See, during the tax seasons (spring and fall), the firm orders catered lunches twice a week. Well, I made a comment to a superior that I was annoyed that for the past few weeks, there had been nothing but maybe some white rice and soy sauce for me to eat. She was nice enough to talk about it with her superiors and the admin who orders food. The result is that they won’t change the foods that they order, but they might give me a $5 stipend to buy a TV dinner to bring on the days we have lunch (pending partner approval). Hello!! The whole point is that I don’t want to have to bring my own lunch, and it’s not about the money. I just want to be able to enjoy the convenience of catered food and the shared eating experience with my co-workers. All I ask is that when they order wraps, to order some with tofu and no cheese. Or when they order Chinese, to get one tray of a tofu dish instead of all 3 chicken and beef. On pizza day (today), get one without cheese. There are about 20 employees total, so I don’t think it would be a big deal.

Has anyone been in a similar situation or does anyone have advice?

Then I got to thinking about another fantasy reply: “Give up eating eels, chicken feet, and locusts? I could never live like that.” (Just to put the shoe on the other foot.) But those are just a few of the hundreds or thousands of foods that omnivores in the West “give up.” They also give up pig’s milk and fish eyes and all kinds of animal products that seem gross even to my most hard-core omnivore friends - because they’re not used to those foods. More reasonable - most omnivores give up millet, quinoa, amaranth, tempeh, kale, watercress, lychees, curry leaves, mustard seeds, rice flour, and hundreds or thousands of other foods that are in supermarkets they go to every week. And they practically give up lots more foods - a dozen types of vegetables and even fewer types of fruits make up the bulk of Americans’ produce in their grocery carts.

Preaching to the choir: How many of us were in a cooking/eating rut before becoming vegan, and greatly expanded the diversity and enjoyment of food we ate after becoming vegan? I bet nearly all of us. And like many, I’m sure, I tell fearful omnis that my diet has never been so full of variety and flavor. I rarely have the same thing twice! But if I did want to reproduce my impoverished pre-vegan diet, I could do that pretty easily these days with some seitan, soy products, and off-the-shelf conveniences like veggie chicken patties and vegan salami. Of course, the PB&J wouldn’t change.

Anyway (and again preaching to the choir), I could never live like omnivores live or how I used to live: Inflicting needless harm, and often torture, on sentient beings for the sake of some fleeting indulgence - which usually can be reproduced or bettered using compassionate vegan methods.

i try to surround myself with other vegans as much as possible, to avoid such conversations. however, i still have a lot of omnivorous friends and every once in awhile i have to deal with these questions. the hardest is dealing with family, and i find most vegans have the same issue with their family members too. what is it about our family members that makes it so difficult to talk about even the simplest thing?

what a twisted world we live in, where not eating meat seems to make you an outsider. we should be revered for our free-thinking abilities, yes?!

I think part of of is there is this assumption that if you don’t buy eggs and dairy milk than your fridge is barren and when you need to cook something you have to seek out these “weird” ingredients. Just like buying a carton of eggs in normal for them (and once was for me, I try to remind myself to be more patient) buying a tub of Whole Soy yogurt is normal for me. I’m sure the contents of my fridge and pantry would seem very alien to an omnivore, especially in this age where not only are people disconnected from their food sources, they are disconnected from their food preparation. People have no idea what’s in their food because they don’t even cook it themselves. It’s sad on so many levels.

-_-