h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1. I don't eat much meat either
2. I only eat chicken
3. How long have you been a vegi ?
4. Tree hugging hippy !!

You could add another to that list, which is what people say when I explain that I'm a vegan and what a vegan is...


"What on Earth do you eat????"

I'll do you some tuna bake then. ARGH

I don't know how to cook any vegetables. (Actually probably true most carnivores boil all the goodness right out of vegetables)

Me too I only eat chicken. (I got this again last week at work, one of my collegues was going through a menu for one of our groups which includes a vegetarian, and he went chicken, then slamon, and I just said think about it)

1. "Why?"

2. "Do you eat fish?" (Sorry Lux!)

3. "Do you ever eat meat?"

4. "I could never stop eating meat"

5. "I know some vegetarians"

1. So what do you eat for Christmas Dinner?
(and when you explain that it varies from year to year, they look at you as if eating turkey every year was interesting )
2. Oh, I'd be vegetarian if I had to kill it myself.
(then stop getting someone else to do your dirty work and go veggie )

See my previous rant on the 'Do you eat fish?' question

"But that means we'll have to cook two different meals every evening."

"But it's unnatural - people need to eat meat to stay healthy."

Oh I so get that. When I start reeling off the list of vegetarian substitutes that are available they first look boggled, then impressed and then they say "Oh but it can't really taste like meat can it?" which kind of misses the point in a way. No not all of them taste like meat (although some are remarkably similar) but they have their own, often better taste. However, I have yet to come to terms with soya milk. I can cook with it but I cannot drink it or have it on my cereal. Even the nifty flavoured kinds.

I find the question "Oh,Have you always been vegetarian?" quite irksome. Obviously it is possible to be raised purely as a vegetarian, but it still strikes me as a daft quesstion. Not quite as daft as "Have you always had long hair?", mind you, but pretty daft all the same.

Perceiver with the soya milk, I can now have the apple juice enriched version on my cereals now, and I am slowly working up to the ‘normal’ type.

Gedge

Gedge, have you tried "Plamil" sweetened with apple juice soya drink? The EU insists that it not be called soya milk - probably legislation put up by the dairy industry

Back in the early 1980's, there wasn't a vast selection of soya milk available to buy and I found "Plamil" the only one that I liked enough to stop drinking dairy milk.

My vegan daughter was weaned using Plamil and still drinks it or has it on her cereal to this day at the age of 13.

I'm assuming that you're in the UK, which is where "Plamil" is manufactured, and I'm not sure where they may export to...

Oh, Plamil also make a wide variety of vegan chocolate bars, and other products which my daughter loves.

As for the fish thing--it's even worse in Iowa because of all the farming, etc. A normal conversation will go something like:

"Yes, I'm a vegetarian."
"Oh... So do you eat chicken?"
"No."
"How about pork?"
"No."
"Well, do you eat beef?"
"No."
"How about fish?"
"No."
"Bacon?"
"No."
"You must eat pepperoni."
"No, I don't."
"Well, how about turk--
"I don't eat anything that used to be alive."
"Oh, I get it... So do you eat eggs?"

It's a start.

The only time I get a reaction to being vegetarian is when I happen to have a cold or other minor illness...then it's "See! That's what you get for not eating meat!" I guess non-vegetarians never get sick.

They just sick of us being so healthy!

I had lectures from my parents and doctors when, at the ripe old age of 29, I fell pregnant with my first child about how I should eat "properly" and give up "this vegan nonsense"! Happily, I confounded the lot of them by having a disgustingly healthy pregnancy, a natural drug free birth, produced a 8lb 9oz baby girl and went on to breast feed her for 13 months. I was also the only mum on the maternity ward during my stay, who didn't require an iron supplement following the birth. That, I would think proved a point!