pontificating about the way things ought to be, I can fix all the world’s problems at once–we need a much more equal distribution of income.
I’m not a moral absolutist–if it is a choice between some form of cruelty to animals and saving people’s lives (as might possibly be the case with medical research, but I don’t know), then I go with the people. But I think that our society has a long way to go before we have to worry too much about putting the rights of, say, food animals above the rights of people to enjoy a good steak. (Which is where ChuckD’s unfortunate rape analogy came in–unfortunate because it was so easily twisted into a reason for not taking him seriously).
Oh, one other reason for me not being an absolutist on this–my wife and I have a cat. There are no vegetarian cats. This is the paradox of being an animal lover. Under an absolutist regime, the cats have to fend for themselves. As it is, given my own position if I’m logical I have to hope for an increase in the price of cat food, because the food animals should live on farms that allow them to live a natural life.
Italics fixed, BTW, not that it now matters.
The violence of italics returns to the calm of textured prose.
I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there about vegetarians versus meat-eaters, since it appears virtually everything else is such a metaphor, including Proposition 8. One of my favourite vegetarian restaurants has an elephant on its logo, and obviously elephants, being very vegetarian, aren’t violent at all. They do live in matriarchies, though, so they probably support lesbian marriage.
V.
You need steamed milk….in your coffee? WTF? Are you three years old?
What, you don’t ever mix ingredients? But didn’t we just enjoy bacon-wrapped steak a moment ago? What kind of baby wuss non-man needs bacon on his steak? Can’t you just act like an adult with an actual penis and eat a steak, just a steak, only a steak?
Steak sauce? You flower-girl. “why don’t you go put on your sun-dress; you’ll be *so* pretty”?
I eat what I want to eat. That happens to include plenty of mammals and if you don’t like it, I don’t care.
Funny thing, I don’t see anyone who’s said they don’t like it. I see a lot of people arguing for personal choice, one fly-by thing about violence that was promptly ridiculed, and you protesting that you’re all manly while vegetarians aren’t.
When you’re at the vegetarians’ house you play by their rules. When the vegetarians are at your house, you play by their rules.
Guess you’re just lucky that your rules are more expansive than their rules. Now, let’s say they were naturists, and insisted on you being nude when you are in their home- they’ll dress to visit you, but you’ve got to bare it all to visit them.
Or maybe they eat bugs. They’ll eat your steak, but visit their house, it’s cockroach stew.
Still game for that home-field-advantage rule of guest treatment?
I wonder why there is this stereotype of vegetarians as complete weenies. It’s a mystery!
Not really. Fat guys who eat steak and huff to get up a few flights of stairs like to have something to fall back on to assume themselves that they’re still masculine. Other easy ways to prove masculinity that don’t involve actually being able to do anything include cat-calling, watching sports, and vigorously arguing in favor of wars that you don’t have to fight personally.
[nb I like sports, not saying that those things come exclusively from compensation for a lack of manhood- but they certainly can, particularly when accompanied by a psychological need to play the victim and claim that those who don’t are wusses.]
Not many, but I’ve been lectured by more meat-eaters over the years about how they eat meat and aren’t about to stop now, or “how do I know vegetables don’t feel pain”?
My favorites are the ones who act like vegetables emasculate one (nb I’m 6’4″ 210 and exercise constantly- I eat plenty of fish though, and eggs)- when in fact many bodybuilders and pro athletes don’t eat much meat, particularly fatty meat, bc the ratio of fat/protein is too high (and their protein intake is huge).
I’m still working to find vegetarian food that I actively like.
Im presuming that you already like some vegetable dishes, and just aren’t thinking about them as main courses (stuffed potato skins, eggplant parmisan, homefries, non-meat lasagne or spaghetti, stuffed manicoti, huevos rancheros, etc). if you’re looking for meat substitutes specifically, try seitan, imo much better than tofu-based fake meat. I dont like field roast, but their line of sausages is genuinely good stuff.
From what I recall of my food chemistry classes, sugar, salt, fat all taste good because the body requires them to function and they are a pain in the ass to obtain in the wild. Now we’ve got convenient supplies.
Fried dough is also vegetarian. I get the feeling that you’re unconsciously substituting “shitty-tasting” or “completely vegetable based” for “vegetarian”. There are so many things that aren’t meat but contain loads of fats (olive oil, butter, avocado), sugars (uh, sugars mostly come from plants, animals aren’t particularly sugar-y), and salts.
Really, the tricky part (insofar as their is one) is protein. And that’s really pretty easy. And take a multivitamin, but that’s good advice for everyone.
If the reason is primarily, “don’t hurt the animals,” then you should in theory be able to eat meat that is humanely raised and slaughtered, right? And if that’s your moral stand, have you also applied it to wearing leather? How about your shoes and belts? Handbag? Wallet? Why should one be different than the other.
So would you not care if I slaughtered you, as long as I did it “humanely”? Or is it not perfectly plausible to think that slaughter is inherently inhumane? And there are vegan alternatives to leather that people seriously committed to not exploiting animals buy — it’s a standard component of veganism.
For instance, if it’s for health reasons, then “just this once” shouldn’t really matter, should it? The comment that “there’s nothing I can eat here” doesn’t really fly, because you can eat those bacon bits on the salad. Really, you can. It’s not like it would violate your religious principles, which are different than your dietary preference.
I love burgers, but I don’t eat them anymore. I don’t backslide, because backsliding is just a way of getting back into something. Like only smoking in bars, Sooner or later Ill figure that Im already eating meat 1)on vacation 2)when visiting friends 3)at parties, art openings, other functions 4)leftovers from same, so why not just cook burgers the one night a week none of those things is happening?
Also, do you demand this rigorous consistency to everyone around you in every area, or just this one? Would you harangue a friend who is saving money but decides to splurge on a night out or a new jacket?
I dunno, maybe you would- but then, that must make life kinda hard on your friends. “Last week you had the cottage cheese instead of the club sandwich because you were on a diet- but just now, you ate an apple turnover for lunch! Ah HAH!”
Sorry this is so long!!
The thing that’s noteworthy about Daniel 1 is that it shows vegetarianism as a healthy alternative to eating meat.
As far as I can tell, that chapter says NOTHING about vegetarianism as opposed to eating meat. It’s about eating the King’s meat vs their own (unless you think that Daniel et al didn’t drink anything, as well). Where does it say anything about vegetables?
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We’re having a pot-luck in a few weeks and one woman was going to make her “family recipe” mac & cheese — with chicken noodle soup. I advised her that we have a lot of vegetarians here (as much as 40%, mostly Hindu), and that they might assume that mac & cheese is a vegetarian (but obviously not vegan) dish. She’s going to look for a substitiute for the soup or make sure her dish is labelled non-veg, but hadn’t even thought about it before I mentioned it.
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My family … are notorious steak burners.
My girlfriend is one, too. I have to rescue any meat she’s cooking about 5 minutes before it’s done enough for her.
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Sometimes I even drag my kids out of bed in the middle of the night and spank them, just because it makes the popcorn taste better.
Slarti wins the thread!
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Vegetarians can eat meat. They aren’t allergic to it. It won’t kill them.
Jews aren’t allergic to bacon. Although I was allergic to shellfish for a while. I guess I became un-Jewish enough for it to stop making me “revisit my dinner”.
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I drink 2 gallons of whole milk a week.
I can easily drink a gallon of chocolate soy milk (yum!) every week. I’m not sure I’d be able to do 2 though.
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This was accompanied and followed by a huge increase in availability of and knowledge about different foods.
About 10 to 15 years ago (or so), I was in North Carolina, and one of the VERY few options for the 2 Hindus who worked in our office at our local Food Court was the bean burrito from Taco Bell. I debated whether or not to tell them that it had probably been cooked in lard; I don’t recall whether I did so.
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Man, I could go for a hummus sandwich right now.
How about a ham-mus sandwich?
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Even feedlot cattle get much better conditions than that, and free range cattle live in something vaguely resembling their natural environment.
How do free-range chickens rate compared with the other critters?
I have friends who have chickens. Chickens don’t always treat each other very well, but sometimes get along. My friends say that they have a lot more personality than people give them credit for. Roosters are sometimes abusive rapists, and the pecking order seems cruel from a human perspective.
My friends aren’t vegetarians but they don’t eat their own chickens, treating them instead as egg-laying pets. They get to know them individually and treat them with dignity.
Well: I’m a vegetarian. I do eat fish and free-range things, though since I just think of myself as veggie, I don’t actually buy free-range meat. It’s for moral reasons: I do not think animals have the same moral status as humans, but I do think we ought not to make them suffer needlessly. And as far as I’m concerned, factory farming to enable us to eat a food we do not actually need counts as ‘making them suffer needlessly’.
I don’t think I’m particularly obnoxious about it, though of course I wouldn’t, would I? Lots of people have, however, been obnoxious to me about it. I don’t really know why. I just think of it as one of those oddities I’m not supposed to understand.
Perhaps because meat is not an essential part of a meal, so that by eating a vegetarian meal at a friend’s house, you are not deprived of anything
You’re deprived of meat. Meat isn’t essential? Well neither are fruits, grains, legumes, seafood, alcohol, chocolate, salad or cheese. You can satisfy your nutritional needs with a diet of potatoes and milk, so the next time you have guests over, serve them each a few pounds of potatoes and a glass of milk at each meal and explain to them how they aren’t being deprived of anything. Let us know if you get any repeat visitors.
…
No, that’s your problem. If you invite guests into your home, it’s considered basic human courtesy to offer them food they can eat
Vegetarians can eat meat just fine, and if they get hungry enough, they will. The implication in this thread has been that to be a gracious host, one should take into account the guests’ preferences, unless the host is a vegetarian in which case the guests should take into account the host’s preferences. That argument is not going to fly. I take into account my health, happiness and the morality of my actions when I choose my diet and I will not allow some other class of people to have their personal preferences automatically valued over mine.
Becuause vegetarianism is generally a conscious choice, and is difficult, there is reasonably a perception that you need a good reason to do it. The problem is that most of the reasons (other than religion) to become vegetarian have a serious potential to seem aribitrary and inconsistent, if not hypocritical.
That pretty much gets to the heart of it. Vegetarianism for most people is not like keeping kosher, which is just a small component of a much larger set of beliefs. It comes across in many cases as a symbolic gesture which is taken too silly extremes.
Vegetarianism is a shibboleth for left-wing political beliefs, which makes it unpalatable to a significant portion of the population. How it got that way is probably a product of 60’s counterculture.
The implication in this thread has been that to be a gracious host, one should take into account the guests’ preferences, unless the host is a vegetarian in which case the guests should take into account the host’s preferences.
No. The implication is that a good host should serve food which everyone present will enjoy eating.
The implication in this thread has been that to be a gracious host, one should take into account the guests’ preferences, unless the host is a vegetarian in which case the guests should take into account the host’s preferences.
If you had some kind of personal need to eat nothing but meat, I guess Id find a way to accommodate. And then this would be a good analogy.
But you don’t, and it isn’t.
Vegetarians can eat meat just fine, and if they get hungry enough,
You know what you could probably eat if you got hungry enough? Guess what you’re having for dinner if you come over to my house?
About frackin’ time. It’s my first one; do I have to buy everyone here a beer?
Beer is vegetarian, no?
Hummus. Baba Ganoush. Lentil frickin’ stew. Chili made from bulgur and ground carrots is awesome, and you can set it on fire just as much as your taste buds can stand. Really, there’s not much end of what you can serve a vegetarian guest, aside from meat. One of my favorites is: make a salad, and instead of dressing, put a big dollop of hummus on top. Very satisfying.
If vegetarians wierd you out, let them know right away; it’s more direct and more honest.
G- I agree that many of the people who find out that I’m a vegetarian (and believe me, I do NOT flaunt it) focus obsessively on possible inconsistencies, and mentally carry the equation “inconsistency is automatically hypocritical”.
But I don’t see the same fanatical determination to stamp out inconsistency deployed in other areas of life. Human life is full of inconsistency- but I don’t see people questioning their Republican neighbors about whether their maid (or nanny) is legal, or questioning evangelical protestants about whether they are on their first marriage. I don’t see people questioning Mormons or Muslims about the fact that fresh-squeezed fruit juice contains detectable amounts of ethyl alcohol. I’m a liberal who works for a defense contractor, and no one has ever challenged me on that.
There is something about vegetarianism that evokes gut-level hostility from non-vegetarians, and I would really, really like to understand why.
By the way, some hosts who served me meals in which every dish on the table contained meat (my ex’s extended family for instance) became mortally offended when I pulled a PBJ sandwich out of my non-leather purse! Go figure.
As far as I can tell, that chapter says NOTHING about vegetarianism as opposed to eating meat. It’s about eating the King’s meat vs their own (unless you think that Daniel et al didn’t drink anything, as well). Where does it say anything about vegetables?
What do you think the “pulse to eat, and water to drink” was, then? That means eating vegetables and drinking water instead of meat and wine. That’s the problem with reading the KJV; the writing is very nice but the usage is archaic. The NIV translates that same line as “Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.” Of course it also translates the earlier word as “food” rather than “meat” (probably correct, since 17th Century English used “meat” for all kinds of solid food, not just flesh), so the point still isn’t entirely clear.
That said, you’re probably right. The argument is really about following the Law. Daniel was worried about defiling himself by eating unkosher food, so he made a sacrifice by eating something seen as less appealing and nutritious. That he still prospered and even did better than the people who ate the king’s food was a sign of God’s favor for following the Law.
And there’s something about eating meat that evokes gut level hostility from vegetarians. There’s a lot of criticism from both sides. You’re just a lot more likely to notice it when it’s your diet being criticized because A) it’s directed at you and B) you find the argument unconvincing or you’d have a different diet.
If you had some kind of personal need to eat nothing but meat, I guess Id find a way to accommodate. And then this would be a good analogy.
You’d be surprised.
I don’t need to eat nothing but meat, but I do need to eat significant quantities of animal fats on a regular basis, or my cholesterol crashes down to “umm … we need to run some tests, because we’ve never seen these numbers outside of terminally ill patients” levels.
One of the more surreal points in my life was having my doctor suggest I increase my saturated fat intake. From the expression on her face, I suspect she felt about the same way. But in the year since I quit eating a low-fat, high-fiber diet and started eating a lot more cheese, eggs, and meat, I’ve gone from being constantly ill and having papercuts take weeks to heal to being healthy and energetic most of the time.
There is something about vegetarianism that evokes gut-level hostility from non-vegetarians, and I would really, really like to understand why.
Vegetarianism is a made to order example of the Kantian Master/Slave dialectic. And given the relatively stable distribution of assholes in the population, there is always someone pushing someone else’s button.
If one really wants to advance the cause of vegetarianism, they would, whenever a thread like this cracks open, refrain from displaying their moral superiority and pass on some mouthwatering vegetarian recipes. This is similar to my wife’s recipe for mushroom stew, though she uses some Japanese ingredients.
whoops, forgot to add the link
I’m a vegetarian. Usually when I tell people that they jump to the conclusion that I am a health food nut. I’m not. Donuts and potatoe chips and Milky Ways aren’t meat.
The implication in this thread has been that to be a gracious host, one should take into account the guests’ preferences, unless the host is a vegetarian in which case the guests should take into account the host’s preferences.
(In response) If you had some kind of personal need to eat nothing but meat, I guess Id find a way to accommodate. And then this would be a good analogy.
But you don’t, and it isn’t.
There are people like me, who, while I’m not a pure carnivore, dislike the vast majority of vegetables. And there are probably more people who hate specific vegetables than hate specific meats. Do the vegetarians among you ask your guests beforehand about any really strong aversions or do you just presume that they will like whatever you like?
Do the vegetarians among you ask your guests beforehand about any really strong aversions or do you just presume that they will like whatever you like?
I love to cook, so it’s one of my standard questions “Is there anything you don’t eat?” (which, if the person I am asking looks bewildered, I clarify that means for example “hates celery” or “can’t bear spicy food” or “no tofu!”). Nothing worse for me than preparing a delicious meal to discover that you didn’t take account of your guests’ food preferences and they’re not going to be able to enjoy it…
Obviously as a guest one can choke unpleasant food down with a pleasant smile (and a lot of water): but if you’re going to be/are a recurring guest, it does make a certain amount of sense to indicate what your food preferences exclude, as well as what you literally can’t eat.
If one really wants to advance the cause of vegetarianism, they would, whenever a thread like this cracks open, refrain from displaying their moral superiority and pass on some mouthwatering vegetarian recipes.
I regard the ability to cook delicious food as an element in my overweening moral superiority, Liberal Japonicus. So there. Also, Tuesday Recipe Blogging. Which I need to get back to…
Do the vegetarians among you ask your guests beforehand about any really strong aversions or do you just presume that they will like whatever you like?
I think a good solution to this problem might be to keep at least an assortment of pasta and a variety of tomato based sauces at home. Everybody likes pasta, no? So carnivores can make vegetarians happy and vice versa – all that with little fuss and in under 15 minutes.
the Kantian Master/Slave dialectic
Oh, and the lapsed philosopher in me I feels the need to point out that you must be referring to the famous chapter in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, rather than Kant, here ;).
absolutely right novakant. Which reminds me, I’ve always wondered about your name, is there a relation to Kant
My pleasure, lj.
The origin of my alias is slightly embarrassing, but since you asked and just between us:
Back when I chose it ages ago, I was reading a lot of Kant (mainly the first and third Critiques) and about Kant (Guyer, Strawson, also some post-structuralists). At the same time I discovered Heather Nova during her early, darker phase (i.e. the magnificent albums “Glow Stars” and “Oyster”) and went to several of her European concerts (at the first one there were only about 50 people).
My admiration for both Kant and the fragile, little girl with the big guitar singing her heart led me to choose this alias – strange times…
Novakant, many thanks! I love hearing the thought processes behind choosing names.
“Vegetarianism for most people is not like keeping kosher, which is just a small component of a much larger set of beliefs. .. ”
Posted by: DBN | December 04, 2008 at 09:54 PM
“Vegetarianism is a shibboleth for left-wing political beliefs . . .”
Posted by: DBN | December 04, 2008 at 09:58 PM
These seem at least potentially contradictory to me?
And yes, what Anne E said. I should add that (after a certain point) until recently, reasonably-raised meat, etc., wasn’t even as limitedly available (if you have both the budget and access to a farmer’s market/crunchy co-op/local supplier) as it is now, so that often wasn’t an obvious option for folks concerned about cruelty (rather than health, killing per se, etc.) Add in people not being strictly and solely rational and logically consistent beings . . .
But there’s some ill feeling between us omnivores and vegetarians due to the latter’s tendency to assert moral equivalence between an intelligent species at the top of the food chain, and really stupid critters well down it. Which is somewhat insulting.
And some hippie I met once thought Bush was worse than Saddam, so invading Iraq was totally justified.
Y’know, being a vegetarian in the Northeast, you’d think I would occasionally run into one of these sanctimonious ignoramuses who discredit meat abstention in the eyes of cleek et al. (I know the above quote’s not his) I mean, I hear about them all the damn time, and usually from liberals, so they’ve gotta exist, right?
Or is this like atheism, where modifiers like “evangelical,” “prosyletizing,” and “militant” are synonymous with “admitted?”
Factory farming and big agra suck for animals. Vegetarianism is an extremely imperfect way to deal with that fact. If someone’s out there making that case so stridently and with such a tin ear that it makes you want to roast a pig luau-style for breakfast, maybe do your cholestrol a favor and don’t hang out with that person.
Everybody likes pasta, no?
i knew a guy who hated pasta and cereal. he said he simply hated “wet wheat products”.
I mean, I hear about them all the damn time, and usually from liberals, so they’ve gotta exist, right?
not only do they “gotta exist”, they actually do exist. for example (as mentioned above) a big group of them decided to organize under the name “PETA” and now they do silly shit like suggest Ben & Jerry should make their ice cream out of human milk.
If someone’s out there making that case so stridently and with such a tin ear that it makes you want to roast a pig luau-style for breakfast, maybe do your cholestrol a favor and don’t hang out with that person.
i’m way ahead of you, there.
now_what: Vegetarians can eat meat just fine, and if they get hungry enough, they will
True, but for me “hungry enough” would be the surety that I have to choose between starving to death or putting up with the painful gut-cramps and other dietary annoyances that go with eating meat. Unless you are in the habit of imprisoning your “guests” in your dungeon for indefinite periods of time while serving them nothing but bacon-wrapped steak, I can assure you: I had rather fast for 24 hours than eat meat. If you are in the habit of imprisoning your guests in your dungeon, you… probably have other problems that even a good vegetarian diet won’t cure. 😉
Novakant: I think a good solution to this problem might be to keep at least an assortment of pasta and a variety of tomato based sauces at home.
Make it gluten-free pasta and vegan/gluten-free sauces and you’re pretty much home free, really. (I found I liked the buckwheat and/or rice pasta shapes better than I liked the wheat pasta, anyway: tastier.)
I actually quite enjoy working around people’s food preferences and allergies: the most complicated one (for me!) was a friend who couldn’t eat onions – anything acidic, but onions were a major no. Most of my standard savoury recipes include onions… but I made her cheese-and-potato pie with smoked Arran cheddar and lots of mushrooms, and that worked just fine.
hilzoy: “Well: I’m a vegetarian. I do eat fish and free-range things…”
um. I do not think that word means what you think it means. 🙂
No onions?
Damn. Onion is one of my secret weapons. Most things that onion goes in can be improved by cooking at least part of them to the point of caramelization. It’s a completely different kind of flavor. Also, onion is really a vital ingredient in gumbo and other Cajun foods. You have someone stir the roux while it’s frying, and just chop as many onions as you can lay your hands on. When the roux is browned (bronzed, really) you throw the onion in and stir it up; quite a bit of the liquid in gumbo comes from the onions and peppers. And of course, if you don’t have the onion, you’re missing a chunk of that gumbo taste.
Vegetarian gumbo? Wow, I’d have to think that over. I’m sure it could be done, but it might take a much better cook than me. I’d probably want to look into smoking some of the vegetables, but I’ve never done that.
a big group of them decided to organize under the name “PETA”
Oh, would that be the same PETA that constantly gets trotted out as indicative of the animal welfare movement, even though everyone involved in the actual work of same hates them with a passion and constantly denounces them?
Help me out. How can I, personally, make up for the damage inflicted by a couple of coeds walking around in lettuce bikinis, or whatever the hell it is they do? If I get Ingrid Newkirk sent to a CIA black site, can chickens have a little extra room and maybe see the sun once in a while?
@lj: relatively stable distribution of assholes
My next band name.
And count me with gil mann. When I read the post, I thought, is this really such a big deal? I’m an omnivore, but I have friends that are vegetarian, and vegan, even macrobiotic, and while we’re passionate and obstinate about many things, we tend not to be rude about people’s food choices. I’m frankly surprised to read that it’s not so, elsewhere. Maybe it’s a city/country thing?
Come to upstate NY and live with the DFHs. We’re not as bad as the hype. Just bring winter clothes.
THE BROCCOLI MUST DIE!!!!!!!
Oh, would that be the same PETA that constantly gets trotted out as indicative of the animal welfare movement, even though everyone involved in the actual work of same hates them with a passion and constantly denounces them?
yes.
now be careful to note that i nowhere said anything that suggests that annoying vegetarians make up the majority of all vegetarians. nor did i say PETA represents all vegetarians (or animal rights activists).
How can I, personally, make up for the damage inflicted by a couple of coeds walking around in lettuce bikinis, or whatever the hell it is they do?
beats me. but if you figure it out, be sure to tell the members of any other group who feel unfairly defined by the actions of the loud and obnoxious fringe.
Some random notes…
1) Like OCSteve I was utterly puzzled by the outrage over the Palin turkey video. Yes, it was incompetent image management. But if you’re outraged by what was going on in the background of that video, you really shouldn’t be eating poultry (NB: I do eat poultry.) I’m not a vegetarian, though I think that there are many compelling arguments for vegetarianism (the environmental ones being among the most compelling). But watching the Palin-video freakout makes me realize that whatever hypocrisy attends my meat-eating, it pales in comparison to that of most of my fellow American carnivores: You’re eating dead animals that have been violently killed. Deal with it!
2) However effective but controversial vegetarianism might be as an environmental policy suggestion, I have an even better and more controversial one: zero population growth.
3) Not all Jews keep Kosher. In fact, I suspect that most of us don’t. So “would you feed a Jew treif?” is, at least here and now, really not the equivalent of “would you feed a vegetarian meat?”
There are people like me, who, while I’m not a pure carnivore, dislike the vast majority of vegetables. And there are probably more people who hate specific vegetables than hate specific meats.
I just wanted to point out in passing that meat vs. vegetables is a false dichotomy. (I don’t mean to infer that that’s what you’re saying, but it is a common fallacy.)
The bulk of any good vegetarian diet consists of foods that are not vegetables: grains, fruits, legumes, nuts, and all manner of dairy products.
“The bulk of any good vegetarian diet consists of foods that are not vegetables: grains, fruits, legumes, nuts, and all manner of dairy products.”
Please note what is NOT included: fish, chicken, or other flesh-products, no matter how free-range. 🙂
And there are probably more people who hate specific vegetables than hate specific meats.
I think if one were to add offal into the conversation, one would find just as many people who hate specific meats. (Not me, however! I eat with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.)
When I read the post, I thought, is this really such a big deal?
I know, Amos, right? I don’t think I’ve ever met a vegetarian who wasn’t totally off-handed about the whole thing. Maybe we’re the only two people in the lower 48 who haven’t dated Alicia Silverstone.
beats me. but if you figure it out, be sure to tell the members of any other group who feel unfairly defined by the actions of the loud and obnoxious fringe.
Dude, people like you who hold them up as an example of my pet cause’s excesses are the ones doing the unfair defining. PETA’s just employing their winning formula for attention-getting, and though it’d be nice if they’d make a lateral move to hemp advocacy and stop kneecapping the rest of us, it’s not incumbent upon me to erase them from the landscape before a good faith argument about where food comes from can take place.
Oh, jeez, I gotta get to the think tank. I passed by a Code Pink rally yesterday, now I’m an AEI fellow.
Dude, people like you who hold them up as an example of my pet cause’s excesses are the ones doing the unfair defining
you’d do well to go back and read what i actually wrote.
Please note what is NOT included: fish, chicken, or other flesh-products, no matter how free-range.
Just to back hilzoy up on this, I’m with her that it’s better to support humane farming than to take yourself out of the equation entirely. I always meant to go back to eating meat when I could afford animal products that don’t come from torture chambers, but I waited too long and now my system rejects flesh with extreme prejudice. I do eggs and dairy but it’s still pretty Naderrific of me.
I won’t stop until the entire world is italicized.
you’d do well to go back and read what i actually wrote.
Still don’t see where I’m wildly misinterpreting you, but based on my track record I’ll have to hold that out as a possibility, so apologies.
Okay, I’m gonna try one more time.
Test one two echo.
Well I think that the image of the self righteous vegetation comes frm the same place as the imageo of the self righteous jogger or the image of the self-righteous person who recycles: the imaginations of the person who eats meat or doesn’t jog or doesn’t recycle.
Back when jogging for health first caught on and there was a lot of media attention joggers wer derided as sneering phonies. When recycling was in its infancy people who sorted thier trash and looked for places to dump the reusable stuff were sneered at as sneering phonies.
See the pattern? Which is not to say that absolutly no vegetarian or jogger or recyler ever was a snob about it, but the pervasive stereotype is a defense mechanism dreamed up by people who feel threatened by other people’s choices,not a result of behavior by the jogger, veggie eater or recycler.
The myth of the self righteious recycler is mostly gone, the myth of the self righteous jogger is fading (as are joggers, replaced by walkers!) and I suppose the the myth of the self righteous vegetarian will fade too as meat eating declines, which I think it will for a variety of sensible pragmatic reasons.
If someone’s out there making that case so stridently and with such a tin ear that it makes you want to roast a pig luau-style for breakfast, maybe do your cholestrol a favor and don’t hang out with that person.
That’s kind of hard to to if the person is a coworker who likes to use the lunch room at the same time you do. I had a coworker who loved to tell everyone else in the room how bad their food was. He seemed to think that criticizing others food choices was one of the perks of veganism. I think he did it because he was a jerk, but I could definitely understand if he gave others a skewed, negative impression of vegans and vegetarians. He was sufficiently unpopular that he was the first person I know who got a good riddance lunch the day after he left rather than a good bye lunch the day he left.
italics begone.
Still don’t see where I’m wildly misinterpreting you,
what i’ve been trying to say is that i don’t think that all vegetarians are loudmouth proselytizers and scolds, but some are (PETA’s the obvious example), and that those people contribute to an overall negative stereotype of vegetarians that some people have.
other people on the thread have given different reasons why some people have negative opinions of vegetarians. and i’d guess that all of the things people have mentioned contribute in differing amounts in each individual who holds such an opinion.
personally, i have no problem with vegetarians or vegetarianism. i actually think it’s admirable in many ways (though not enough to convert me).
:cheers:
italexico!
(ObWi – give me 20 seconds with your HTML template and i’ll fix this for good – all you gotta do is wrap each individual comment in something like a TABLE tag, and it will stop formatting from bleeding outside)
Meat: it’s the new third rail.
He was sufficiently unpopular that he was the first person I know who got a good riddance lunch the day after he left rather than a good bye lunch the day he left.
Ouch! Now that, my friends, is cold.
Thanks –
gil — count me in also as someone who commends people who have the time and money to make food choices that support humane treatment of food animals. that *still* doesn’t make them into vegetarians, and makes it a little harder for those of us who *are* to have a clear category by which other people can understand what we do and do not eat.
the image of the self righteous vegetation
I’m totally with you, wonkie, and the jogging analogy’s going right into my toolbox, so don’t take it as a dig when I point out what a wonderful typo that is. I’m picturing you restraining the impulse to wipe that smug look off a head of cabbage.
Cleek, cheers back, but are you still seeing my italic aftermath? I fixed it on my end.
Also, I get your point, but I still think it’s akin to that of Roger’s (I liked James Bond as a prissy cartoon character, BTW) above. Some people whose beliefs dovetail with mine are kind of dickish, therefore I’m supposed to do something about that. C’mon, if Democrats can win elections without disabling comments on the Huffington Post, surely I don’t have to apologize for people who throw red paint at supermodels every time I quote Temple Grandin.
“I’m picturing you restraining the impulse to wipe that smug look off a head of cabbage”
Yeah and the broccoli is REALLY obnoxious. (slams the refrigerator door).
therefore I’m supposed to do something about that
but i never said that.
I personally wouldn’t invite people over for a meal without checking their dietary requirements or preferences. However, I’ve never had a meat-eating guest complain about being served vegetarian food (assuming that eggs and cheese are allowed under one’s definition of vegetarianism). Tortilla strata made with tomatoes, corn, potato and chipotle, or risotto with preserved lemons, leeks, and mushrooms, for example.
If you don’t like veggies, you don’t, but I would like to know if this is more a matter of how the vegetables are typically presented, or a matter of the actual taste/texture of the veggie? For example, whenever I have dinner with my partner’s family, we’re typically presented with seven or eight vegetable options, every one of them boiled. It’s pretty dull. However, the same vegetables, roasted or sauteed or stir-fried or steamed and tossed with oil and vinegar can be absolutely delicious. We’re slowly working on introducing them to alternatives, such as ginger-glazed carrots or brussels sprouts tossed with butter and parmesan.
@d’d’d’docile dave:
Church, not academy. But New York, yes! 😀
Just want to say two things:
1. What organization is it, exactly, that includes coeds wearing lettuce bikinis, and how can one join?
2. What time is lunch at tariqata’s house?
Thanks –
“At the same time I discovered Heather Nova during her early, darker phase…”
Since we are late in the thread, I’m going to threadjack.
Heather Nova is seriously underappreciated in the US. Especially ‘Oyster’. She has a powerful voice, and is willing to express emotions both dark and light.
One of my very favorite songs of all time is “Truth and Bone”, it hits something just right deep in my nervous system…
Interestingly for some reason I link it in my mind with “The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove” by Dead Can Dance.
Anyway, that has been your irregularly scheduled threadjack.
but i never said that.
Yeah, I know, but the implication is that…
Oh, Christ, here, maybe this’ll work. Y’know that old Onion piece about “Gay Rights Parade Sets Gay Rights Back 50 Years?” (I’d link to it, but after the great emphasis debacle of ’08, I’m HTML-shy)
Hilarious and certainly some truth to it, but I’ve seen enough of your comments here and elsewhere to assume you’d agree with me that there’s no room in a discussion of Prop 8 for lamentations about shirtless bears blowing kisses and going “yoo-hoo!” to random straight dudes.
Now let’s eat this dead horse!
You know, I’ve got no beef with vegetarians (yuk, yuk), I’ve dated them, lived with them, been them at various stages. But I did have one really bad experience, which was when I had to organize a conference of foreign language teaching assistants based in the Northern part of Japan, and the biggest pain in the ass was dealing with a small but noisy contingent of vegetarians. There was some expectation that with 600 people in a hotel setting, we were supposed to somehow magically synchronize what was served with their particular eating habits. This was Japan, so we weren’t serving steaks, but there were a few people who refused to eat any fish based products. Given that the basic stock in Japanese cooking is dashi, made with flakes of a dried tuna, this was impossible.
Similar situations, smaller in scale, have occurred in organizing dinners out after a conference and the like, where the point is to go somewhere to continue discussing things with a featured speaker, and someone says ‘well, I’m vegetarian, so I can’t go to restaurant X’ which may be the only space that can take the numbers you have, or is within walking distance of the conference site, or some other stricture. Again, this isn’t all vegetarians, but there have been some who don’t seem to think that there are any other strictures involved except their own dietary needs.
cleek: what i’ve been trying to say is that i don’t think that e all vegetarians are loudmouth proselytizers and scolds, but some are (PETA’s the obvious example), and that those people contribute to an overall negative stereotype of vegetarians that some people have.
And you don’t think the existence of people who are openly hostile towards vegetarians and who express that hostility without any other provocation than just discovering that a person is vegetarian… could possibly contribute towards that “overall negative stereotype of vegetarians”?
While I don’t think most vegetarians are self-righteous and obnoxious, there is, of course, one sub-group of vegetarians likely to be both: teenage vegetarians. And I suspect in countries where vegetarianism is not widespread, adults (and other teenagers) may be most likely to encounter vegetarianism among their friends first via teenagers practising it and promoting it loudly. (It’s an idealistic cause and a way of winding-up your parents: what’s not to like about it?) Those who encounter such young zealots then make the mistake of thinking that it is because they are vegetarians that they are objectionable, rather than that it is because they are teenagers 🙂
liberal japonicus: This was Japan, so we weren’t serving steaks, but there were a few people who refused to eat any fish based products. Given that the basic stock in Japanese cooking is dashi, made with flakes of a dried tuna, this was impossible.
*nods solemnly* I’ve heard it said that in Japan, all Buddhists starve to death because it’s impossible for any Japanese cook to provide them with meals without fish or meat.
Or maybe, you know… not.
Again, this isn’t all vegetarians, but there have been some who don’t seem to think that there are any other strictures involved except their own dietary needs.
The main stricture is, surely: contact restaurant in advance, explain you have a certain number of vegetarians, ask them to cook dishes for them suitable for strict Buddhists who won’t eat meat or fish. Any event organiser worth their salt will ask all attendees to give an indication of their dietary restrictions on the registration form.
jes got to it first at 12:47, so I will just second her. I will only say that I find lj’s irritation with those “noisy” vegetarians somewhat bemusing. can you not even see it from their perspective? try substituting “urine” for “fish” and see where you get.
I did have a friend in California who traveled on occasion to Japan for business, and always packed enough energy bars in her suitcase so she could eat one FOR EVERY MEAL if need be, because quite often she’d be lunching at places like lj described. yes, they *could* make the vegetable maki roll without the fish egg garnish, but *refused* to do so. she hated travel there.
I have no idea what things are like in Japan, but at least in Toronto, on occasions when I’ve gone out for dim sum with vegetarians, dishes have been identified by restaurant staff as “vegetarian” which turned out to contain meat in various forms. Although I think it should be possible for any caterer or restaurant to serve vegetarian food, I would imagine it often takes a lot of thought and discussion on the part of the organizer. If food issues aren’t something at the top of his or her mind, I can certainly see how slip ups would happen, even if they are aware of the requirements of event attendees.
food culture warriors can play on the tropes in a number of registers–not only is taking our red meat stealing our manhood but it is also an elitist attack on our working class!
yummy! aimai gots chops.
great thread, y’all.
Another thing I see (from within a designated hippie conservation reserve on California’s north coast) is that all of this culture-war demonization shit has overtones of alternative suppression. Vegetarian coworkers are like Sandinista socialism, beacheads of an intolerable invasion that must be suppressed, lest the existence of alternative models threaten the stability of Our American Way Of Life.
Thus the rage. Your eggplant undermines the rigid patterns of belief and behavior that so many adopt of psychological necessity.
try substituting “urine” for “fish” and see where you get.
Not consuming urine. I doubt lj was force-feeding anyone. And people can’t just pull restaurants out of their butts.
Some people whose beliefs dovetail with mine are kind of dickish, therefore I’m supposed to do something about that.
Not quite. As I see it, the problem is that food choice is a largely silent one. The main way that people are going to realize that you’re a vegetarian (or a meat eater) is if you tell them. So meat eaters’ image of vegetarians tends to be defined by the most obnoxiously vocal ones (like PETA) rather than the quiet majority. It’s not fair, but it’s the way things are. Similarly, the image that vegetarians have of meat eaters is skewed by the few who are publicly critical of them rather than the majority who don’t really care.
Don’t invite vegetarians to your house. Got it.
Here’s how I see it. Vegetarians have a reputation for being smug or militant. The militant ones are the ones who loudly declare that there’s nothing they can eat wherever they are because it is fully of filthy charred flesh. If they can’t do that, then they loudly declare how glad they are to finally find someplace they can eat without having to look at disgusting charred flesh.
The smug ones are the ones that tsk tsk at how unenlightened you are for having a hamburger because you don’t understand how terribly the bovine population is exploited by the giant corporations. They are noble because they are enlightened, and you might just become enlightened one day, too, if you can just get past your unpleasant habit of eating meat. Of course, they will try to enlighten you by showing you all the wonderful things they can make without having to rely on the horrible slaughter of our animal cousins. Because it’s for your own good.
The vegetarians that aren’t militant or smug don’t register, because they aren’t militant or smug.
Environmentalists, at their core, want to change your behavior for your own good. They are already getting pushback, and they know that linking up with another group that wants to change your behavior for your own good, especially on a subject as personal as the food you put into your own body, is not good for their cause.
Getting people to recycle or drive less is one thing. Messing around with Thanksgiving dinner and family barbecues and romantic dinners (and all the other cultural staples that center around food) would be a bridge waaaaay too far.
And you don’t think the existence of people who are openly hostile towards vegetarians and who express that hostility without any other provocation than just discovering that a person is vegetarian… could possibly contribute towards that “overall negative stereotype of vegetarians”?
are you suggesting that a vegetarian is somehow incapable of being as much of a self-righteous scold as anyone else in the world ? is that due to the lack of meat in their diet (would we all be less preachy if we ate less meat), or are saints naturally drawn to vegetarianism?
Vegetarians are more likely to be self-righteous scolds. It is because they don’t get enough animal lipids which makes them irritable because the myelin sheath of their nerves becomes thinner.
NB: The above is psuedo-scientific claptrap and should not be taken seriously. For example it totally misstates how myelin sheaths on nerves work.
tariqata: Although I think it should be possible for any caterer or restaurant to serve vegetarian food, I would imagine it often takes a lot of thought and discussion on the part of the organizer.
Yes, but that’s part of organizing an event. Sometimes it comes down to specifying to the caterer or restaurant that if they don’t manage to provide the meals as requested, they won’t get paid. Amazing how that focusses their minds.
but at least in Toronto, on occasions when I’ve gone out for dim sum with vegetarians, dishes have been identified by restaurant staff as “vegetarian” which turned out to contain meat in various forms.
Yes: a Malaysian-born Chinese friend tells me that basically, so much dim sum is made with pork (or chicken) it’s just not the right cuisine to invite a vegetarian to. There is excellent vegetarian Chinese food to be had, but dim sum isn’t it.
I contribute to the Red Cross. Therefore, no one else does.
i had a fantastic myelin sheath confit last night. it was tingly.
Sheriff of Nottingham: “What? Tie him to a stake?”
Bluebottle: “No, do not tie me to a stake” (pause) “I’m a vegetarian!”
Prince John: “Then tie him to a stick of celery.”
cleek: are you suggesting that a vegetarian is somehow incapable of being as much of a self-righteous scold as anyone else in the world ?
No. As any other regular knows, I’m absolutely capable of being a self-righteous scold on any topic I feel strongly about.
I’m quite happy for Now_What to gorge himself on his bacon-wrapped steaks, for Hilzoy to have her wild salmon, or whatever. People should get to eat what they want to eat.
But, like most vegetarians I know, I’ve run into many self-righteous scolds who loathe vegetarians for being happy to munch on salad and falafel, and who take any expression of pleasure on the part of a vegetarian in the deliciousness of vegetarian food, as a hostile attack on their own diet.
As Magistra points out, there are also a fair number of teenagers who are deliberately obnoxious about their diets, but this isn’t a function of being vegetarian: it’s a function of being a teenager.
Plus, I will admit: I can get pretty cranky when I’m hungry, and when I’m attending a fee-paying event and I’ve made clear what I can and cannot eat well in advance, but the event organisers have not only done a complete fail at managing vegetarian food but are getting very self-righteous about “How dare you expect us to manage to get the caterers to produce food you can eat!” then I can go all the way over from mildly cranky because of hunger, to real kill-the-assholes rage.
The combination strikes me as being enough in itself to explain the myth of the self-righteous, scolding vegetarian.
Mmmmmm…falafel. If every McDonald’s were replaced with a Middle Eastern restaurant, I could far more easily become a vegetarian. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen. You go to dinner in the world you have, not the world you’d like to have.
jes — again, seconded.
hairshirt — you could try living in Toronto. 🙂
I second hairshirt….mmmmmmm, falafel.
I got lucky and spent most of October in Brussels, for work. At least in the neighborhood I stayed in, it wasn’t easy to find relatively cheap, relatively casual food. (I’m not supposed to eat wheat, among other things, so this makes a big problem in a place full of croissants and waffles.)
Then I had the treat of spending the last weekend of the trip in Amsterdam. Within a block or two of my hotel was food from everywhere on earth, including, right across the street, 2 or 3 Middle Eastern fast food places. I had 3 of my meals (in 2 days) in one of these places — basically a salad bar with 3 kinds of spicy sauces, plus the falafel to pile it all on, plus, if you wanted, some deep-fried eggplant.
I would love to go back to Amsterdam. (Not inquiring too carefully as to whether there might have been some wheat in the falafel. I didn’t want to know.)
P.S. Is this the first time since pagination arrived that a thread has gone to 5 pages? Or even 4? Who’da thunk it would be “Meat” that did it? 😉
farmgirl: I normally just say that I don’t eat meat because it’s so much shorter than adding the caveats about humanely raised meat, which I eat about once a year, on Thanksgiving.
It was definitely easier in the Middle East. Mmmmmm.
The combination strikes me as being enough in itself to explain the myth of the self-righteous, scolding vegetarian.
you ain’t seen nothing till you’ve seen the wrath of a shellfish-allergic, mayonnaise-and-mustard-loathing, cheese-hater at a company-sponsored heavy-appetizers holiday party!
actually, i’m not very wrathful. i just eat a lot of celery stix and count the seconds till i can start nudging my wife to start saying her goodbyes.
hairshirt — you could try living in Toronto. 🙂
If the election had turned out differently…
hilzoy — thanks for the clarification.
Sorry if this is redundant; there are too many pages of comments to check all of them.
Anyway, the idea that meat-loving (and the resulting suspicion of vegetarians) is a peculiarly modern American phenomenon is simply false. Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, argued that part of the working class’s rejection of socialism came from its association with cranks like men who have beards or wear sandals, vegetarians, and nudists. (As a bearded man who wears sandals when the weather allows, I forgive him for this.)
And certainly if you come to my house for dinner, I’ll do my best to serve a meal that fits within your dietary preferences. Though if during that meal you criticize my choice of diet as unhealthy or immoral, you’ll make me regret it.
No. No, you didn’t. I suggest re-reading, while wearing a +5comprehension ring, or something.
I knew this woman who was an Orthodox Vegan. She wouldn’t each fruit from orchards, only from free-range trees.
(Thanks, folks, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.)
Or an empathy onion ring 😉
Actually it does sound like now_what would be better off not inviting vegetarians to his house, and certainly the vegetarians would be better off not accepting any invitation. He’s made clear that he’s determined to serve them food they don’t want, and I’m not sure why prospective guests would want to subject themselves to the hostility.
I’ve run into many self-righteous scolds who loathe vegetarians for being happy to munch on salad and falafel
Then they’re jerks and sorely misinformed. Nobody’s happy to munch on salad. Vegetables barely even have a passing relationship with our pleasure centers, and I don’t know a single vegetarian who won’t stop dead in his tracks at the smell of bacon cooking. Like the smoke tendril with the beckoning hand in cartoons, y’know? I can’t keep meat down anymore but the desire’s hardwired as all hell.
Kudos to this thread. I kept waiting for the “vegetarianism is a cultural insult!” argument, but even now_what couldn’t manage to be as obnoxious as Anthony Bourdain.
A recommendation for people exploring the use of less meat, or cooking for vegetarians and carnivores in the same household:
The Flexitarian Table
Also, a magnificent book that’s rewarding for anyone who likes to read about food, or food history, whether you are going to cook or not (also partially reinforcing the ‘Middle East, yum!’ sentiment here):
Sonia Uvezian’s Recipes and Rembrances of an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen. Read the reviews to get an idea of its range and quality. Under-appreciated, and right up there with the giants of food and cookbook writing. Delicious ideas for less-meat menus as an incidental benefit.
Have not read it, but would imagine her Cuisine of Armenia is also worthwhile.
gil — the smell of cooking bacon makes me sick to my stomach. so that’s one.
This thread sure makes me hungry!
I think the problem with vegetarians is that they make me uncomfortable with my own choices. That whether or not they proselytize, they are still pointing out by their behaviour that my lamb chops would, if given the choice, probably prefer to be gambolling about the meadows (or feed lots) than to be gracing my plate. Not something I want to think about over dinner.
I eat meat because I find it pleasant and not out of any need. I have eaten perfectly pleasant vegetarian meals, and for a number of reasons think I should eat more of them. Its cheaper, better for the environment, and better for me to eat less meat. However, there are very few dishes in my repertoire that I find myself looking forward too that don’t include some meat, and those that don’t are unlikely to fit into the category that would be better for me, generally being high in other sort of animal fat (cheese, cream or eggs).
That said, a number of years ago I decided to give up eating octopus (which I enjoy) due to their apparent intelligence.
Apart from that I am fairly omniverous. As a potential guest, I try to make my preferences known. I don’t drink milk, and would probably not like a dish that contains a lot; I don’t like a lot of raw onions; lentils are edible but why; and I’ll give my portion of andouillette to Now_What. The thought of eating eyeballs makes me nervous.
As a host, I try to accommodate my guest’s needs and likes, the point being a pleasant meal. I would never serve dishes such as liver, oysters, turnips, eggplant etc. without knowing that a significant portion of my guests would not just eat, but enjoy the ingredients.
Off for a ham sandwich.
Yes, but that’s part of organizing an event. Sometimes it comes down to specifying to the caterer or restaurant that if they don’t manage to provide the meals as requested, they won’t get paid.
You might be amazed that there are people who organize events who have no say in how the money is budgeted and can’t say ‘sorry, we’ll choose the conference area down the street’ (when you are dealing with the only place in town large enough to hold that number of people) Of course, I’m sure a sense of overweening moral superiority is not a result of a non-meat diet, it’s just that vegetarianism is a convenient organizing principle for such a sense.
You might be amazed that there are people who organize events who have no say in how the money is budgeted and can’t say ‘sorry, we’ll choose the conference area down the street’
I am amazed at any organization that does not allow for not paying caterers who don’t deliver what’s been requested. Or indeed any organization that operates on the basis of “Yes, you didn’t do what we asked you to do, but we’ll pay you just the same as if you had”…
Of course, I’m sure a sense of overweening moral superiority is not a result of a non-meat diet, it’s just that vegetarianism is a convenient organizing principle for such a sense.
Plus, there’s the thinning myelin sheaths.
No, seriously, this one comes from having organized multiple events where some attendees had much more complicated dietary needs than just “don’t eat meat, don’t eat fish”. It’s not a sense of overweening moral superiority due to vegetarianism – the other person who organizes events for my employer is a committed omnivore, but he’d be just as morally superior about the need to make sure caterers deliver what they’ve been asked to, or they don’t get paid…
243: whether or not they proselytize, they are still pointing out by their behaviour that my lamb chops would, if given the choice, probably prefer to be gambolling about the meadows (or feed lots) than to be gracing my plate. Not something I want to think about over dinner.
243, your comment is genial enough, but skates right up to the ‘cultural insult’ idea we were celebrating having dodged.
Let’s agree that when people eating their food quietly “point out by their behaviour” something that makes you uncomfortable, it’s something you’re doing to yourself, not that they’re doing to you. Yes?
Vegetables barely even have a passing relationship with our pleasure centers
This sounds like something you read in a book.
I eat meat, but I will happily sit down, quarter a head of lettuce, and eat it for a snack. It’s cool, crispy, wet, light, and delicious.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, haricot verts, potatoes. I’ll slice them all up and eat them raw.
Artichoke hearts marinated in good olive oil. Brussel sprouts brushed with oil and roasted with kosher salt. Beets with vinegar and mustard.
Then, there’s fruit. Fresh peaches. Olives and figs. Don’t get me started.
My pleasure centers are perking up just thinking about it all.
When I wasn’t eating meat, I didn’t like the smell of meat. Any kind of meat. Especially pork and beef. It smelled heavy, greasy, and foul. Totally unappetizing.
I like it now, because I’m used to it again.
It’s all according to what you’re accustomed to.
Thanks –
I’m an omnivore from Montana, but I was curious about vegetarianism so I did it for a few months about 7 years ago. I don’t see people who are vegetarians as hippy-dippy, but I do see a higher proportion of the people I encounter who are hippy-dippy are also vegetarians. In addition I have known several people who chose to become vegetarian and then became hippy-dippy as well.
Let’s agree that when people eating their food quietly “point out by their behaviour” something that makes you uncomfortable, it’s something you’re doing to yourself, not that they’re doing to you. Yes?
That was largely my point, that the problem lies with myself, and my misgivings about my choices, and that my personally very slight discomfort with vegetarians is actually discomfort with myself. However, without all those pesky vegetarians running loose I could better sublimate these feelings and enjoy my foie gras. Just think if you had to sit down to each meal with a nutritionist.
To rephrase, I think at least some of the need to marginalize vegetarians (and especially joggers) is because they are challenging things about ourselves about which we have may have some lingering doubts.
“What is it with Now_what’s whining about vegetarians? Recently get turned down by one?”
Way to mis-characterize a comment from someone who isn’t talking to you even and to fit in a piece of Shaming Tactic snark all into to one witless comment. Pretty tight writing.
This sounds like something you read in a book
How dare you insult professional authors. Though come to think of it, there might be something in “Botany of Desire” to that effect; I’m only up to the part about apples. Kinda makes sense that unhealthy foods would evolve the adaptive behavior of tasting friggin’ awesome, but I’m not smart enough to mount a credible defense of the regular ol’ monkeycentric kind of evolution, so I’m not gonna go crazy speculating.
I dig all that stuff too (or at least I’ve convinced myself I do, since it’s, y’know, what I can eat), but none of it’s pepperoni, is what I’m saying. But then, you claim to enjoy raw lettuce as a snack, which makes me suspicious about your intentions. Damned suspicious. (narrows eyes)
I like it now, because I’m used to it again. It’s all according to what you’re accustomed to.
No, I like sex.
Not to worry. The neo-commies The One is putting in his cabinet will soon start sending out ration cards for, among other things, food. And since most of the neo-commies know what is best for everyone else, I’m sure they will limit the amount of meat any common serf can consume. Once the obamanation is in full swing, I’m sure cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and goats will be given “privileged” status above the common serf. Probably since The One will nationalize them.
Jes, the point I was aiming to make was that the definitions of “vegetarian” and other food choices are often not clearly understood (or shared) by event organizers and food providers. I’m sure this is exaggerated when the event is large and there are many different variations on acceptable food amongst the attendees. I’m not saying that it’s impossible, of course; just that it takes a lot of effort and communication, and while mistakes are extremely irritating, I think they’re understandable. (Of course we should still work to avoid them by explaining.)
What I found slightly odd at the restaurant I was at was the obvious difference in how “vegetarian” was interpreted: the servers apparently thought of it as “containing vegetables” while we thought of it as “containing no meat.”
Hence my thoughts on the importance of communication about food choices, and how it can be difficult even when it seems like it ought to be straightforward.
If every McDonald’s were replaced with a Middle Eastern restaurant, I could far more easily become a vegetarian.
Not me. There’s a Middle Eastern grill in the local food court — it’s pretty much the only place I go there, other than an occasional Sbarro [*] — and I get the Manager Special, which is ground beef and chicken kabobs. Not been tempted by the falafel once, especially since I can get hummus.
[*] At Sbarro’s, I often get the broccoli and spinich stuffed pizza, so that makes up for a small part of the kabob lunches.
“If God hadn’t wanted Man to eat animals, He wouldn’t have made them out of meat”. Author unknown [to me].
Once the obamanation is in full swing, I’m sure cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and goats will be given “privileged” status above the common serf.
Dude, what the hell are you talking about?
NO PIGS! They aren’t halal.
Thanks –
Ed Baird:
With respect to deer and cows, deer do not have the multi-chambered stomachs that cows have. Cow contributions to greenhouse gases are typically methane, produced in one of the chambers of the cow’s stomach.
I doubt that deer produce methane in the same way.
Another problem with the analogy between deer and cow: cows are raised in large herds, managed to produce meat by the ton.
Deer only grow to such numbers if they are NOT hunted (and if there are no wolves in the area). However, after growing to such numbers, the deer will overgraze their feeding grounds and die off in large numbers during the winter.
In short, even if deer are a problem, an aggressive hunt to control the population is the best way to do it.
You believe an octopus is smarter than a pig? An octopus is very intelligent — for an invertebrate. I don’t understand how you’re drawing your lines.
I became a semi-vegetarian for ethical reasons: I decided it wasn’t right to eat something I wouldn’t be willing to kill myself. So I eat fish, but nothing higher on the food chain. My choice, YMMV.
But I found that once we went “piscatarian” (my wife was close to that already, but still eats chicken once in a while), the variety and quality of our meals actually increased. (It helps that Deborah is a really good cook.)
Of course you can make interesting meals with meat–check out IOZ for his recipes, which make me want to start eating meat again. But so much of standard meat-eating cuisine in America is a slab of animal protein, a hunk of starch, and a dollop of vegetables–and, as someone pointed out above, if you try to reproduce that in a vegetarian fashion, the results are awful, and unhealthy.
The other bonus is that we get a lot of our food out of our own garden now. I’ve got about 1500 square feet under cultivation (not counting the vineyard), and I expect that within a few years, using biointensive methods, I should be able to make us largely self-sustaining in produce. Since I really, really enjoy gardening, that makes vegetarianism doubly rewarding.
That said, a number of years ago I decided to give up eating octopus (which I enjoy) due to their apparent intelligence.
Would you argue that someone that kills and eats someone you consider intelligent should get a longer prison term than someone that kills and eats a person you consider to be completely retarded?
You believe an octopus is smarter than a pig? An octopus is very intelligent — for an invertebrate. I don’t understand how you’re drawing your lines.
Honestly, about 25-30 years ago I saw a Jacques Cousteau show which showed an octopus given a glass jar with a shrimp in it and which the octopus figured out how to unscrew the lid much to the shrimp’s detriment. I thought, and continue to think, that this shows a fairly high level of cognitive ability. Consider, at what age would a human, not exposed to glass jars or similar technologies, be able to perform the same task? I have since been exposed to additional, largely anecdotal, information suggesting that the powers of observation and problem solving abilities demonstrated here were not an aberration.
My knowledge of pigs suggests that they have a dog like intelligence. I would have no ethical problem with eating dog, so why not pig? I haven’t tried dog, because its not commercially available, and because I suspect the (protein based) flavour would be strange to my tastes. I did try (similarly? intelligent) horse when for a while it was being sold in the 70’s.
On googling I see that pigs are considered smarter than dogs, and to be on about the cognitive level as 3 year old humans. Give a three year old a shrimp (or a more obvious food source) in an unfamiliar container and see what they’d do. In at least a certain way, I think the octopus is more intelligent, although they probably don’t make as good a pet as do dogs or pigs.
I’ll also admit that avoiding octopus as a food source is a lot easier than avoiding pork,so my sacrifice here isn’t as great as it would be if I were to forswear pork, let alone something really yummy like lamb.
Would you argue that someone that kills and eats someone you consider intelligent should get a longer prison term than someone that kills and eats a person you consider to be completely retarded?
I would consider the issue to be sentience rather than intelligence per se. For instance Terri Schiavo may have been highly intelligent, but at the end of her life it is doubtful that she was very sentient. If you had wrapped her in bacon and eaten her, this would not be nearly as troublesome to me as if you were to do the same to say hilzoy or ocsteve, regardless of their respective intellectual capabilities.
What, to me, gives life value is the ability to (and the extent to which one does) contemplate one’s existence. Thus, abortion and infanticide do not disturb me as much as later terminations would.
So in the case of the octopus, I’m assuming, lacking any other way of measuring this, that greater intelligence indicates the ability for greater sentience. There is no way of knowing whether I’m anthropomorphising this.
Only the giant squids that live miles below the surface of the sea are truly intelligent. I know this from extensive reading of Arthur C. Clarke, so there.
I don’t really feel that the morality of eating ought to depend on how smart the animal you intend to eat is. On the other hand, I do feel especially weird about people who eat gorillas or chimpanzees or orang-utans, or indeed whales.
Which brings us to the morality of eating insects (cockroach cluster anyone?). 😉
I think humans are less willing to eat animals they can observe as intelligent. While there is a lot of popular material (esp. photos, videos) that makes it clear that the squiddies are intelligent (they use their “hands” to solve problems, so we can easily see it), the same can’t be said about pigs (no unscrewing of jars there). Additionally domesticated animals tend to be much dumber than their wild relatives (that includes dogs afaik).
—
The intelligence argument (pig = 3 year old human) would imply that children up to three years of age could be eaten, if there is no problem with eating pigs (Hello, Mr.Swift!).
People are less willing to perceive as food animals they perceive as sharing a part of their humanity.
Octopuses can open jars to get food, which is always thought of as a humanlike activity: chimps and other great apes (and monkeys) are perceived as human-like (and are, of course, genetically very similar). Revulsion at eating cats, dogs, and horses is because they are regarded as human companions, not as food. The traditional food animals in the West, pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, can be as smart as you like, and it won’t save them from being eaten…
And it may also be because of cunning Norman-Saxon distinction which makes it easier, in English, to discuss meat as a distinct entity which is not animal. In English we see cows grazing in the field, but beef in the freezer at the supermarket: pigs in Babe, but pork at the butchers…
And it may also be because of cunning Norman-Saxon distinction which makes it easier, in English, to discuss meat as a distinct entity which is not animal.
That distinction, or something like it, goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. 6000+ years of linguistic/cultural history doesn’t shift lightly.
Some languages make the distinction more than others, and as Jes says, most of the words used for the distinction in English were borrowed from French. I doubt that there’s a significant difference in meat eating that depends on whether people’s language makes a distinction. The fact that English doesn’t make a distinction for “chicken” or “fish” doesn’t mean we feel guiltier about eating those animals, does it?
Ah, finally found it:
“Vegetarian Sausages and Subjectivity
Do you scoff at those pale Tofu dogs in the health food aisles of the supermarket? Are you one of those people who taunt vegans by talking about Big Macs? A new study suggests that you should think about biting your tongue: According to the researchers, how we feel about a sausage, regardless of whether it’s soy-based or beef, says more about our personal values than about what the sausage actually tastes like. In fact, most people can’t even tell the difference between an ersatz vegan sausage and the real thing.
The clever experiment went like this: a large group of people were given a “human values” test which seeks to measure fifty six different values (loyalty, ambition, social order, etc.) Then, the subjects were asked to rate a variety of sausages. People who scored high on “social authority” – they believed it was important to support people in power – tended to label the “vegetarian” sausage as inferior, even when the vegetarian sausage was actually from a cow. Likewise, people who scored low on “social power values” tended to score the vegan sausage much higher than the beef sausage, even when they were actually eating meat . . . ”
“I am a vegetarian, but a non-evangelical one, and I’m from Kansas so I experience this ‘you’re a (insert synonym for crazy hippie here) vegetarian?’ all the time. I think it’s really just a cultural thing, and I take it back to, I guess, the 60s and 70s,”
No. You need to look back to, at least, Britain of the late 19th century. For more recent examples, see, for instance, C. S. Lewis’ fiction. Example, the first page of The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader:
Needless to say, Lewis was not influenced by the Sixties and Seventies, and neither was his attitude unusual amongst British upper or middle classes. Vegetarianism was seen as one of a number of effete and decadent fads by many such folks.
(TVOTDW was published in 1952.)
See, also, common British attitudes towards Gandhi, and other Indian practices.
Special underclothes? What fad was that? (Obviously not Mormonism.)
“if I host a vegetarian and serve them a bacon-wrapped steak, I’m a self-righteous jerk, boring, a poor host, an unimaginative cook, etc.”
Yup.
Funny, I don’t think it has a thing to do with either being a meat-eater or a vegetarian. Some people are just self-righteous and rude, and others aren’t so much.
“I love hearing the thought processes behind choosing names.”
Not much of a rebel against my parents in that way.
😉
Your answer, KC.
Jes: I don’t really feel that the morality of eating ought to depend on how smart the animal you intend to eat is.
I know a lot of people who are content to eat chicken and fish, but abstain from the more intelligent mammalian forms of meat. In my limited experience, mostly with fish, crab and the occasional oyster, most* living things don’t exactly relish the thought of becoming meat. Lacking a deity to make my decisions for me, I need some way of determining what should be edible or not. So far its worked for me, but I seem to be adding things to the equation like carbon footprints, sustainability & quality. I’m increasingly eating organic, range fed, local, etc. although I mistrust some of the labels.
If you can’t tell the difference between veggie sausage and real sausage, you’re eating crappy sausage.
“if I host a vegetarian and serve them a bacon-wrapped steak, I’m a self-righteous jerk, boring, a poor host, an unimaginative cook, etc.”
Yup.
This pretty much answers the question publius had.
We must not serve a vegetarian a non-vegetarian meal when they are our guests. We also must not expect a non-vegetarian meal when we are the guest of a vegetarian.
Their morals and preferences are, self-evidently, more important than our morals and preferences. Any suggestion to the contrary will be met by childish insults.
We will spend the remainder of the hour of Romper Room wondering why vegetarians, in general, are seen as whiny selfish childish thoughtless weenies. I have no idea. Gee. I wonder.
Lots of folks don’t understand that all situations are non mirrors.
It seems to be the basic situation of modern times.
Similarly, lots of folks fail to understand courtesy.
I’m not a vegetarian, if you haven’t figured that out. I simply oppose rude and assholish behavior, and favor courtesy. YMMV.
Rants against courtesy and kindness probably have some worth, no matter my general blindness to them.
Now_what, the situation would be comparable only if your morals required you to eat meat at every meal (and if their morals allowed them to serve it to you). Some might call it childish to take pride in stubborn determination to treat guests rudely, but you may of course celebrate your freedom to be a bad host if you wish.
KCinDC: Now_what, the situation would be comparable only if your morals required you to eat meat at every meal
Actually, I think the comparable situation is a guest who’s on a strict Atkins diet and who therefore is going to want meat, basically – I mean, there are other options, but eggs, meat, cheese, meat, green leafy salad, more meat… I have friends who went on to Atkins, and pretty much, it’s meat, meat, moar meat…
I don’t agree with or approve of the Atkins diet, but I certainly wouldn’t have wasted time at a shared meal saying so (or indicating so to a guest in any way.) I’m a vegetarian so I have no expertise in cooking meat, but you can buy vacuum-packed slices of cold cuts anywhere… and that’s what I did, last time I had to guest someone who was on Atkins.
(Though my preferred option, with close friends on Atkins, is to call any one of a number of good Indian restaurants that do take-out, and order a meat meal for her and a vegie meal for me, and warn her that she’s going to get mugged by my cats.)
“We must not serve a vegetarian a non-vegetarian meal when they are our guests. We also must not expect a non-vegetarian meal when we are the guest of a vegetarian.Their morals and preferences are, self-evidently, more important than our morals and preferences.
I was thinking it was something like this that was bothering you – given your comments along these lines upthread about whose house, whose rules, and so on. Look, you’ve got it all wrong. If you’re the guest of Jews who keep kosher, you don’t expect to be served bacon (unless it’s turkey bacon); if you have Jews who keep kosher as guests, a good host makes sure (at a minimum) that there’s food to eat.
(would you agree with the above?)
It’s not about their morals and preferences being more important than yours, it’s about . . . hmm . . . not even respecting their morals and preferences (which one may have little concern or even disrespect for), but simply respecting that they’re people of equal worth who have those morals and preferences is one way to put it, although I tend to think of it of simply not being an ass.
If they were asking that you serve only vegetarian (or kosher, or whatever ) food in your house, to everyone, when they were there – that’s another matter. (In some circumstances – ie, recovering alcoholics concerned about drinks at a family gathering – that’s one thing, but that’s another matter). But of course, that’s not what we’re talking about. It’s only that you’re looking at it through this prism of dominance . . .
“and warn her that she’s going to get mugged by my cats.).”
My cat mugs anybody trying to eat green olives – he’s obsessed, & will try to climb up folks to get to them, acting completely crazed . . . Apparently it’s not uncommon, but nobody knows why (or even if it’s safe) . . .
Vegetarians can eat meat. They aren’t allergic to it. It won’t kill them.
When they serve me food, I will eat what they choose to serve and like it. When I serve them food, they will get bacon-wrapped steak and like it.
Orthodox Jews can eat pork, too. They aren’t allergic to it. It won’t kill them. But inviting them to your home and serving them bacon-wrapped steak would make you a world-class jackhole. So what exactly do you imagine your point was?
A couple of general comments:
1. Anyone who says “I haven’t found any vegetarian food I like” has never been to an Italian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Thai restaurant, or is lying.
2. Food chain, schmood chain. There’s no such thing, and if there were, you wouldn’t be at the top. Beetles, worms and maggots would, as they ultimately eat pretty much everything. You’re made of food just like every other living thing on the planet, and every once in a while a cougar, bear or shark is going to make a snack of one of us. Suck it up.
3. Anyone who feels they have a right to make disparaging comments — to my face or behind my back — about what I eat will quickly get a very important lesson taught to them.
Jes: I’m a vegetarian so I have no expertise in cooking meat…
You know there are cookbooks that can help, and many meat recipes are simple enough to require basically no expertise. If you can bake a squash you can cook a roast. I’m not saying that you should, but that lack of expertise shouldn’t be the reason. Simply not wanting to would be sufficient. FWIW, if you were to be a guest at our house we would make an attempt to prepare interesting and good vegetarian fare. We have several cookbooks for that purpose, and we often find that we like many of the recipes, although not in practice enough to cook just for ourselves. If I were a guest at your house I would not expect the same in return because I would not expect you to make something you could not partake in, although I would probably be appreciative if you did indeed make something meaty. 😉
Phil: Anyone who says “I haven’t found any vegetarian food I like” has never been to an Italian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Thai restaurant, or is lying.
I don’t think I have had an entirely vegetarian meal at any of the above except possibly rarely Italian where for instance the eggplant parmigiana might not have had any meat in the sauce. There are all sorts of non-meat foods that I like, say apple pie and ice cream, but I wouldn’t want to subsist on that. It would be fair to say, that while I like all above cuisines, except Indian on which the jury is still out, that their presentation at least in my experience have been fairly meat intensive, and hardly count as vegetarian food.
243, every Indian, Thai and Japanese restaurant that I have ever been to in my life — I’m 40 years old — has an entire section of their menu labeled “vegetarian entrees” or “vegetarian specialties” or something of that nature. Every. Single. One. Without fail, and for what should be fairly obvious reasons. If you somehow took away from my comment that I was implying that those cuisines were entirely vegetarian, you read it wrong; but it’s impossible — literally, impossible — to not find a plethora of vegetarian options at all of them.
Although I think it should be possible for any caterer or restaurant to serve vegetarian food, I would imagine it often takes a lot of thought and discussion on the part of the organizer.
Oh noes! Not thought and discussion! The horror!
I just got back from my company’s annual sales meeting, held this year in Santa Monica. There were . . . let’s see . . . three lunches and two dinners provided by the company during the event, for some 130 attendees, including people from India, China and Japan. Every single meal included at least one and in most cases several vegetarian options, including an off-site event at Sony Pictures Studios. It really isn’t that hard.
Incidentally, my wife and I, vegetarians for nearly 20 years, hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year for 8 other family members. We cooked a simple turkey breast for them, while the two of us ate a Tofurkey. I guess this particular vegetarian couple happen to be better hosts than now_what can even conceive of.
Phil,
When I first came to Japan 20 years ago, on the same program was a woman with a violent allergy to fish. She came to discover that almost everything on a Japanese restaurant menu uses dashi, which is made with bonita tuna flakes that are reduced. The same is probably true with Thai cooking (I’m a consumer, not a producer, so I’m not as versed with the ingredients) as nam pla or fish sauce is a key ingredient. From this link
We frequently receive requests asking if Kasma teaches vegetarian Thai classes. She does not. What she teaches is traditional, authentic Thai cooking and in Thailand there is not much of a vegetarian tradition, aside from a very small Buddhist sect, far outside of mainstream Thai cuisine. The most important food in Thailand, after rice, is seafood. (See Chapter 2, A Seafood Culture, from Kasma’s book Dancing Shrimp.) There is an old Thai proverb that says: “To eat rice is to eat fish.” Probably the most important single ingredient in Thai cooking is fish sauce.
If you are a vegetarian these classes may or may not be appropriate for you. If you eat fish and seafood of all kinds (particularly fin fish, shrimp and squid / cuttlefish) you should have no problem taking the classes, getting enough to eat and participating in many of the exercises in harmonizing flavors that lie at the heart of Kasma’s teaching; there will be many dishes that you will not be able to eat or taste, however. If you are a vegan or do not eat fish and shellfish, these classes are not for you as you would be unable to taste any of the food or participate in any of the tasting exercises. Kasma does not provide information about “substitutes” that would allow a vegan to adapt her recipes because, to her, there are no substitutes if you want authentic Thai flavors and authentic Thai food.
243: You know there are cookbooks that can help, and many meat recipes are simple enough to require basically no expertise.
I don’t cook things unless I can tell, when I taste them, I got it right. As I find it impossible to tell if I got a meat recipe right, since (a) I’m not tasting that stuff (b) all meat – at least, all meat I ever accidentally tasted or involuntarily smelled up close – tastes disgusting, I just don’t cook meat. This is a good reason for preferring the take-out option: a good Indian meal smells delicious even if the base ingredient is meat instead of vegetables or pulses.
The only disadvantage is my cats will mug my guest for it, and if my friends can’t fight off two small, cute fuzzballs for their dinner, well, they’re clearly not worthy of my friendship or the name of carnivore. On the savanna, they’d have to compete with hyenas and lions, so they should be able to cope with my cats being terribly, demandingly cute at them.
243: I don’t think I have had an entirely vegetarian meal at any of the above except possibly rarely Italian where for instance the eggplant parmigiana might not have had any meat in the sauce.
There is actually (as Elizabeth David noted) no such thing as “Italian cuisine” – there are many regional/seasonal Italian cuisines, some of which are more veggie friendly than others.
But in the UK at least, all Italian restaurants will serve variations on pizza and multiple versions of pasta, and if it’s properly (ie freshly made!) there’s no problem finding a vegetarian option. The chief difficulty I ever found is that many Italians cannot believe that a person exists who will not eat parma ham…
Phil you are right, I’m not understanding your point. It is quite possible for someone to go to a restaurant that has a separate vegetarian section on the menu, and learn nothing about finding “vegetarian food I like”, because they simply don’t try the foods from that section. We often do order stuff from that section, figuring that we are getting enough meat in other dishes, and because my wife actually, for some inexplicable reason, likes tofu. FYI, I think all of the Indian places I’ve been to have had vegetarian sections, I’m not sure about the Thai, and I don’t think all of the Japanese did. The last couple of sushi places I ate at don’t have menus online, but the first I found in Seattle didn’t have a vege section. It did have vegetable rolls and some vege appetizers and salads but was a bit sparse on the vege offerings — all of the entrées or combos had meat.
Jes, if the smell of cooking meat nauseates you then you just shouldn’t do it. That said, you can make good meat dishes just by following instructions, and without the need for personally tasting it. Here is a recipe which doesn’t require tasting or any real skill at all, and which I assure you that most meat eating friends will love. I would personally volunteer to let you test it on me, and would even share a minute bit with your cats.
Not being a vegetarian, I don’t track which restaurants have good vegetarian fare. When I go out with vegetarians I let them pick the restaurant. I do have friends with severe food allergies. I have found restaurants here (Seattle) increasingly willing to accommodate people with food issues. I recently (2007) travelled with a person to Italy, France & Spain who couldn’t eat gluten, soy, cow-dairy, eggs, or sulphites. While we did a lot of our own food prep, going out to eat didn’t turn out to be as problematic as feared.
Indeed, but not always done with great effectiveness. When I lived in my university residence a few years ago, for example, while there was always a vegetarian (though not necessarily vegan) option apart from the salad bar, at least once a week that option consisted of a large slab of tofu in sauce.
I like tofu quite a bit (though I prefer my soy in edamame form), but a slab of tofu in sauce is not a complete meal.
I don’t think it should be that hard to provide (tasty) vegetarian options; it just seems as though for many people who should really know better (i.e., people planning 3 daily meals for a thousand people with widely varying dietary needs), it is. I think it’s because of a lack of attention to the importance of good food that is acceptable to, and safe for, everyone eating it, especially if some preferences are seen as less normal or important.
If they’re only being demandingly cute, that’s not so hard to defend against. My parents’ cat (and most of our previous cats) all independently picked up the habit of sneaking into one’s lap and then casually swiping food from one’s plate. Although the current cat seems to be omnivorous and will go for bits of rice, couscous, and corn as happily as he’ll go for chicken.
Does anyone find a bit of cognitive disconnect between keeping cats/pets and being vegetarian?
I suppose it depends on the level of strictness, and if one is willing to serve meat to a guest, a cat should not be much more of a problem. (And if you keep them indoors then they’re not out killing birds or what have you… still, housecats are a particularly destructive factor in the songbird population.)
I ponder this because I may very well re-take up vegetarianism at some point.
Mac, while most dogs can perfectly well cope with a properly-planned vegetarian diet, since dogs, like humans, are omnivorous – cats are carnivores.
You can buy specially-made vegan cat food at some pet stores: it’s expensive and unless a kitten is fed nothing else but this stuff from weaning onward, most cats will refuse to eat it. (So owners who have tried it report.)
I accept that my cats eat meat. I accept that, given the chance, they’ll hunt and kill. I feed them what they can eat, and I don’t let them outdoors without a belled collar that ensures any songbird or small furry animal they could catch would have to be exceptionally deaf. And the mice they occasionally catch indoors get regretfully disposed of: they’re usually very small mice, probably the equivalent of dumb teenage boys showing off to their friends.
I am contemplating moving them over to eat organic cat food, though. Right now the older cat is on Hill’s Science Diet because she’s elderly and fragile and too thin and I definitely do not want to take any risks with her losing weight again…
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