A Few Things That Never Occurred to Meat Eaters

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When a carnivore tries to take a vegetarian out to lunch, they invariably become frustrated. They do not understand that our eating habits differ from their preconceived views of it. I recently had this happen, and my host was very nice and well meaning, but just had no idea. 

I thought it would be beneficial to list some of the concepts that are alien to them:

• We do not eat meat, and this includes little pieces of it such as bacon bits. Nor do we eat meat grease, so peeling pepperonis off of a pizza does not make it edible for us. If you refused to eat worms, and someone gave you a worm covered pizza and then picked them off of it, would you then eat it? Same thing.

• We also do not eat foods fried in meat grease or lard, or otherwise in the same vats of such stuff. So if you order some french fries for us, but the business only has one fry vat and they also sell fried chicken strips, we are not going to eat it. Why would we want to eat grease soaked fries? 
• There are a lot of things made from animals that we won't eat, and the list of things we avoid depends partly upon how picky each of us is, but mainly upon how much each of us is aware of. See the linked list on the right. The main things I avoid, for example, are gelatin and stearic acid. Just a few days ago I shocked someone by informing them of what gelatin is made of. So basic to people like me; so unknown to carnivores. 
• We are not obsessed with salads, and do not want one at every meal. Salads can be delicious and very healthy, but they are not very filling. Plus the ingredients of the dressings are usually unhealthy. 
• We are not going to eat at a fast food place, usually. Besides the fry vat issues, and the grease being everywhere and on everything (work at one and you will understand), it is still fresh in the memories of vegetarians how mcdonald's used lard to cook their fries in for many years, and then lied about it. Once some Hindus found out, the lawsuit was on- and guess who lost? Not the millions of vegetarians who joined this massive class action suit. So call it spite I guess, but most of us still shun that place. It is a good thing too, since mcdonald's now shamelessly admits to flavoring their fries with beef yet again. Also, burger king does not cook their so-called veggie burgers in a vegan friendly manner, but that will be the subject of a separate post. We just don't trust fast food places to give a crap about our requests, even if they were prepared to deliver on it.

These were the most common and basic things that carnivores never think of. There are more to be sure, but this list should be a helpful guide to those who previously had no idea.