Vegetarian and Cooking Meat

i-digress

I've finally gone vegetarian at 22. It hasn't been as hard for me as it probably was for others. I didn't like meat even as a baby, only ate sausages. In my teens I started eating more meat, mostly due to my parents worrying about my nutrition. I suffer naturally from anaemia, and go low on iron really easily.

I never felt that killing animals for food was right, but thought it would be really difficult to give up. Recently though, I got diagnosed with a long term illness and have had to give up alcohol and caffeine, the latter was especially difficult. But I did it so I thought there is no way I can't give it up. So I have, and I feel so much better.

Thing is, I live with my partner. He doesn't have the same ethical issues that I have, but because he works two jobs while I'm a postgrad, I always cook. We've come to an agreement where I'll cook meat for him four days a week, and he'll go veggie with me the other three. As he loves meat this is a big sacrifice for him, and it means less animals are killed, which has to be a good thing.

A fellow vegetarian friend said that by cooking meat for him, I'm not a vegetarian. I can see her point, but I don't think I should push my moral thinking onto him, especially as he's been so supportive anyway. (As an ironic sidenote, she eats fish).

Just wondering did anyone here have an opinion?

i-digress

i-digress wrote: »

I've finally gone vegetarian at 22. It hasn't been as hard for me as it probably was for others. I didn't like meat even as a baby, only ate sausages. In my teens I started eating more meat, mostly due to my parents worrying about my nutrition. I suffer naturally from anaemia, and go low on iron really easily.

I never felt that killing animals for food was right, but thought it would be really difficult to give up. Recently though, I got diagnosed with a long term illness and have had to give up alcohol and caffeine, the latter was especially difficult. But I did it so I thought there is no way I can't give it up. So I have, and I feel so much better.

Thing is, I live with my partner. He doesn't have the same ethical issues that I have, but because he works two jobs while I'm a postgrad, I always cook. We've come to an agreement where I'll cook meat for him four days a week, and he'll go veggie with me the other three. As he loves meat this is a big sacrifice for him, and it means less animals are killed, which has to be a good thing.

A fellow vegetarian friend said that by cooking meat for him, I'm not a vegetarian. I can see her point, but I don't think I should push my moral thinking onto him, especially as he's been so supportive anyway. (As an ironic sidenote, she eats fish).

Just wondering did anyone here have an opinion?

I think your friend is being a douche. How is it any of her business how you run your relationship! :mad:
I cook for my Mother, because she isnt physically capable of cooking.
I have cooked meat for others as a thank you before too.

If anything your arrangement is ultimately causing him to eat less meat. And therefore is doing its bit to make the world a better place.

sweet-rasmus

Cooking meat does not stop you being veggie. I wouldn't cook meat meals for him if I was in a similar situation. If he wants his meals cooked by you he should be happy to eat whatever you make. I can understand making him the odd meat meal if he really wants it... But on a regular basis I'd never do that for anyone.

Doolee

What a strange thing for your friend to say. I love cooking, generally healthy good stuff but I have cooked christmas dinner for about 8-10 people for the last few years. In truth, I dont really like doing it, the turkey part I mean, (my aunt does the ham so I dont have to do that bit) but like SR my parents arnt really able and its just a nice thing to do for everyone. I'd love if my parents and siblings went vege but its quite difficult to expect people to make such a major change. It has to be a personal decision through and through.
Anyway, I digress...point is, you are still a vegetarian, just a nice one who is still willing to do nice things for other people, even when it means doing something you dont really like.!

Tar.Aldarion

Her logic seems a bit lacking...She eats fish, quod erat demonstrandum... I'd go to town on her if I were you.

Do what makes you happy, enjoy your relationship!
If you don't have a problem with it then that is perfectly fine.

Whispered

I hate people like that. People who try to take the moral high ground when it's painfully obvious she knows very little.

Your friend is not a vegetarian. If she eats fish she is a pescatarian (sp?). If she eats fish and things like parmasan/gelatine, you know things with "hidden" animal bits. Then she is not even that.

I had a friend who accused me of being lazy for eating meat substitutes. While calling me lazy she was buying non veggie wine, drinking things like stout, eating ceasar salads and "testing" her boyfriends food. :rolleyes:

For what it's worth OP, I cook meat for my OH. I don't have to do it often as he is mostly happy with the meat replacements. But when I do, I insist that it's free range and from our local butchers. It makes me feel good to cook something just for him if you know what I mean. We are supporting a local business. We are supporting the production of free range meat and my OH has stopped buying things like chicken rolls in garages etc as a compromise. All in all, I think it's much better this way to give him an awareness of what he is eating and meeting him halfway on it.

seamus

The way I look at it is that for a start obviously you cannot and should not try to control anyone else. So it wouldn't be someone's place to tell their partner that they cannot eat meat.

As a vegetarian, my "goal" as it were is to ensure that nothing (or as little as is realistically possible) I do will lead to the death/consumption of more animals. I.E. that the net effect of my existence on the lives of animals is zilch.

So for example, McDonalds and their animal fat - if I eat the chips, then I consume a little of that fat which requires more of that fat (however little) to be produced, causing my actions to lead to more dead animals.
This allows me, for example to eat the wedges in hell - although they're cooked in the same oil as the chicken dippers, my eating of those wedges doesn't require more animals to die - they won't have to cook more chicken dippers because I'm eating wedges.

How this is relevant to the OP is that cooking the meat is not causing the suffering of extra animals. If she didn't cook it, her boyfriend would cook it himself. Therefore it makes absolutely no difference who cooks it.

It really depends on your own personal outlook and whether or not you feel strongly enough about influencing other people's eating decisions. But being a vegetarian isn't the same as being a card-carrying PETA member. So long as *you* adhere to the principle of not consuming meat or products made from dead animals, it's safe to say you're a vegetarian.

i-digress

Thanks everyone, I feel a lot better now. It might have been different if I was vegetarian when I met him, but I wasn't so he didn't bargain for a vegetarian wife. He seems really enthusiastic about trying vegetarian meals though, so I'm hoping I subtly win him over...:D

Seriously though, you've made me feel so much better.

Tar.Aldarion

I'm glad.

sweet-rasmus

i-digress wrote: »

It might have been different if I was vegetarian when I met him, but I wasn't so he didn't bargain for a vegetarian wife.

Ah, that's something else too Glad he is enjoying your meals when he'll eat them