Dear Vegans:

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We know you’re vegan, and that you don’t consume any animal products. That’s difficult, and it’s impressive that you put effort into a moral conviction.

However, please do not announce each time you eat food that it is vegan and delicious.

We know you enjoy your food, and that you choose to eat vegan food. That’s great. However, it’s a dog-bites-man story. It can be assumed that the food you eat conforms to your values.

If you should happen to eat a pound of steak or a stick of butter or an entire dachshund or a wheel of Double Gloucester Cheese, let us know; that would be news.

Otherwise it’s kind of annoying in ways you could figure out with a moment’s thought.

Best wishes,

The lesser breed without the Law

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nope

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41 thoughts on “Dear Vegans:”

  1. I’m sure you knows this, but: there are circumstances in which such is appropriate, especially if it is in the form of good-natured ribbing of meat-eaters who mock the mock meat, etc.

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    2. I never understood why the compulsion to make vegan food look like a meat product? I don’t make my hamburgers look like a lettuce leaf!
      Maybe if vegan food didn’t look like meat, there would be no need to remark about it?

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  3. Yes, this. I don’t need to hear “I had the best vegan SALAD” ever again. I think it’s appropriate when you are recommending something like “Casa De Luz” has excellent vegan options, etc or “Great vegan potstickers at ____” but that’s about it. Oh, or sharing recipes, of course.

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      2. cue a zillion indignant stories of waiters and waitresses who don’t understand such requests, and restaurants where the menu doesn’t mention that the salad is full of bacon, etc.

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      5. I’ve been vegetarian or vegan for 18 years and that has happened to me one time. I can’t believe it’s possibly the epidemic it is hyped to be! In England I had to say “that means no eggs, too” but that’s about it for the confusion of the very “elusive” vegan diet. LOLZ

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      6. yeah, i don’t mean it’s an epidemic, just that most vegetarians/vegans i know have a couple of stories about it.
        seems to depend on location and kind of restaurant. i’ve been vegetarian for six or seven years and i live in california, and it’s rarely an issue. one time in san francisco at a peruvian restaurant, i ordered the single seemingly-vegetarian item on the menu and it arrived with bits of bacon.
        while visiting new orleans, i explained to a waitress that i didn’t want lunchmeat on my salad, and then the salad arrived with piles of lunchmeat. i asked for a new one. my friend visiting somewhere in the south asked for no chicken on her salad, and her waitress said something like “ohh it’s ok, it’ll be on the house for you today”. two of my vegetarian friends who visited france ate meat while they were there because being vegetarian was so much of a hassle to explain to servers in the little neighborhood restaurants/cafes they visited. etc etc
        i’ve also had to explain my dietary preferences very carefully to confused aunts/parents of boyfriend and former boyfriends – not asking to be served alternative food, just trying to tell them why i wouldn’t eat that lovely piece of fish they made or the good american hamburger. awkward.

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      7. Re; explaining your dietary preferences:
        My husband’s mom has been vegan for like 30 years and when they were out to Thai food the waitress said “I’ve been trying to go vegan for so long, how do you do it?” and my husband’s mom goes; “Oh, I just think of the animals, and how they have to die.”
        HA. I love her.
        Honestly, I’ve had more mistakes like onion on my salad than meat mishaps but I know it happens! I just can’t believe your friends would rather eat meat than go buy their own food at a market! There is so much delicious fresh food to be had in france!

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      8. New Orleans is another planet.
        Friend of mine have said that the only way to deal with Peru/New Orleans/Paris is to claim some type of illness and say that “for dietetic reasons” they can’t have any animal products. At this point people become very kind and attentive and bring you a celery and the subject is closed.

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    2. Right. There’s something about the way this usually happens that means moral grandstanding and not enjoyment of food. Enjoyment of food is something of which I strongly approve!

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  4. yes! also annoying was the fact that my vegan friends always said things like “oh, you wouldn’t like this, it’s vegan,” even if it was something as innocuous as a tofu scramble, as if being an omnivore meant i had to have a cheeseburger for every meal.

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    4. not a fan of internet baconianism
      Yeah, for real. Annoying.
      Maybe if we could get the bacon cultists to announce periodically stuff like “boy I had a bacon flavored cucumber just now and it was completely DISGUSTING”?

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    5. What is it about bacon? Why is fried pig fat or whatever bacon is, suddenly this overdone hipster calling card? “I LOVE BACON!” Mmmmkay? I don’t get it.

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  6. People who do the same thing with “gluten-free” annoy me far more than vegans. At least there are reasons for encouraging others to get interested in veganism. But some people into “gluten-free” seem to not realize that not everyone is allergic to gluten, and if you’re not, then there’s no reason not to eat tasty, tasty gluten.

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  7. BUT BUT BUT… MY DOGS IS AN VEGANS!!!
    Actually, she really is, but only because she has such k-razy skin sensitivities, she has this soy-based food that she LOVES about 1000x more than any other food we’ve ever fed her. So bonuses on all sides!
    I think I can figure out that a tempeh burger is a vegan item, folks. And telling me too often is going to make me eat my regular burger LOUDLY and SMACKILY in your face. Even if it’s a vegetarian burger, too.

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    1. What kind of vegan food do you use? I have moral dilemmas about feeding my animals other animals but I want to do what is best for their health, obviously. I’d always heard that meat is best for dogs, but if there is a happy alternative I would love to use it!

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      1. Dogs are big old omnivores, unlike cats, so they can live on all kinds of food. Cats are the real carnivores. We feed the dog Medi-Cal hypoallergenic soy (http://www.medi-cal.ca/diets/diets.php?diet=10), which does have some chicken fat and fish oil in it, but it’s mostly soy. She used to have a lot of problems with sore spots on her paws, and itchy skin and her ears got red a lot more than they do now. So we’re really happy with this stuff… She’s been on it for about six months now. And she REALLY likes it. =) So yeah, give it a try if you can find it near you! Our cat eats http://www.medi-cal.ca/diets/diets.php?diet=39 … she used to weigh about 15-16 lbs, and went on the canned reducing diet they have, and went down to 10 or 11 lbs, and is staying at that weight eating this dry food (she is weird and prefers dry food to moist food). Medi-cal stuff has paid off for us, even though it’s more expensive than a lot of other foods.

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      2. Thank you!
        I really believe that the higher quality food will save you money (and heartache. I don’t understand feeding animals the cheap crap because there is so much waste; they eat more, use less!
        God knows my oldest cat could use a diet that actually works. ha

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  8. just the other day…
    LOL…too true!!! Just the other day at work, I chatted to a cute guy I see but don’t work directly with, and he found it important to announce that the cupcakes he made for someone coworker’s birthday were vegan! To which I replied “But do they have sugar? Because I am diabetic!”
    I shall have to remember to announce the next time I bring a roast beef sandwich for lunch too!
    The final twist I found out about cute vegan boy, he has a series of elaborate tattoos up one arm, across his back and down the other arm of all the women in the throes of dying from Altred Hitchcock movies. Just struck me as odd for the vegan to be so attracted to gore filled death moments of people?
    Does that mean vegans can be cannibals??? Just seems to be the logical conclusion in this case, I’m just asking!

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      1. Re: just the other day…
        LOL…while I have become more erotically fasinated with tattoos, those do seem to fall quite resoundingly in the “what were you thinking” catagory?! I wonder how much more bizarre they will look when this 20-something boy is a 70-something old duffer???

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  9. veering off tangent
    Just thought I’d mention that I hate people who say things are “tasty and good,” and the only real person I know who does that is the really annoying girl I work with who never fails to state the obvious or phrase things in the most annoying way possible.

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  10. P.S. to Vegans
    Please stop insisting that I “come to Jesus,” throw over my wicked ways, and embrace purity when you learn that I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I know that it bugs you that I dance so close to your idea of dietary perfection without fully embracing your ideals, but your attempts to convert me are aggravating in the extreme.

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  11. I would pay a lot of money to see a vegan (who’s been vegan a while) eat an entire wheel of double gloucester cheese.
    I had a friend who didn’t eat meat for about 2 years.. and finally he succumbed to one of my famous blue cheese burgers, and his stomach wasn’t right for a week. But at least he got the whole vegetarian thing out of his system.

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