Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Ooookay. so i'm super not used to being around non-veg-friendly people. not all of my friends are non-meat-eaters, but many of them are and the rest are very open-minded and not at all obnoxious or judgy judgy (as i am not of them).

i have a job. i like my job. i like the people i work with. i like the particular individual i'm about to complain with.

i cook my lunch at home and bring it and eat it, and basically every day people are like "oooooooooh that smells goooood mmmmm you're soooo healthyyyy wooow" and this guy is a total sweetheart, and he's among them.

today:

"Wow, that smells really good! but oh yeah, i wouldn't eat it because i'm not vegan."


uh...?


"Oh. it's just... indian food," I say. "I mean, I cooked it. But you've probably eaten it before. At like an Indian restaurant. Unless you never get anything without meat."

"yeah," he says, "i always get things with meat at indian restaurants."

"oh," I say. "well hm."


what the fizzle!?!?!?! is it not a SUPER rude thing to say?? "Wow that smells great but your freakish vegan food freaks me out." PS IT'S JUST INDIAN FOOD YOU DOUCHE! indian food which is, with the subtraction of ghee, quite frequently vegan ANYWAY! i'm not like oozing nooch out of my bowl; there's not even any tofu or seitan in sight (it was an incredibly delicious spicy pumkin/daikon/carrot/kale/chickpea conglomerate with brown rice). and even if there WAS tofu or seitan, PEOPLE EAT TOFU AND SEITAN!


the thing is, he wasn't intending to be rue. it's just that there's this mindset that if something is Vegan-With-a-Capital-V then you "can't have it" because you "eat meat"


gwaeoirheowairhewahiorewa


okay rant over

I don't think it's really rude, it's just kind of a weird statement.

Maybe he was having an 'off' day?

that is really strange, I'd probably ask what his point was? A lot of my family eats meat and they don't mind eating vegan food-it's not like they have a vegan allergy if they consume meat.

Yeah, that doesn't really sound rude to me. It does sound like a great opportunity to open his mind, like--"really? you never eat cupcakes/bread/crackers/beans/salad/pasta? If I made something super super delicious would you be willing to take a little bite?"

People definitely have an idea of what "vegan" food is and I get that it can weird them out because it used to weird me out until people shared their food with me. It's pretty normal to be wary of the unknown.

But I'm sorry it ticked you off--obviously we're not getting the whole context and sometimes those comments can be annoying, even if they weren't intended to be.

I would ask too. "That's great. And what exactly is your point?"

Not rude, just silly.

Maybe he's confused. If a vegan where to eat a meaty meal every once in a while then they would not be a vegan. So maybe he's reversed this and thinks that if an omnivore occasionally eats a vegan meal they will cease to be an omnivore! ( No, I don't really think he thinks this, but my response would have probably been based on pretending that was what I thought he was thinking.)

It's one of those strange things-some people presume "vegan" means "weird". My brother once asked me if I had "normal" ketchup. Many folks don't even realize that just by eating spaghetti with plain tomato sauce, they are eating a vegan meal.

I think sometimes it's not a vegan-not vegan thing. Sometimes it's just a communication fail. People can be dumb.

I don't think it was particularly rude, just kind of an odd statement. A lot of the time, people just assume the label "vegan" means weird automatically. People eat vegan food every day!

I don't think I had ever eaten a vegan meal until I went vegetarian, and even then, it was rare. Unless you count Oreos and Dr. Pepper as a meal.

I wouldn't find it that rude. I would probably just laugh, and ask what life is like without eating fruit/salad/hummus/multitude of other things that 'normal' people eat without associating it with being vegan.

Bottom of the food pyramid, dude.

not rude at all

I get things like that a lot. Like people have to have meat. All the time. They'll say things like "we can't go to that [vegan] restaurant because there's nothing for me to eat."

I always want to ask people like that, "Really? So you've never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

HA me too!

ooooooh posting when you're all pissed off. :) my coworker is a total sweetheart and i know he had no intention of being rude. it just struck me as odd. i went on a walk with my (omni) brother right afterwards and he was like, "weird, so chickpeas are too vegan too eat if you're officially an omnivore?" ....the responders who said things like "normal ketchup, please?" and "no pbj, ever?" are essentially what i felt like. not a rude statement, or at least not intentionally, but certainly one that made me scratch my head thinking, why do you think that something entirely normal is bizarre not because of its inherent bizarreness, but because *i*-- who am (is?)(are?)(hehe) vegan--- am consuming it?


is "who am vegan" grammatical? i'm gonna go with no. but y'know :)


aaaaanyway. i should have took a breather before clicking submit :)

I got that same response when I made spaghetti for my sister and her husband. He asked if it was vegan and then asked for something else with meat in it.

Really? SPAGHETTI?

This.

Exactly. This happens to me all the time and it drives me CRAZY! Like...dude, you can go for one meal without forking meat. In fact, by taking you to a veg restaurant I would be doing your body a favor and giving it a much needed break from unhealthy flesh thanksverymuch.

I made cup cakes to take into work and one of my colleagues was really unsure whether to eat one as they were vegan as someone had told him they were (i generally don't tell people until they're eaten them, told me how great they are, etc)

He was like, 'but what do you put in it???! i don't think i can eat it'.
It ended up he thought it was great but was amazed that it could be.

This guy is a doctor...

I always ask where they buy their non-vegan apples.

never underestimate the power of someone's off day. it's like a ripple effect, i tells ya. 90% of the craptastic spew that comes out of my piehole is unintended because i'm an awkward, and nebbish fool.