Saturday 13 August 2022

Enough is enough

Why do some people think it's okay to force their beliefs or their principles onto others, along with abuse, threats and self-righteous moralising? Where does this creeping authoritarianism come from?

An Isle of Wight restaurant has stopped offering vegan dishes because of "nasty" and "bullying" vegans who constantly complained about what was on offer.

They used to cater for vegans. They had vegan cream teas, even BLT sandwiches with vegan bacon. But they got tired of the "holier than thou" attitude of vegan customers and the abuse directed at restaurant staff.

Now they have no vegan dishes at all. Owner Sally Cooper says it isn't a given that they should adapt their menus to suit the customers. "If you want vegan food, go to a vegan restaurant. If I went to a vegan restaurant and asked for a steak I wouldn't get one, nor would I expect to."

Jenny and I are both vegetarians, and we're sometimes disappointed by the small number of vegetarian options on a restaurant's menu, but we wouldn't dream of telling the restaurant to change its menu for our convenience. If we're not happy, we can always go somewhere else.

We accept that most people are meat-eaters, and very unlikely to change, so of course restaurant menus are going to be meat-based. We just have to work around that situation to cater for our own tastes.

It would be a shame if people concluded that vegans are rude intolerant individuals who just want to force their own dietary preferences onto other people. As anyone with vegan friends could tell you, that's not the case.

Pic: the restaurant in Ventnor, Isle of Wight

20 comments:

  1. Ramana Rajgopaul13 August 2022 at 12:41

    The correct response indeed. Similar things have happened over here with halal certified food and others.

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    1. This unbending self-righteous attitude is being taken over so many things nowadays.

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  2. I’ve concluded we live in a hive society where everyone expects everyone else to think exactly as they do. It’s really becoming quite frightening.

    There’s also the joke: how can you tell a vegan from anyone else? They will tell you!

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    1. Bijoux: Yes, it's frightening, these attempts to wipe out opposing opinions and make everyone think in the "approved" way.

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  3. Vegans are notoriously difficult. The story doesn't surprise me at all

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    1. Kylie: I haven't found that myself, but maybe you've met a lot more vegans than I have.

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  4. "My way is the right way and you need to accommodate it, like now." Incredible when one thinks about it.
    XO
    WWW

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    1. www: That sums up the attitude nicely. A complete inability to listen to other points of view.

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  5. Yesterday, we had lunch with our two daughters, a very rare event since the youngest, until a year ago, lived several hundred miles away. Now she lives close enough she can drive down for a short visit even though it's 2.5 hours one-way.

    Recently, she's been diagnosed with Alpha-Gal syndrome, an allergy to things like beef, pork, lamb, venison, rabbit, and other animal products that come from mammals. Alpha-gal syndrome is caused when a tick bites you, and that bite gives you the alpha galactose molecule.

    She has to be really careful of what she eats and a lot of foods are contaminated with mammal products or by products. She isn't vegan or vegetarian, but a lot of her food now is from vegan/vegetation sources that aren't contaminated.

    We all met at a chain restaurant at her suggestion.

    It was interesting to see how knowledgeable and accommodating the waitress was. It's the first time we had visited with Jes since her diagnosis so it is all new to us.

    Interestingly, I was sick earlier this summer from a tick bite. It was a carrier of the organism that causes Lyme disease. I now have Lyme disease antibodies in my system. Fortunately, according to my primary care physician, since I don't have ongoing symptoms, I don't actually have the disease. It can be really devastating.

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    1. Mike: Goodness, I'd never heard of Alpha-Gal syndrome or that possible consequence of a tick bite. That must cause so much trouble with what she eats. Good to know that you have lyme disease antibodies but not the illness itself.

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    2. It's all pretty new to her, but she tends to obsess over information so she has a really good handle on things. She can eat fish and poultry. Unfortunately, mammal byproducts are also in an untold number of foods, personal care and household products, as well as tens of thousands of pharmaceutical and other medical products.

      So far as my situation, I actually self-tested for COVID before going to the doctor and they also tested for it when I went to the clinic a couple of days later. The doctor suspect it was tick-related and prescribed a antibiotics before results of the blood tests came back which apparently took care of it.

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    3. Mike: That's really tough if she has to be wary not just of meat but of mammal byproducts that are found in any number of food and medicines.

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  6. I choose restaurants based on food I like - I wouldn't dream of going to a restaurant that offered food I had issues with. Horses for courses! [This doesn't mean I eat horses, btw].
    Sx

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    1. Ms Scarlet: I think the only food outlet we'd actually avoid would be a fish and chip shop! Hard to avoid meat-based restaurants, so we just look for ones with plenty of veggie options.

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  7. I once organized a banquet without knowing we would have a vegetarian couple attending. They simply ate all the extra salads. But, for the picnic at that same convention they insisted I buy Gardenburgers for the caterers to cook for them.
    Linda Sand

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    1. Linda: Yes, it's easy to overlook vegetarians. It's happened to us plenty of times! I've never heard of Gardenburgers. I gather they're a kind of veggie burger sold in the States. We have lots of veggie burgers over here, some of them quite tasty.

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  8. I don't know why people think that's ok because it's not.

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    1. Mary: A lot of people have become impossibly selfish and just do whatever they want regardless of other people's objections.

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  9. Too bad they gave up what vegan offerings they had and couldn't cope with the naysayers.

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    1. Joared: I guess they just couldn't take the sheer volume of abuse and hostility any longer.

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