Vegetarian? Get me outta here! I love meat!

Do you swell outside and cringe inside when someone says they are a vegetarian?  Do you gloat with glee over your Christmas turkey,  ham or prime rib roast?  Do you find it necessary to emphasize how much you love your meat when someone says: “I’m a vegetarian”?

As a vegetarian I have observed all these attitudes when telling people I don’t eat meat.  I sometimes feel as if they are trying to make me feel guilty for not eating the same food they do.  They want so much to impress upon me their right to eat dead animals, they construct an impenetrable wall of armour as they delightedly drool about their favorite meat dish.  I feel attacked and pushed away and  all I said was: “I’m a vegetarian.”

vegetarianism: the higher taste (Photo credit: robpurdie)

Am I an ultra-sensitive vegetarian, or are they over-compensating because they feel threatened?  If they do feel threatened, why do they feel my being a vegetarian is threatening? Perhaps signs like the one pictured here send out a message that vegetarians think they are better than omnivores?  Or do some really feel guilty about the gluttonous amount of meat they eat?  If you are among those you can thank me for being vegetarian.  Leaves more meat for you!

I’m not an animal-rights activist.  I don’t lecture people about eating meat – I figure there are plenty of people and organisations – like those who offer the picture of meat at the lead of this blog post (click the link to learn more) who know much more about health and meat-eating, and the meat industry, and who are very capable of giving out information.  That’s not my job.  I just don’t eat meat.

…and yet…I do feel my choice not to eat dead animals sometimes causes social division.  Especially at holiday time.

If not as a protest against the meat industry’s abhorrent treatment of animals raised for slaughter, then why on earth deny myself all that wonderful, tasty, juicy flesh?    Read that story here: Cif Readers on Vegetarianism   

And do read Jim Mullen: Get ready for the vegetarian wars (goerie.com)  It’s a good giggle.

Related articles

• Vegetarian Debate from The Vegetarian Myth’s Point of View (herculodge.typepad.com)
• Vegetarianism Can Save the Middle East (greenprophet.com)
• Get the most out of vegetarian diet (utsandiego.com)
• Pescetarians, vegetarians, vegans, and organic diets -clearing up the confusion. (mericandreamer.com)
• The 7 Things I’ve Noticed Most Since Going Vegetarian! (rohan7things.wordpress.com)

We can’t invite them! They’re vegetarians!

Nut Roast Stuffing Phyllo Log – a delicious turkey substitute for vegetarians that everyone at your holiday table will enjoy.

Are you a carnivore who can’t imagine life without it?  If you are, you definitely aren’t alone.  Do you have a vegetarian among your family and friends who refuses to eat the free-range turkey you bought at incredible expense, and lovingly stuffed and roasted to perfection?    Does all this trouble with vegetarians just make inviting them such a pain you don’t even bother?

I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be like that.  There doesn’t have to a be division between meat-eaters and vegetarians.  We can eat and enjoy the same things.  You can put a vegetarian dish on the table that the turkey-lovers will enjoy – perhaps even more than the meat!    Mind you, there’s no way I’d want to do both a turkey stuffing AND the Nut Roast Log, and very happy the turkey at our Christmas dinner was prepared by someone else and all I had to do was make the vegetarian log and prepare a few side-dishes of veg.

The Nut Roast Log pictured above was delicious. It’s my recipe.  I invented it Christmas Eve – took 5 hours of chopping, slicing, mixing, grating, cooking, grinding, toasting, mixing, tasting, sharing, tasting, talking, thinking and intuiting – with a couple of 15 – 30 minute breaks mixed in with washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen (3 times) to create the loaf pictured above.  Read the recipe here: Ultimate Christmas Stuffing.

It was amazing and definitely was a “May I have seconds please” – coming from the turkey eaters – item on the table.

And cold the next day?  Know I am eating an exotic stuffing wrapped in phyllo pastry stuffed with smoked gouda.    Jealous yet?  No turkey here.

The camembert round – baked in phyllo - was also a big hit at Christmas breakfast.