VeronicaChaos said:
Not to be on a high horse or anything, but omnivores really should eat vegetables too. I've been with many omnivores as a vegan and it wasn't a big deal at all because all humans should eat vegetables, regardless of if they're omnivorous or vegetarian. So to say it's obnoxious having to make a vegetable dish for the vegetarian...you really should be making one anyway, regardless of if anyone present is vegetarian or not. I understand that it can be a pain for people to accommodate other's eating habits, but if being a vegetarian made a friend of mine happy, I'd be happy to accommodate them. I just don't think it's a big deal for omnivores to occasionally eat vegetarian dishes. :twocents-02cents:
A lot of the vegetable dishes that I know of have been flavored with some sort of meat though, even if it's just a meat broth. And if you're vegan, there's all sorts of things that I never knew had animal product in them (like marshmellows), so that makes it worse. All of a sudden, I have to get vegetable oil sticks instead of butter, and figure out something for the beans that doesn't involve bacon. I make tomato soup from a can, I add milk. Whoops, can't do that now! I make hot chocolate, I use milk for that, not water. Unless, of course, I have a vegan friend who wants a cup.
I'm not saying I would make a big deal out of it. I'm just saying that I can see how people would. For a lot of people, milk, butter, cheese, and bacon end up in so many dishes that cooking for a vegetarian or vegan friend forces them to actually THINK about what they're making. Sometimes, they'll be asking "can they eat this? I don't know".
Also, the comments about fish come from the confusion between lent and vegetarian. The catholic church has that whole "no meat on Fridays" rule, but fish is an exception. Which confuses a lot of people when they know about the Catholic thing but haven't met a lot of vegetarians. Especially when people joke about Catholics "going vegetarian for forty days". Though I don't understand the comments about chicken... maybe it's those who think vegetarians just don't want to kill the fluffy animals?
I like meat. I also like vegetables. I love fruit. And yes, I do tend to eat my steak on the rare side (warm red center, which is medium-rare in most steakhouses, rare in most other restaurants). But I wouldn't be able to eat it if I've seen it live. Do I think this is problematic? No. Do I think this would be a problem if I'd lived in other times? Yes, but I don't think I'd be as squeemish about it in other times. I've always been kinda pragmatic about my food.
I am fully aware that it takes 10x the amount of space to feed an omnivore than it does to feed a vegan.. but then again, with the rate humans are taking over the earth, if some of us don't eat meat those animals would probably be allowed to go extinct. I'm absolutely repulsed by the people who try to force their housecat into a vegan diet. Cats are carnivores, not omnivores.
Just to keep this slightly on-topic: pet peeve is people who think that just because something is physically better for them, it must be physically better for everyone. Conversely, people who think that just because something is better for a friend, it must be better for them. Not everyone is the same, and has the same make-up or same reactions to chemicals. That's why we need 3 different type of general pain-meds, and have some people who still don't get any benefit from any of the three.
