Everytime I Eat Vegetables I Think Of You
Here's a rant on vegetarians and vegans, but don't get huffy until you read it.
I'm at university, so of course there are people with alternative lifestyle choices in my classes and populating common areas- after all, university, for some, is the first true taste of adulthood; where you can be who/what you want (mostly without threat of persecution) and start to guide your life down the path you want it to go down. I have no problem with people living differently to me but do not, for God's sake, expect me to congratulate you for the fact that you don't eat meat or dairy.
I'm a meat eater. It may sound heartless to vegetarians and vegans, but I can cope with the fact that I've eaten something that once had a face. I also love cow's milk and its by-products and while I don't expect you to condone my choice, I do expect you to respect it. Just like I respect your decision to stick to the fruits, vegies and nuts etc that a few of you seem to feel meat-eaters are too stupid to eat much of.
In my English tutorial on Monday, a vegetarian was work-shopping a piece of her writing that centred around her reason for not eating meat (which was that her grandfather once killed a cow in front of her as part of lecture on why humans need to eat meat). I had no particular feelings about the piece or the story (except that her grandfather should have thought the whole thing through before he did it) until the writer declared "And I haven't eaten meat in 27 years" smugly, as if she should be congratulated. And she was (of sorts)- another vegetarian chimed in: "Me too. I haven't eaten meat in 13 years".
I'm not ever going to congratulate someone for living a certain way. I do, however, congratulate them on having made a choice that they're happy to have made and that they feel makes their life better. I congratulated Estella- the writer- on her choice to forgo meat and whatever else in the same way I congratulate a smoker for dealing with the shit smokers inevitably get and toughing it out in the rain/wind/heat to get their hit of nicotine. Vegetarians cop plenty of shit too, but if they're happy and loving their new lifestyle, more power to them. But the fact that they've made their choice and they see it as beneficial does not mean that they can lecture me on the flaws in my lifestyle, which leads to my next story.
I did my school's Open Day on Sunday and worked with a girl who I knew because, like me, she has helped out in previous years. In a lull in conversation, I made the mistake on saying that her Vegan name plate necklace was cute (it was in an awesome retro font) and had to suffer through platitudes on the vegan lifestyle for the rest of the day. This particular vegan was refreshingly pro-active- rather than complaining about a lack of public eating options as the other vegans and some vegetarians I've spoken to do, Tara accepted the fact that she had to be better prepared and always carried certain food items with her. She wasn't bitter about this, but she did go on and on about how she would have died unless she 'converted' and how other vegans and vegetarians were just lazy and ignorant if they didn't know their options (my words, not hers). At lunch, she also made a show of loudly going through the ingredients in the juice that came with our catered lunches and declaring that she didn't know if one preservative in particular was 'animal' or not. I told her that it was great she was happy with her lifestyle and felt better for it, but I still wanted to run in the opposite direction when she said she was a bit of a martyr about being vegan and seemed proud of it.
Fortunately, I've only come across a few of those smack-worthy vegetarians who say "I'm a vegetarian, meat is soooo fattening!" or "Eating meat is animal genocide and one day, karma's going to kick you up the ass for being part of it!", but it's still enough to make me wary of discussing my lunch with a stranger. I'm all well and good with people not eating meat because of beliefs like that- it's their choice and their opinion, after all- but why do the rest of us have to hear about it 3 times a day or more? Surely eating only potato cakes, chips with tomato and vegetarian pizza with Diet Coke for lunch every day as some 'lipstick vegetarians' at La Trobe do is less healthy than a lamb souvlaki and a milkshake, but hey, I'm happy to keep thoughts like these to myself if you manage to keep a straight face and shut mouth when I eat my usual chicken, Swiss cheese, avcado and salad on multi-grain and chase it down with a Lady Grey tea with full cream cow's milk.
Edit: it'd be awesome if I could spell properly in my titles!
I'm at university, so of course there are people with alternative lifestyle choices in my classes and populating common areas- after all, university, for some, is the first true taste of adulthood; where you can be who/what you want (mostly without threat of persecution) and start to guide your life down the path you want it to go down. I have no problem with people living differently to me but do not, for God's sake, expect me to congratulate you for the fact that you don't eat meat or dairy.
I'm a meat eater. It may sound heartless to vegetarians and vegans, but I can cope with the fact that I've eaten something that once had a face. I also love cow's milk and its by-products and while I don't expect you to condone my choice, I do expect you to respect it. Just like I respect your decision to stick to the fruits, vegies and nuts etc that a few of you seem to feel meat-eaters are too stupid to eat much of.
In my English tutorial on Monday, a vegetarian was work-shopping a piece of her writing that centred around her reason for not eating meat (which was that her grandfather once killed a cow in front of her as part of lecture on why humans need to eat meat). I had no particular feelings about the piece or the story (except that her grandfather should have thought the whole thing through before he did it) until the writer declared "And I haven't eaten meat in 27 years" smugly, as if she should be congratulated. And she was (of sorts)- another vegetarian chimed in: "Me too. I haven't eaten meat in 13 years".
I'm not ever going to congratulate someone for living a certain way. I do, however, congratulate them on having made a choice that they're happy to have made and that they feel makes their life better. I congratulated Estella- the writer- on her choice to forgo meat and whatever else in the same way I congratulate a smoker for dealing with the shit smokers inevitably get and toughing it out in the rain/wind/heat to get their hit of nicotine. Vegetarians cop plenty of shit too, but if they're happy and loving their new lifestyle, more power to them. But the fact that they've made their choice and they see it as beneficial does not mean that they can lecture me on the flaws in my lifestyle, which leads to my next story.
I did my school's Open Day on Sunday and worked with a girl who I knew because, like me, she has helped out in previous years. In a lull in conversation, I made the mistake on saying that her Vegan name plate necklace was cute (it was in an awesome retro font) and had to suffer through platitudes on the vegan lifestyle for the rest of the day. This particular vegan was refreshingly pro-active- rather than complaining about a lack of public eating options as the other vegans and some vegetarians I've spoken to do, Tara accepted the fact that she had to be better prepared and always carried certain food items with her. She wasn't bitter about this, but she did go on and on about how she would have died unless she 'converted' and how other vegans and vegetarians were just lazy and ignorant if they didn't know their options (my words, not hers). At lunch, she also made a show of loudly going through the ingredients in the juice that came with our catered lunches and declaring that she didn't know if one preservative in particular was 'animal' or not. I told her that it was great she was happy with her lifestyle and felt better for it, but I still wanted to run in the opposite direction when she said she was a bit of a martyr about being vegan and seemed proud of it.
Fortunately, I've only come across a few of those smack-worthy vegetarians who say "I'm a vegetarian, meat is soooo fattening!" or "Eating meat is animal genocide and one day, karma's going to kick you up the ass for being part of it!", but it's still enough to make me wary of discussing my lunch with a stranger. I'm all well and good with people not eating meat because of beliefs like that- it's their choice and their opinion, after all- but why do the rest of us have to hear about it 3 times a day or more? Surely eating only potato cakes, chips with tomato and vegetarian pizza with Diet Coke for lunch every day as some 'lipstick vegetarians' at La Trobe do is less healthy than a lamb souvlaki and a milkshake, but hey, I'm happy to keep thoughts like these to myself if you manage to keep a straight face and shut mouth when I eat my usual chicken, Swiss cheese, avcado and salad on multi-grain and chase it down with a Lady Grey tea with full cream cow's milk.
Edit: it'd be awesome if I could spell properly in my titles!