Today was one of those awful moments when, after mentioning several times that I don't eat animal products, an enormous piece of rotisserie chicken on my plate at a family lunch.
I ate the fries and the salad. I was fine. But there were a pair of eyes burning a hole into my plate from across the table. The host was undoubtedly confused as to why I wasn't touching it. And because I sometimes have no spine, I ate 5-6 bites of the chicken and handed the rest off to the Inca during a discrete moment alone at the table.
It's really frustrating. And I feel gross. I'm trying to balance it out with a bowl of cereal and a whole mango for dinner.
I hate being in that position, and I hate not having the spine to say "I'm sorry, I don't eat meat" when the food is in front of me.
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I struggle with this too, especially when the dinner host has a foreign cultural background (I've found that non-Americans are less understanding/accommodating about food preferences for some reason). And since we were both raised to be polite, obliging little Catholic girls, we feel this need to please others, even if it means going against our wishes and comfort zones.
ReplyDeleteI try to remember what vegan activist Natalie Portman said in her Huffington Post article: "...Consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it)."
Sometimes, to get out of situations like yours, I just lie. For example "the last time I had chicken, I got really bad food poisoning, so as good as this looks, I simply don't have the stomach to eat it" or "I'm allergic to mayonnaise - is there any in this salad dressing? I can't have any or I will get extremely sick." Hey, who can argue with that!?