I wrote this on Easter in 2011 so all the mentions of, you know, Easter? That's why. But it's still very very relevant to this upcoming Christmas. And New Year's. And your next staff party or social gathering.Maybe I'll just change all the Easter's to Christmassseses.*
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A Message to you Omnivores this Easter Christmas.
Seeing as it's
My family eats meat. Most of my friends eat meat. I don't care. I made a choice not to eat dead bodies and that's that. I'm not better or worse than you for it. You're not better or worse than me either. I just have a message to the omnivores out there who have one vegetarian at their table...
DO NOT EAT ALL THE VEGETARIAN FOOD!
This is very common. A family plans a turkey dinner, with bacon in the potatoes, stuffing full of who knows what, cubed ham in the peas, beef gravy and ... oh yeah, there's a salad for the one vegetarian. I guess we can leave the chicken out of it like gracious hosts.
No problem. The vegetarian brought their own thing from home. Maybe it's a tofurky, maybe it's a special lasagna or spaghetti (?) or something...they just want to be included, to hang out with you, to be able to eat something nutritious and healthy, NOT JUST SALAD. They're covered, don't even worry about it.
Until...
Uncle: "Hey, is that tofurky any good? Mind if I try a bite?"
Vegetarian: "Uh, I guess not, go ahead."
Little cousin: "Can I try some?"
Vegetarian: "I guess..."
Uncle: "Ugh disgusting, how can you eat this stuff?" (Throws an entire slice in the garbage disposal.)
Little cousin: (spits it back out onto his plate) "Eww, it's like poison!"
Everyone else at table: (laughs)
Vegetarian: (sighs and goes back to the half-meal that's left over).
You guys, that is so rude. Everybody wants to know if the tofu hot dog tastes like a "real" hot dog. It has the same spices but is made from tofu. So it's different. You don't need to prove to all the other meat eaters that the tofu hot dog is inferior okay? It wastes food, and hurts feelings.
Ryan seems to encounter this situation a lot at work functions. There's him and one or two other vegetarians. Not even "difficult-to-feed" vegans. It's not hard to feed a vegetarian, trust me. But every single time he goes to a meeting, they order pizza. One pepperoni. One meat lovers. And one veggie. And guess what everybody eats first? The veggie one. And then him and the other two vegetarians are left fighting over scraps while everyone else is "too stuffed" to even touch that last pizza.
I'm just saying, try to be sensitive to other people's dietary concerns. It's no secret that those three are vegetarian at the meetings, the others just don't even think about it.
So, in conclusion, if your family is having a big nice Easter dinner and you have vegans or vegetarians around, please don't eat all their food! And maybe try to keep the side dishes beef-stock and meat-free. Don't pour butter all over the veggies if there's a vegan.
Thank you.
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*Spell check did not underline this word, therefore it exists.
