I wrote this for my personal journal, but thought I'd post it here, in case any of you are dealing with this issue with your friends. Any feedback on how to improve the arguments would also be appreciated if you feel like it.
***
Alright, so I said not as many vegan posts for a while, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while - the issue of where to go out to eat when you're in a mixed group of vegans, vegetarians and omnivores.
Background to this: This issue doesn't come up an incredible amount for me anymore. Part of this is that I have lots of vegan friends, another part is that Lee was always understanding about this issue when we went out, so we always went somewhere where I could eat something. This has come up in the past for me, though.
Example: Once I was visiting some old friends out of town and I was reliant on them for transportation. I researched where the vegetarian restaurants in town were before I left, so that I'd know where to go to eat once I got there. Easy, right? Wrong. Once on the actual trip, I brought up the idea of going to one of these vegetarian restaurants I looked into. Nobody said anything. I figured they hadn't heard me, or were thinking about something else, so I waited, and brought it up again. This time they were either silent again or deferred me with "we'll think about it," but basically it sounded like a no-go. So, this being a small town, I said, "Well that's no problem. Why don't you drop me off at (the address of the vegetarian restuarant) and then pick me back up when you're done eating?" No. Answer. I didn't know what to do. These were super-good old friends of mine, and I was basically trapped in their car, reliant on them for my transportation around town. I didn't have a map of the town or a notion of how big it was, and they had our hotel keys. So we end up at this rather shitty Mexican restaurant. Fortunately, I was able to "veganize" a burrito by asking for the cheese and sour cream to be removed, but it kind of blew. Perhaps it was fitting that everyone's stomachs hurt that day. Later, I returned to that town and ate at their main vegetarian restaurants. They weren't up to Portland standards, but they would have definitely beaten out that shitty Mexican restaurant. So why is this such a grim situation? Why should omnivores be concerned with accomodating their vegan and vegetarian friends?
1) First, look at it from this angle - if you have a vegan friend, they're your friend. If people have friends with allergies, they will make sure their friend can be served at the restaurant they choose.
If people have friends on special diets for their health or just to lose weight, they will often accomodate those friends.
Hell, I know lots of people who simply accomodate picky-eating - as in, I don't like ethnic food! For my own wedding rehearsal dinner, I didn't question the logic of letting my ex-husband's sister dictate the location, based on the fact that she wouldn't try "ethnic" foods. So instead, though both my ex-husband and I were vegetarians at the time, we ended up at a restaurant with one really lame vegetarian dish.
So it's obvious that the "friendly" thing to do is seen as accomodating your friends' needs and desires when choosing a restaurant; but many people exclude vegans and vegetarians from these considerations, for no apparent reason. It could perhaps be argued that our needs are not as urgent as someone who suffers from a health problem, but they are certainly greater than those of someone who simply doesn't like one type of food or another. Not convinced? Read further
2) To understand why choice of restaurant *really matters* to a vegan, I will illustrate how I read menus at restaurants these days. I edit.
Say I'm at Shari's; this is what I see:
Not food,
Not food,
Not food,
More Not food
Not food
An entire section lacking any food
French Fries possibly fried in not food
Not food
Oh, hell, the whole rest of the menu is not food!
(orders the french fries)
You may argue that all of this is food, but to a vegan hamburgers, pork, dairy ice creams, cheese sandwiches, etc. are not food items, any more than a fried dog burger or a cat sandwich or a human left arm would be food to you. This will probably sound extreme to you, but there is actually no logical basis for viewing a dog as any more deserving of ethical treatment than a pig. So while you still view a pig as food and a dog as not, I see no reason to distinguish; a dog is not food and a pig is not food, unless perhaps I were a member of the Donner Party, in which case my survival would be at stake, rather than my tastebuds.
So if I go to a restaurant with omnivorous friends, and can't order anything, it's not that I'm "being picky"; there's just not any food on the menu for me to eat.
And if there's not any food on a menu to eat, and I'm still out with you, it's for one of two reasons:
a) you tricked me into thinking we'd go someplace where there would be food and now I'm feeling kind of pissed off
b) I really value your company and suspected in advance that my needs would not be met, but decided to go anyway, because I love you more than eating a decent meal
This shouldn't have to happen. Let's examine the opposite situation: The group of omnivores, even if they outnumber their vegan/vegetarian friend, agree to go to a vegetarian or vegetarian-friendly restaurant.
To an omnivore, certainly everything on a menu at either of these restaurants will be classified as "food". Everything is potentially edible. That meat-eater might be more "in the mood" for meat, but if the menu is all vegan, they will be able to find something to eat, and indeed, will have as wide a range of possible choices as their vegan or vegetarian friend. If this group merely selects a vegetarian-friendly restaurant (of which there are many, and it only takes a little looking to find one usually) then the meat-eaters might also potentially eat meat, while their vegan or vegetarian friend will have at least a few options to choose from, rather than facing an entire menu of non-food - what would be the equivalent to an omnivore of a menu consisting of dog's brains and cat soup and baby fingers.
So, the moral of the story is, I guess, that if you're an omnivore and you go out to eat with vegans or vegetarians, remember to look at things from their perspective, too. Realize that by neglecting to find a restaurant where they can eat also, you're telling them that their enjoyment of the meal does not matter, and they'll just have to "make do". Ask yourself whether you would do that to a friend who was on a diet, had allergies or simply didn't like one type of food. If you wouldn't do that to those friends, please don't do it to your vegan and vegetarian friends.
And we promise - our food isn't scary, and we won't take you somewhere with crappy food. It wouldn't be good PR for vegetarianism and vegansim anyway. (;