Philosophical Vegan Forum

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In short, Gary refuses to eat with people unless they eat vegan

I'm thinking seriously about following this rule although I know it will isolate me even further from meat eating friends and family

This is a rule I generally follow by happenstance, family meals are not my families thing. The only time I eat with people is lunch times, and that is a meal I normally skip. It is difficult to eat with non-vegans but I try to stress the importance of being practical and logical, dogmatically following this rule would be to act against my own philosophy.

While I can understand the appeal of not watching others eat animal body parts in front of you, I do see a problem. If non-vegans are never exposed to vegans, then there is little chance they will ever change. A lot of conversations start at a meal table, and if a non-vegan knows you are vegan and sees what you are eating, they may ask questions. Those questions may lead to a having their views change regarding what vegans actually eat.

Gary Yourofsky wrote:You can avoid a lot of issues with non-vegan friends and family members. Institute my rule: if you eat with me, you eat vegan.

Well no absolutely, just impose your values onto others, that's guaranteed to cause less issues!

This is just not being realistic. By imposing your views you're going to loose many friends and family members, and by being this inflexible I think people won't change there views at all (just read How to Win Friends and Influence People). I absolutely can't see how this could help.

I do feel for him that people are playing around with him on the diner table with meat. Maybe just don't eat with them at all until they can behave appropriately again.

I totally agree with Vegan Atheists viewpoint, but where I live friends and family thinks my whole vegan thing is some weird idea that will probably go away with time. I'm thinking if I take a more firm stance, some people might start taking it more seriously. I also tend to lose my appetite if there are pieces of animal corpses near my food.

TheVeganAtheist wrote:While I can understand the appeal of not watching others eat animal body parts in front of you, I do see a problem. If non-vegans are never exposed to vegans, then there is little chance they will ever change. A lot of conversations start at a meal table, and if a non-vegan knows you are vegan and sees what you are eating, they may ask questions. Those questions may lead to a having their views change regarding what vegans actually eat.

I think conversations about veganism are just a lot easier to have when everyone isn't eating. I feel like meat eaters are a lot more offended (or defensive) about the suggestion that eating meat is bad if they're right in the middle of doing it.

Soycrates wrote:
I think conversations about veganism are just a lot easier to have when everyone isn't eating. I feel like meat eaters are a lot more offended (or defensive) about the suggestion that eating meat is bad if they're right in the middle of doing it.

This is also a very good point. I think I need to deal with this on a case per case basis.

Soycrates wrote: I think conversations about veganism are just a lot easier to have when everyone isn't eating. I feel like meat eaters are a lot more offended (or defensive) about the suggestion that eating meat is bad if they're right in the middle of doing it.

Absolutely.

Just as when people go veg for health reasons, they usually pretty quickly open to the moral reasons that they were in denial of before because they were still eating meat. When they're literally in the process of chewing it, the dissonance probably can't be any stronger.

I think if others can see what you are eating and realise that you can still have great delicious & healthy meals, all while living ethically then they may be more inclined to change their own ways then if they only vegans they know isolate themselves. Also meals lead to conversation and that can lead to real change in the world, no one will change if no one is talking.

Zed4711 wrote:I think if others can see what you are eating and realise that you can still have great delicious & healthy meals, all while living ethically then they may be more inclined to change their own ways then if they only vegans they know isolate themselves. Also meals lead to conversation and that can lead to real change in the world, no one will change if no one is talking.

That's incentive to eat around non-vegans, but not necessarily incentive to eat at the same time as them. I've often pulled out quick vegan snacks or meals while hanging with my non-vegan friends - I feel like I can better control the dialogue about veganism when I do that. Whenever I've eaten alongside non-vegans, it always ends up being a talk about health and diets (because they're deflecting the conversation away from questions of morality).