How do you politely tell someone that you don't eat meat?!
How do you politely tell someone that you don't eat meat?
I am invited to a friend's house this weekend for dinner and they don't know I am a vegetarian. How do I politely let them know that I don't eat meat when some sort of meat dish is going to be served?
Answers: I think a good idea is to bring a vegetarian dish to add to the dinner menu - it's a great gesture and a wonderful way to let your friends know and to show them how great a vegetarian meal item can be! just tell them that you are a vegetarian. they'll understand. but do it quickly so that they know not to make any extra meat for you just be honest and tell them that you are a vegetarian they will respect you no matter what you eat! tell them "oh the food looks great... too bad i dont eat meat or i would tear that up!" You could try making a joke:
No thank you, I don't eat moo.
Or just say, no thank you and don't explain. This is what you would do anyway if you just didn't like a dish. No explaination needed right? Just say, "Hey, I don't eat meat." Wait for their jaws to drop at the oddity of it all.
Oh, and don't forget to bring your own tofu, because like as not he's probably only got corn niblets for you. Maybe you might want to tell them in advance before they go out of their way to make you a nice supper. You know, just to be polite, something which I've noticed a lot of people lack when they blurt out the fact that they don't eat meat.
I once had a vegan come over for dinner, and then throw a fit because I served lamb chops. After telling me that I was a murderer and cow killer, he demanded that I make him an animal-product free supper. I kicked him out and he never returned.
Note that I would have been more than happy to make a vegan-friendly supper if A) He hadn't been so judgemental, and B) He had warned me ahead of time. Say 'I'm sorry, I don't eat meat.'
What else would an intelligent person say? But of course you should give them some notice so they can give you an alternative. The very simple way I have dealt with that is to call them and let them know that you are a vegetarian and as you don't want to put them to any special trouble you will bring a dish yourself that all can try and will fill any other vegan guests quest for a meatless dish also. You can make your fave vegetarian lasagna or something and take it over. Who knows, you may start something good with them too!! Tell you friend ahead of time and maybe some meatless meal can be prepared for you. I don't know about your friends parents but I know mine would prefer to know ahead of time then to possibly have you sitting there with nothing to eat. I go have fun don't really come to eat since you know there will be alot of meat, but maybe thier will be salad and rice or other foods you can eat. They might say oh im sorry for not preparing a meal for you , but insure them what they have there if great enough and that you enjoy it. Don't actually say it wait to the food is served and be happy that you see something you can eat and SMILE. let them know in advance this way they do not prepare a portion for you of meat, call your friend and politely & offer to bring a dish, that way you will be sure to have something to eat - call them just say
"I am very much looking forward to your dinner party this weekend, I was wondering if there is anything I can bring, I am not sure if your aware but I am a vegetarian and i know some wonderful side dishes i would love to bring for everyone to try."
your offering to bring something will show that you are not trying to put them on the spot to feed you a vegetarian dish seperately. Bring a vegan dish and bring plenty to share. At the potluck lucheons where I work, my coworkers always love the stuff I bring. Just tell them you don't eat meat. What's the problem? Sorry, but I'm in a vegetable phase at the moment.
My doctor says that if I eat any meat at all, I will turn into a sultana. say your great aunt sally is changing her calostamy bag! duh First apologize for not telling your friend as soon as you were invited. Hopefully they didn't already go shopping for the dinner. Then tell them to please not go to any trouble, that you would like to bring a salad, and I'm sure someone will insist they accomodate you and so then you tell them what it is you don't eat (just meat, or meat and eggs, or meat and eggs and dairy - whatever's apropriate).
I'm going to my first big family function this weekend since going from vegetarian to vegan. At least before there was a ton of stuff I would still eat, now there's a bunch of traditional family dishes I won't eat. My husband and I both will be getting teased mercilessly, but that's okay. I'll be bringing a huge plate of vegan oatmeal cookies! Maybe u say : " I think vegetable is better for health than meat. Do u think so ? just be honest and let them know. it's not rude, it's the truth. they'll understand. if not, well what kind of a friend is that? just be honest and open. it always works best. my best friend is a vegetarian and i didn't know that because she used to eat meat and then one day she up and decided that doesn't want to ever touch it again. she told and me and i was shocked but i respected her for it and never made anything with meat in it when we had dinner parties. a true friend always listens and understands. I tend to tell people at the time they invite me. Most people can think of at least one or 2 really easy things to make that don't involve meat and it's not a big deal. At least give them some warning so they don't find out when you're sitting down to dinner and suddenly there's a plate full of chicken that nobody is going to eat and they have nothing but rice and salad to feed you.
Maybe you should call them as early as seems polite tomorrow and let them know. You can say, "I'm sorry I think I forgot to tell you before, but since you invited me to dinner, I guess you should know I'm a vegetarian." If it seems like they'd already planned a meal involving meat and now they don't know what to do, you can offer to bring over some vegetarian dish to contribute to the meal. Do it straight up, and if you can, do it before the dinner is prepared. I myself am a meat eater, but am quite willing to make allowances for those that are not. In fact, I prepared a roast dinner and made sure the vegetables didn't come in contact with the meat, and were baked in vegetable oil, because my nephew's girlfriend was vegetarian. I even asked her if the cheese sauce for the vegetables was acceptable, and she said it was.
I think that you will find most people will make allowances, if you let them know early enough. No reason why you can't have vegetables without the meat, and join them at the table too.
Just be sure, that if they are making allowances for your choices, that you do the same and make allowances for theirs. just be upfront and honest about it...people should understand....thats such a common thing these days, they shouldnt get mad i have turned green out of choice and love to munch on veggies Tell them before hand and bring one of your fav dishes for them to try. After all it is proper ediquit to bring something if you are invited as a quest. :)
ps forgive my spelling, im tired :) Just laugh it off! With a wave of no thanks! You don't even need to tell them! If they are concerned they will confront you and that is when you stand up and show pride! Just don't flaunt it! Many people have asked me why I eat a vegan diet, so I’m long overdue for a post on this topic. But before I dive into it, let me first say I’m not interested in trying to convert you to veganism. While many vegans are conversion-happy, for me this is a personal lifestyle choice, not a religion. In any event I’ve noticed that people tend to go vegan when they’re ready for it, not because they’re beaten over the head with statistics and health knowledge. As the saying goes, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” So take this article as an insider’s report on my path to a vegan diet rather than conversion rhetoric.
Going Vegetarian...
After eating animal products for most of my life, during the early 90s, I started reading health books as part of my novice-level interest in personal growth. My initial changes including adopting a low-fat diet and exercising regularly. I switched from low-fat to skim milk, favored leaner meats, and reduced high-fat products like cheese and butter. I also reduced my sugar intake, switching from regular sodas to diet sodas. I took up running as my primary exercise and would run about 25 minutes per day, sometimes longer. Overall I’d say I was in fairly good health — no major health problems or serious illnesses. I never smoked in my life, and I shunned alcohol too except on rare occasions.
Eventually I got curious about the vegetarian diet after reading about it in a nutrition textbook. I read that vegetarians supposedly live longer, need less sleep, and have lower risks of many major illnesses like cancer and heart disease. That sounded attractive, but I really didn’t want to be a vegetarian for the rest of my life. I figured that was a bit too extreme and probably unnecessary. I had a vegetarian friend during my late teens — a skinny Indian guy — and I found it funny that he could never eat pepperoni pizza. But he did seem fairly healthy and intelligent. He would regularly whoop me when we played poker together.
In June 1993, my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to try going lacto-ovo vegetarian for 30 days just to see what it was like (no animal flesh but dairy and eggs OK). At least then I’d know, and I could be done with it. I’d been through enough habit changes to know that a new mindset always looks different from the outside looking in than from the inside looking out. So I wanted an insider’s perspective on the diet. Otherwise, I’d risk going my whole life without knowing what it was really like. I was 22 years old, so I figured I might as well have this experience now. I fully expected to return to my previous way of eating after the 30 days.
I was surprised at how easy it was to go vegetarian. I thought it would take a lot of discipline, but it really didn’t. I just made obvious substitutions: cheese or veggie pizza instead of pepperoni, pasta dishes, rice dishes, stir fry veggies, etc. If I did this today, it would be even easier due to all the vegetarian products now on the market that weren’t available back then. I acquired one vegetarian cookbook (which I still have) that helped me with a few recipes, but mostly I found that cutting out flesh was painless.
I didn’t have any withdrawal symptoms or detox effects (no headaches or back pain or anything like that). I wasn’t overweight when I began this experiment, so I don’t recall losing much weight, but I did notice an increase in my overall energy level, and I felt more energetic during my morning runs. I also noticed I could concentrate better, especially during meditation or while doing programming work. These increases weren’t huge, but they were noticeable.
At the end of the 30 days, I had adapted well to the habit, and I found it so easy that I couldn’t think of a compelling reason to switch back. After putting off my return to carnivorous life for several months, I eventually concluded, “Well, I guess I’m a vegetarian.” I gradually lost my appetite for animal flesh, so those old foods no longer appealed to me. I had no sense of deprivation because I was eating what I felt naturally drawn to eat. It took no discipline to stay vegetarian, since I was simply eating what naturally appealed to me. Over time the thought of eating animals became repulsive to me, not from a moral standpoint but from a gustatory one — I no longer wanted to put dead flesh into my mouth.
When I met Erin in 1994, she wasn’t a vegetarian. In fact, her diet was pretty poor, consisting of large quantities of fast food. But eventually she decided to try going vegetarian for 30 days too — without even telling me – and her experience was similar to mine. After 30 days she simply didn’t want to go back.
Going Vegan...
During my vegetarian days, I occasionally considered eliminating all animal products and going 100% vegan. From what I’d read up to that point, I was convinced that the vegan diet would be healthier for me than a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. I also went to Tony Robbins’ firewalk seminar in 1996 and learned about the Fit for Life diet, a book I later read. Tony is the most energetic person I’ve ever seen, and he was pitching a mostly vegan diet. I became curious about how a vegan diet would affect my energy level.
Erin and I were learning Tae Kwon Do at this time, and I was becoming interested in distance running, so the high-energy promise of the vegan diet appealed to me. I’d already seen an energy boost after going vegetarian, so it wasn’t hard for me to fathom that going vegan would be even better.
As you can see, what motivated me to try veganism wasn’t animal rights or environmental issues — it was simply the possibility of enjoying more energy and vitality. I wish I’d been the kind of person who’d have genuinely listened to those other arguments for veganism, but I have to be honest and admit that I wasn’t. My curiosity was driven entirely by self-interest.
In January 1997, Erin and I both decided to try going vegan for 30 days to see what it was like. Both of us were convinced, however, that the diet would be too hard and too fanatical to sustain in the long run. We kept thinking about all the delicious foods we’d have to give up — the hardest ones for me were cheese pizza and veggie-cheese omelettes. But we figured we could manage it for 30 days. At least we’d know what it was like, and if the diet beat us down, we’d be comfortable concluding that it wasn’t for us.
Going vegan was very different than going vegetarian. During the first 7 days, Erin and I lost 7 pounds each! We were eating abundant calories and drinking plenty of water, so where did that weight come from? Seriously, it went down the toilet. A lifetime of accumulated dairy clog came washing out of our intestines. Wow! We had heard about detox, but 7 pounds in 7 days was beyond our expectations. After the first week things settled down, and we lost a few more pounds over the remaining 23 days.
After the first week, my energy had increased massively. This was a much bigger increase than when I went vegetarian. I’d say that for the total increase in energy I experienced from animal eater to vegan, the change from vegetarian to vegan was about 80% of it. This energy boost was most pronounced during Tae Kwon Do classes — I suddenly had a lot more energy during sparring — my endurance was much, much higher. I also noticed it was easier for me to run longer distances without getting tired, and my breathing felt smoother and more effortless. Exercising became easier, and I started enjoyed that runner’s high feeling much more often.
After doing 3-5 mile runs for several years, I gradually increased to 5-10 mile runs. Running felt so good that I often didn’t want to stop, so it felt right to just keep going. Within a year I was doing 14-mile runs down the Santa Monica beach, and in 2000 I ran the L.A. Marathon.
Despite the increase in physical vitality, the #1 benefit I experienced was a marked improvement in my mental clarity. It felt like I was coming out of a long-term fog of brain — if you saw the movie Awakenings, it was similar to that, except that my starting point was the state we call “normal.” I thought, “Wow… so this is what clear-headedness is supposed to feel like.” Imagine the feeling of having totally clear sinuses after eating super-spicy food… but applied to your brain.
I noticed a significant improvement in my ability to do computer game programming, which was my career at the time. I could solve challenging problems more easily. The problems were just as hard, but my ability to tackle them had increased significantly.
Interestingly, Erin’s experience was different than mine. I don’t recall her having as much of a boost in mental clarity or physical endurance as I did. But she enjoyed a significant boost in her psychic sense. I didn’t notice it at the time (because I wasn’t looking for it), but I also experienced an improvement in my intuitive clarity after going vegan.
Once again when the 30 days were up, Erin and I found it easy to keep going, and the benefits were so obvious that we’d never want to give them up. By day 30 animal products had lost much of their appeal anyway, so we just kept eating the way that seemed most natural. Again, it didn’t take any discipline to maintain the diet. And to make the initial switch we used curiosity instead of discipline. As you can see I really love the 30-day trial.
I get a lot of compliments on my depth of thought on certain subjects, and as odd as it may seem, I have to credit much of that to my diet. The mental benefits are probably the #1 reason I decided to stay vegan. I just can’t go back to the fog-of-brain I used to regard as normal. People who eat animals often regard my diet as being deprived (outside looking in), while ironically I regard their lifestyle as being far more deprived (inside looking out).
While some people would regard my diet as severely restrictive, it feels nothing of the sort to me. I’ve been eating this way for almost 10 years now, so to me it’s normal. In some ways it’s a little odd eating out with people who still eat animals, since they tend to be a bit fanatical in their bloodlust for flesh… as if they’re vampires or something. It doesn’t bother me when people eat animals in front of me — they’re free to eat whatever they want. I do notice, however, that people often feel uncomfortable eating animals in front of vegans. And I imagine the animals aren’t too comfortable with it.
I am Vegan Shubhanshu Singh Chauhan.
vegan1983@gmail.com I'd just tell them like it is, "I'm sorry, I think your party is great, but unfortunately, I can't have any of this dish or that dish because I don't eat meat." Flash a sweet smile while you're saying this, and be sincere.
Don't act like you've been sent to a torture chamber, or that you're so righteous for not killing animals for food or eating animals killed for food. They'll respect your decision. don't worry about it, they will not be upset it just means more meat for them. No thanks, i'm a vegitarian. Whenever I am invited over for dinner by a new friend, I always mention that I am vegetarian when I am asked...especially if they mentioned that meat will be served. 1. take the direct route by calling them ahead of time and explaining but they MIGHT not know how to accommodate you (some folks aren't that sophisticated or they may resent having to do so this close to the party)
2. go and eat everything but the meat when someone asks
or inquires why then state it then....
3. you could always also call ahead and offer to bring a vegetarian main dish however some resent others "altering" their menu
Since these are obviously people you are not close to; I think #2 is the most polite path.