AnnaleeDec 13, 2022

#Food Today's advice column inspired grouse:

Starter salads are not a vegetarian entree!

I am a breathing embodiment of the stereotype that vegetarians love salad. I really do! I love salad A LOT.

And yet, not being a cow, I still cannot digest roughage. Folks who seem to fully understand for themselves and their meat-eating guests that a bowl of greens is not a meal should not have trouble grasping that it is not a meal for a vegetarian, either.

Show threadAnnaleeDec 13, 2022

#Food If you are providing a meal for vegetarians and you really don't know what to offer you can go ahead and ask the vegetarians in question. But a good guideline is that vegetarians have the same macronutrient needs as everyone else. Our meals typically contain some combination of carbs, fat, and protein.

Fun fact: lettuce contains none of the above. All it is is fun to crunch. Basically the bubble wrap of the food world.

Show threadploumDec 13, 2022

@Annalee :

— Here a fish for the vegetarian !
— Sorry but vegetarians don’t eat animals
— But it’s a fish!
— I’m not specialist in biology but I’m pretty sure fish are not plants.
— Vegetarians eat fish!

(happened to me at a wedding)

Show threadMarcus Marcius MarcellusDec 13, 2022
@ploum @Annalee (Fish != animal) Now here is where a solid grounding in cladistics would have helped your server avoid that embarrassing error.
Show threadploum

@marcas @Annalee : it was not the server but the cook organising the whole wedding diner.

(clarification: I’m not a vegetarian myself but try to eat vegetarian whenever possible)

Dec 13, 2022 at 6:03pmWeb
Show threadMarcus Marcius MarcellusDec 13, 2022

@Annalee @ploum Same here. Though I was a vegetarian for a number of years. Most of them spent in Bavaria, where being vegetarian was… not easy. (It’s much easier now.)

ME: I don’t eat meat, so I’ll have a salad, please.

[Waiter brings salad liberally sprinkled with crispy bacon lardons]

ME: Umm. No meat, remember?

WAITER: Oh, that? That’s not meat. That’s just bacon.