Veg Significant Others
I'm just wondering how many people are with another person who shares their lifestyle choices.
My man convinced me to go vegan when we met and we've been happily munching on veggies ever since. My best friend is also a veg, but her man isn't. She doesn't make him any animal products at home, but he eats out, brings home packaged, frozen food, etc. I've noticed how much they seem to fight, over lots of things, but they never seem to touch on the food issue. I personally think this is kind of the source of their problems.
For those who are with omnivores, how is it you can be with someone who doesn't share your principles?
What sort of compromises do you make to keep the relationship going?
Do you buy/prepare meat for your other?
Do you stay with them in the hopes that they'll eventually stop eating meat?
Do they respect your decision to be veg?
Just questions to get you thinking. Feel free to add/ignore whatever you choose.
i have a question for those out there who are cooking meat for omnis: do you cook two separate meals or make your partner cook for themselves?
I wish I could change my vote - I put 'yes they eat meat all the time' without reading the options. I should have chosen 'Yes, when I'm making the meals, but they buy/prepare meat for themselves'
I think I missed that because I would not count N as veg, even though he eats veg more than 75-80% of the time.
i have a question for those out there who are cooking meat for omnis: do you cook two separate meals or make your partner cook for themselves?
I make a separate meal for my husband and daughter. My transition has happened gradually over the time we have been together, so I wouldn't expect him to cook when I have always cooked for him.
i do have to add though, that i'm really glad jacob is a vegan. i would be very open to dealing w/other's diets and preferences (IE: if i were with an omni, i'd be ok with it).
my boyfriend is vegan, and i am a vegetarian - but i am more on the strict side (i am trying my best to veganise little by little) . At no point has he ever given me the ultimatum of go vegan or the relationship is off. I am very thankful of this attitude about him. I was interested in veganism before I met him - so it isn't that he is trying to 'convert' me either. Just wanted to get that out there :P It's just nice having someone who not only shares love with you - but it is double nice to have someone to share the SAME meal with.. and to eat from the same plate if need be :P
In the very distant future, if my children turn out to be meat eaters - I really think it would make me very uncomfortable to prepare meat based meals for them. I know I already have difficulty doing so when I have to make food for my family at home :/ I do always try my best to make veg based meals for them at home - but when you have a very greek father you get heckled for not preparing what they're used to -_-
where r all these vegan lovers? i have never met a vegan boy... where r they hiding!?! besides vegweb of course... but in real life!
Well... my GF and I are vegan, but I am more strict about it than she is. If she get's hungry enough she will eat something that has dairy or eggs.
I'm wondering if it is because I have a 10 year head start on it and I just don't have any inclinations to eat things like that at all, or if there is some mental/emotional/ethical thing that I have that she doesn't. It throws me off when she goes and eats things like that since we became totally vegan together when we became a couple. It wouldn't bother me that we are different in that aspect, but it is something that made us a couple at the start... sort of our identity...
Would anyone else feel thrown in this situation, or am I just being nuts here? :-[
where r all these vegan lovers? i have never met a vegan boy... where r they hiding!?! besides vegweb of course... but in real life!
Dear Amy,
Portland Oregon.
Plenty of vegan men here. Promise. All our veggie cafe's and restaurants are full of them, but there is a dearth of veggie women. Explain this to me: there are so many women here on Vegweb - why are there none in my city? :(
Everyone move here.
Sincerely,
Man from Lame City
Portland Oregon here i come!!! J/K though i do have family that live in that area... ya that's weird your gf randomly eats animal products...my sister does the same thing though it's fish (sushi)... i think it has a lot to do with the reasons behind why u r following this diet/ lifestyle... for me u could dangle a warm chocolate chip cookie in my face but if it wasn't vegan i wouldn't eat it simply because i know that a terrified animal is a part of that cookie... no thanx
lol....evergreen, I'm in Portland too!!! However, I know more female vegans than I do male, so I don't think it is that....(maybe it is b/c about half of them are lesbians???? nah, that couldn't be it! ;) ) I'm a pescatarian, who cooks for all the alternative diets, and eat more lacto/ovo, bake vegan most of the time.
Portland Oregon here i come!!! J/K though i do have family that live in that area... ya that's weird your gf randomly eats animal products...my sister does the same thing though it's fish (sushi)... i think it has a lot to do with the reasons behind why u r following this diet/ lifestyle... for me u could dangle a warm chocolate chip cookie in my face but if it wasn't vegan i wouldn't eat it simply because i know that a terrified animal is a part of that cookie... no thanx
Yeah, I am in the same group as you. You can't get me to touch something that has animal products in it no matter what.
lol....evergreen, I'm in Portland too!!! However, I know more female vegans than I do male, so I don't think it is that....(maybe it is b/c about half of them are lesbians???? nah, that couldn't be it! ;) ) I'm a pescatarian, who cooks for all the alternative diets, and eat more lacto/ovo, bake vegan most of the time.
YAY! Portland pride! ^_^ We need a Portland vegan potluck!
No no no, of course that is not the reason.;)
my boy isnt veg*n but i love him just the same :) i dont think it makes a huge difference so long as both people are respectful of the others lifestyle. When I first turned vegan i swore i wanted to only date vegan dudes, but that quickly changed hehe.
yes kennedy!
my boy is the biggest meat eater but cooks vegan meals with me every night. yes, his steak is in the broiler but he is open to any veggies i'm throwing together or beans or grains. he supports my lifestyle and i support his. so it works. have i cooked meat for him? yes, but that's it. my ethics are not changing. i fell in love with the person, not the steak on his plate.
When I met my ex we were both omnis, I went vegetarian about two years into our relationship. A year later, he did too. I wonder now whether he's still vegetarian or whether he's given up on it.
Whatever the case, I never had a problem either way because he was alway so good to check restaurant menus and read packaging. As Kennedy said it's absolutely about mutual respect. I'd rather have a respectful, understanding omnivorous partner than a self-righteous vegan who criticised my dietary choices.
EvergreenAlchemist:
I resent the notion that Portland is a lame city. I'm living in Walla Walla right now, and have only briefly actually LIVED IN portland, but I have for almost all my life lived in the small towns about 40 minutes from Portland, I spent most of my time in Portland. I know tons of veggie women in Portland. Tons and tons. Lots of them are lesbians, though...
As for my boyfriend, he's unfortunately not vegetarian or vegan. He is, however, VERY willing to try knew foods. Sometimes he's a little shy, (as in, for three months he says, "tofu sour cream? You're kidding me. That sounds terrible" then he tries it or finally eats it when I put it in a meal I'm making for both of us, and then he likes it and asks me to make it all the time). He's told me sometimes that he's considered just being vegetarian because he basically is, because I do all the cooking. He only gets meat at home really in sandwiches or frozen dinners. Even when we're going out to eat, sometimes he'll substitute meat in his dish (like at asian restaurants) for tofu so I can taste some of what he gets. However, every once and awhile we go out to eat somewhere and he says that the meat tastes so good that he remembers why he isn't vegetarian. Makes me sad :( he eats vegetarian probably 80% of the time, though, and he's lactose intolerant so besides eggs and yogurt, he doesn't eat other animal products. He doesn't eat eggs often either, because I don't have them in the house much. He does like tofu. This makes my life much butter. He actually begs me to make tofu breakfast burritos because he likes them better than egg-and-sausage breakfast burritos (veg win there!). Of course, I wish he would go veg, but I definitely do not want to force that on him, because it needs to be his decision. I doubt it will happen 100%, but he's good enough to deal with it.
How I deal with him not being veg? I do most of the cooking. Whenever someone is cooking with meat in my house, they have to use the meat-only cutting board (which happens to be my crappiest cutting board ^-^). Very seldom I will make a non-veg dish if it's what he really wants. He's pretty easygoing so there's not much conflict.
No, no, no VS. Portland is not lame in itself, we just need more vegan women here who aren't lesbians. Portland is a great place to live especially if you are vegan.
I didn't know there was anyone else in the NW besides myself and Hanashi.
Hey - I'll trade you a three layer fudge cake for a box of fresh walla walla onions! :)
Evergreen Alchemist: I got a free box off fresh walla walla onions from my college when I matriculated :D. All incoming freshmen do. I'll see what I can do about those onions :-p. I may be able to get them through our co-op... if not, you'll have to wait until May when the farmer's market starts up again :(. I'd also request to trade out the three layer fudge cake... eating lots of chocolate makes my tummy hurt :(.
My fiance is vegan ;)b
When I met my boyfriend 8 years ago I was a "semi-vegetarian" and he was full omni. Since he's super skinny, he didn't feel the need to eat healthy at the time, and he would eat a package of beef jerky and a 1/2 gallon of milk for lunch (sorry to gross everyone out, I just want to make a point). As the years went by, I became a "pescetarian" and he quit eating read meat. Then I became vegetarian and he became pescetarian (see the trend here?). I went vegan, and I thought he was going to hold out on vegetarian, but finally he decided that he wanted to be vegan, almost a year after I went. I didn't push him at all, and I wanted him to make the decision for himself. I just told him I'd cook vegan, and if he wanted to buy milk and cheese and put those things on my vegan dishes, then he'd have to do that himself. He did those for maybe a month and got tired of it, then finally gave up the milk after he realized how amazing almond milk is (we both don't really like soy).
I wanted to tell you guys this because people do change! And we changed together. Now we're 2 happy vegans, spreading the word to our friends (and baking/cooking for them a TON).
Haha, VeganRun, your boyfriend sounds like mine in the beginning too, with the half gallon of milk + unhealthy stuffs. In fact, his favorite "bread" was WonderBread and wouldn't even try whole grain.
I do all the cooking, so he eats vegan now most of the time. We talked about it before moving in together, and I told him that I didn't really want raw meat or lunchmeat hangin out in the fridge, but frozen/pre-made type stuff I'd be ok with. It kind of went back and forth... I was trying to be "cool" about everything, and he insisted he wouldn't be comfortable having meat around me anyway (he won't order meat stuff at restaurants with me anymore , though I never complained). So I told him, well, if you wanna just do vegetarian that's cool (like cheese or whatever; he's been drinking soymilk for a while now). But it wound up like this - he eats and likes whatever I make, and sometimes he'll get fast food while out or eat whatever at his mom's, but that's pretty much it.
I think with him it's more about convenience than philosophy. He'll eat what's in front of him (so he says, but he often chooses vegetarian/vegan stuff when I'm not around anyway). I think it's just what he's used to now. He used to "hate" (never tried) tofu, then tolerated it, and now likes it most of the time. He switched to soymilk when he discovered it comes in vanilla and has a long shelf-life.
FB, your guy sounds a lot like my dh! Much more about convenience than anything else (eating what is in front of him), but lately, he does make snide comments at meaty commercials! When our son when to a friend's house and had soup, he asked me what type of broth it was! So he has become more conscientious about it, and as far as I know, does not eat meat any more, even when I'm not around. He used to buy dairy for here, but quit that too. He won't ask for no cheese when we get sandwiches out or whatever. He reads labels now too, although he's not very good at it. He usually just reads the allergy part (contains wheat and soy) and assumes it's safe (forgetting that there might be chicken in there). haha
He did call me from the store the other day and asked me if lactic acid was ok. Good for him! and most importantly, he is cool with feeding our kids veg!
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