bad vegetarian
I'm not very fervent in my vegetarianism and I hate making a fuss or inconveniencing anyone more than I care about not eating meat, which makes me feel like a bad vegetarian. I ate steak and kidney pie when I visited my grandmother's cousin in Conference Country, because I thought I was going just for morning tea, but then she had lunch prepared and I couldn't say no. I thought I would just eat side dishes at Christmas lunch with the C'landers, but someone else came who was vegetarian, so they made an effort to have real vegetarian options; I couldn't have asked for those accommodations myself. I ate fish last week, too, because my lab went to lunch with a speaker unexpectedly, and the only place nearby is a seafood restaurant. I could have got macaroni and cheese, but everyone laughed when they saw it on the menu, so I would've been embarrassed. SuperGradStudent is also vegetarian, which made me feel less weird to be someone who does research with animals but won't eat them, but he seems happy to eat fish occasionally so I didn't have any vegetarian solidarity to rely on.
I feel pathetic that I don't have enough conviction to stick to a position when it might be embarrassing or inconvenient, but I was never very confident in my decision to become vegetarian in the first place. It doesn't help that I miss eating meat sometimes, either.
This just came up again because as part of the recruitment activities for my program, I get to go to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Fancy restaurants in general are not very vegetarian-friendly, but I've been assigned to a sushi place. I'm sure there are still vegetarian options, but I'm not sure I could be vocal enough to opt out of sharing the usual boats of sushi.
I could email the organiser and ask to switch to a different group, but I don't want to inconvenience them and mess up all the other groups, and the recruit I'm hosting would have to change groups with me, and then there still is only one vegetarian option at each of the other restaurants (I've checked) and the really bad vegetarian in me is thinking that sushi is yummy and it wouldn't be so bad to be "forced" to eat some...
posted by Lucy @ 12:39 PM
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comments
10 Comments:
Well--as far as the sushi restaurant, you could just suggest that you all get some veggie options to share. I eat some chicken and turkey now, but I was totally veg for 20 years, and sometimes I just can't/won't eat meat at all...and I've never had anything but veggie sushi, but it's so good that people usually don't mind ordering it along with the fish dishes. Everybody likes avocado rolls and cucumber rolls...especially since sushi is just a vehicle for wasabi, right? :)
Then again, if you *have* to eat it, then it's totally not your fault and you're just being social. And enjoy. :)
You can order boats with rolls that just have avocado and other veggie stuff. You'll probably have some people at recruitment that are in your position - vegetarian but not wanting to make a huge deal out of it. I'm an occasional vegetarian, too, and I think of it like this - the reason I want to eat less meat has a lot to do with respecting communities, etc., so if I refuse to eat something that someone has prepared for me (which is already dead!), I'm not really sticking to that reason. If that makes any sense.
maybe you're a pescatarian?
Mmmmm, sushi.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm very allergic to fish, and sushi's probably your best bet for finding vegetarian options, including ones that everyone else would want to share with you. Vegetarian sushi's awesome, and I'll bet that there will be more than a few people who will be thrilled to share that with you (including a few who are perhaps nervous about the whole sushi-with-fish issue in general).
And maybe you need to start training yourself to say "I'm a vegetarian" right off the bat, like how I have to rehearse the "I'm allergic to seafood" spiel whenever I'm at a restaurant. You'll be surprised by how accomodating people are.
I started writing a comment about how I feel kind of embarrassed about being vegetarian in lab-related settings because it is unusual in my field, since everyone works on mice. Really, though, QoWP has it right. I just need to be upfront about it.
Anastasia, I'm not pescetarian really, because I have the same issues about eating fish as meat. Although, if there is no other option, I'd rather eat as low an order organism as possible, I guess.
If it is a large group that is going to the restaurant, it might be useful to call ahead and ask them if they can make a 'vegetarian' boat for you. I bet there will be several meat-eaters who feel squicky about eating raw fish in the group as well.
I'm a pretty strict vegetarian (to the extent of buying vege cheese) but occasionally I've eaten ordinary cheese or something with gelatine in it for politeness sake or because I just can't be bothered explaining to yet another person why I'm a vegetarian (and yes, this does mean that I don't each fish or bacon!). I justify it with either keeping the other person happy by not hurting their feelings or keeping the other person happy by not bearing the brunt of my sarcasm - whatever works =-)
Vege sushi is gorgeous with lashing of wasabi for that eye-watering experience
If it's a good Japanese place, you'll be able to get seaweed salad, veggie tempura, edamame, maybe even yaki soba (noodles with yummy sauce). Order plenty because the meat eaters will be happy to polish off tempura and edamame. Japanese is a relatively good choice for vegetarian special occasion, though you won't get to spend as much of the program's budget as you would if you ate fish :-)
I just read another blog entry from semi-vegetarians. Seems to me that you're in their category...and there is nothing wrong with that. Vegetarianism isn't easy/right for many people.
That said, you need to be willing to accept that your line of work is going to make a vegetarian lifestyle near impossible...its also going to continue to make your choice harder to explain to people. Sounds like you need to justify that aspect of it to yourself before you’ll ever convince anyone else.
You're giving it a shot a majority of the time and that is a great start. You'll most likely become more comfortable with your choice as time goes on...until then, continue to eat vegetarian most of the time and enjoy yourself when you aren’t 'feeling' the veggies. ;)
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